Business

Balazs looking for new investors for Standard

Andre Balazs is wooing new investors for his Standard Hotels’ expansion plans.

Balazs said he is looking to help replace one or more investors in The Standard, Highline Hotel who want to exit, and he has had early discussions with three brokerages, but not signed anything formal yet.

“We are very aggressively looking at other properties and are talking to both a circle of US and foreign investors, everything from sovereign funds to more conventional private equity,” Balazs told us, adding that a new investor was likely to be someone who wants to invest in other Standards.

A sale of the majority stake owned by Dune Capital Management and Greenfield Parters, could reportedly reap $300 million. Balazs says he hopes it is north of that.

He said if investors sell it would be in “the next year, year and a half.”