After failing to reach a direct agreement, Ashford Hospitality Trust went public with its $1.28B bid to buy rival FelCor Lodging Trust.
Hostile takeover attempts are unusual in the REIT sector, but Ashford hopes making its offer public will prompt FelCor’s shareholders to take action, CoStar reports. In case that plan fails, Ashford nominated seven members to join FelCor’s board to help facilitate possible future deals.
Ashford owns 4.5% of FelCor’s stock and said all previous merger discussions, which date back to at least October 2016, have been unsuccessful. If the deal moves forward Ashford said the new company would boast the second-largest room count among publicly traded lodging REITs.
