Dallas-based private equity firm Lone Star Funds inked a deal this week to buy Japanese hotel brand Unizo Holdings Co. for $1.9B, Reuters reported.

The purchase comes at an inauspicious time, considering hotels worldwide are reeling from the economic impact of COVID-19 and the expectation of mass vacancies for months at a time.

Despite abysmal hotel confidence right now, Lone Star Fund, in tandem with a group of Unizo employees, acquired 86.6% of all outstanding shares after a long open-bidding process for the Japanese hotel chain, Reuters reported.

Lone Star Funds is one of the largest global real estate funds.

Yet, the private equity firm took more of a defensive approach in 2019 after spending the previous decade scooping up distressed assets.

By mid-2019, the firm seemed to be leaning toward the belief that the world's latest real estate cycle had run its course. As a result, the firm's Lone Star Real Estate VI, which launched more than a year ago, targeted only $3B of equity, half of what was raised in the previous fund, Bisnow reported at the time.