Kasa Acquires Mint House, Adding 1,000 Rooms To Fast-Growing Portfolio

Mint House, which operates apartment-hotels in cities such as New York City, Washington, D.C., and Dallas, is under new management.

Manhattan-based Kasa has reached an all-equity deal to take over the operations of Mint House and add roughly 1,000 rooms to its portfolio, it announced Wednesday.

The merger means Kasa is now in possession of the 165 hotel rooms at 70 Pine St., a Downtown Manhattan landmark, as well as a former D.C. office building that was converted into an 85-room hotel last year.

But it won't acquire all of Mint House's 22 properties, Kasa founder and CEO Roman Pedan told Bisnow in an email. 

“Kasa will onboard the majority of these,” he said. “We are closing properties where the contract type didn’t fit our strategy or the quality standard didn’t meet our quality bar.”

Pedan didn’t respond to questions about which Mint properties Kasa plans to close but expects the company to retain properties where it can create value through a focus on efficiency, operating leverage and unit economics.

Mint House also operates a 15-unit Menlo Park hotel, two Nashville properties, one in Greenville, South Carolina, and another in Dallas. Pedan said Mint House's Nashville Hillsboro Village location won't be integrated into the combined company.

“Kasa and Mint House have always been aligned in our asset-light models and guest-centric operating philosophy,” Mint House CEO Christian Lee, who will join Kasa as a senior adviser as part of the agreement, said in a statement. “Our shared focus on operational excellence is why we chose Kasa for this transaction and our close collaboration will ensure a smooth transition.”  

Kasa, which operates 85 properties across the country, will carry over features its hotels share with Mint House’s, including allowing guests to check in via their cellphones.

Kasa's acquisition follows its November absorption of 12 properties previously leased by hotel operator Sonder, shortly before Sonder announced its abrupt shutdown.

"You could see in their filings they were in a challenging position, and so we knew there was going to be some fallout,” Pedan said at the time, adding that Kasa was then in conversations with more of the property owners who had leased to Sonder about additional deals.

He declined on Wednesday to provide an updated number of Sonder properties Kasa has acquired overall, citing negotiation sensitivity amid Sonder's ongoing bankruptcy process.

"We hope to be able to share more in the near future," Pedan said.

Kasa has taken over 35 properties via “management transitions,” it said in the Wednesday press release, which includes the former Ace Hotel in Los Angeles.