> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.thehoteliere.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # The Week Ahead: An All-Cash Offer, Flexible on Price - URL: https://www.thehoteliere.com/the-week-ahead-an-all-cash-offer-flexible-on-price/ - Published: 2026-10-20T23:30:35.000Z - Updated: 2026-10-20T23:30:35.000Z - Description: A South Dakota firm offered $2bn cash for Service Properties Trust's 93 hotels, then said it was flexible on price. Plus Wyndham opens earnings season, IHG and Accor report Thursday, hot inflation before the Fed, Chicago's second strike week and a floating-rate desert refi. - Author: Atal Goliard - Tags: WEEK AHEAD, CAPITAL MARKETS, TRANSACTIONS, EARNINGS, MACRO, LABOUR ## The main read: an all-cash offer, flexible on price On 7 October a South Dakota firm called TKO wrote to Service Properties Trust and offered $2bn in cash for every hotel it owns. SVC says it had never heard from TKO before. The portfolio is 93 hotels and just over 21,000 rooms, by SVC's own count at 30 June. That puts the bid a little under $95,000 a room. The headline works. The hotels alone would fetch more than the whole company is worth. SVC's market value was under $1bn when the letter landed, according to Bisnow and Skift's Daily Lodging Report. The shares jumped on the news. By Monday, Bisnow reported, they had given it all back. The market had read the letter. B. Riley Securities saw "a limited chance that this transaction will be completed", citing the lack of public information on TKO or any record of a deal this size. Skift reported that TKO owns 58 properties with just over 4,000 rooms. It is offering to buy roughly five times what it owns. It has not said where the cash comes from. Then there are the contracts. The first letter sought the hotels free of management and franchise agreements. Craig Kucera of Lucid Capital Markets estimated that exiting the Sonesta agreement alone would cost SVC $535m, Bisnow reported. That is more than a quarter of the headline price, before anyone rings Hyatt, IHG or Radisson. On 15 October TKO wrote again. It said it had received no meaningful response. It offered proof of funds, and a $50m escrow deposit once SVC countersigns a non-disclosure agreement. It also declared itself flexible on terms, "including purchase price", and on keeping Sonesta as franchisor. So in eight days the all-cash, unencumbered offer became an offer that might keep the operator and might cost less. That is a negotiation. It is usually held before the press release. Owners who will never meet TKO should still keep one number from this. It is not $2bn. It is $535m. SVC has been a seller for two years. The Real Deal tallies 112 hotels and nearly 15,000 rooms sold in 2025 for $859m, which is under $60,000 a room. Last week we noted its Royal Sonesta Chicago River North going for about $80,000 a key. Against both, $95,000 looks generous. It would be, if the money were proven and the hotels came clean. They do not come clean. Any hotel tied to a long management contract has two prices: one for a buyer who keeps the operator, and one for a buyer who doesn't. The gap is a liability. It rarely appears in the valuation memo until somebody tries to sell. TKO's 7 October letter asked SVC to accept by 5pm Eastern on Friday 16 October, according to the letter and CRE360\. The deadline passed with no public reply. SVC's only statement is still the one from 9 October, saying its board would review the proposal. Whatever the board says, the bid has already done one useful thing. It has put a public price on leaving Sonesta. An offer without a source of funds is a press release. A management contract without an exit price is a debt nobody wrote down. ## The short list **Wyndham opens the season on Wednesday** Wyndham reports third-quarter results after the close on Wednesday, with a call at 8:30am ET on Thursday. In July Wyndham lifted its second-half US RevPAR forecast to about 2 per cent, from roughly flat. US economy rooms fell 3 per cent in a year, to 216,600, while midscale and above grew 2 per cent. Chief executive Geoff Ballotti credited drive-to markets for firmer spring weekends. Petrol is now 34.2 per cent dearer than a year ago, says BLS. By Wyndham's own sums, a point of RevPAR is worth about $4m of adjusted EBITDA to it. To the owner paying a 4.8 per cent royalty, it is more personal. **IHG and Accor report on Thursday** IHG publishes its trading update to 30 September on Thursday 22 October. Accor follows at 6pm Paris time, noon in New York. Accor arrives with a war in its numbers: first-half RevPAR rose 2.2 per cent, or 4.6 per cent outside the Middle East, and Reuters reported Dubai only returned to growth in July. IHG's growth story is conversions, 43 per cent of first-half openings and 49 per cent of signings. Brands chase conversions because they are cheap and fast. An owner being courted for one should price that eagerness into the franchise terms. Being wanted is a negotiating position, briefly. **September's inflation was hot, and not only at the pump** US consumer prices rose 3.7 per cent in the year to September, from 3.4 per cent in August, BLS reported. Petrol was up 34.2 per cent and food away from home 3.5 per cent. The lodging away from home index rose 2.0 per cent in the month. The Fed raised its target range to 3.75 to 4.00 per cent in September and meets again on 27 and 28 October. CNBC reported futures put the odds of another rise by year-end above 96 per cent. The 10-year Treasury closed Friday at 5.09 per cent. Anyone refinancing this winter is borrowing against the Fed's next decision, not its last. **Chicago, week two** Unite Here Local 1 walked out of six downtown Chicago hotels on 9 October, the Sun-Times and NBC Chicago reported. Axios and WBEZ reported the strike still going on 12 and 13 October, with the other 40 hotels in the dispute still working. People's World and the World Socialist Web Site reported it completing a full week on 16 October. No settlement and no new walkouts had been reported by Saturday. CoStar's week to 10 October caught only two strike days. Chicago RevPAR rose 21.1 per cent to $210.18, on occupancy of 82.7 per cent, carried by the APTA transit expo and the ACEP emergency medicine assembly. The next weekly print is the first with a full week of pickets. The revenue arrived on schedule. The labour bill is still being written. **A floating-rate loan in the desert** Citi has lent $210m against Trinity Investments' 531-key Grand Hyatt Indian Wells. JLL arranged the five-year, floating-rate, single-asset CMBS loan, according to JLL and Commercial Observer. That is about $395,000 a key, after a $62m renovation and conversion to Grand Hyatt in 2024\. JLL's Kevin Davis said lenders are focusing capital on "repositioned assets with institutional sponsorship". Fresh capex and a large sponsor get you the loan. Floating rate means the sponsor, not the bank, carries the Fed. The lender has underwritten the renovation. The borrower has bought the rate path. **The Plaza closes for four years** The Plaza in New York will close in January 2027 for at least four years of façade restoration, The Hollywood Reporter reported, citing The New York Times. Skift's Daily Lodging Report also carried the closure. The 282 rooms, the event spaces and the Palm Court go dark. Fairmont, the operator, declined to comment, and no reopening date has been announced. Landmark status is a marketing asset until the stonework needs attention. Then it is a capital bill with a regulator attached. The Plaza's neighbours on Fifth Avenue will find 282 fewer rooms to compete with. They are unlikely to send flowers. ## On the calendar - **Wed 21 Oct, about 4:30pm ET:** Wyndham third-quarter results. Call Thu 22 Oct, 8:30am ET. - **Thu 22 Oct:** IHG third-quarter trading update. - **Thu 22 Oct, 6pm Paris (noon ET):** Accor third-quarter revenue. - **Tue 27 Oct:** Hilton third-quarter results. - **Tue 27 to Wed 28 Oct:** FOMC meeting. - **Thu 29 Oct, before the open:** Hyatt third-quarter results. Call 9am CT.