The Ian Schrager-designed Hudson Hotel in Midtown Manhattan may be headed to the sales block, The Post has learned.
Jason Taubman Kalisman, chairman and interim chief executive of its parent, Morgans Hotel Group, told shareholders last month that one plan to boost the company’s share price included the sale of Morgans’ Hudson and Delano South Beach hotels, according to three sources close to the situation.
Kalisman in May won a close proxy fight over a Ron Burkle-supported activist slate of directors that was advocating for an immediate sale of the company.
The Kalisman plan to sell the properties, one of several the company is said to be weighing, was aimed at countering the plan of the rival shareholders.
The Hudson Hotel could fetch roughly $440 million and the Delano $200 million, Kalisman told the shareholders, the sources said.
If the plan to sell the two properties were followed, Morgans would become essentially a management company — managing 11 properties — and not a hotel owner.
“He wants to grow this into the next Starwood,” one source said of Kalisman.
Morgans has already started a soft sale of the hotels to see what it could attract, one source said.
A second source cautioned that Morgans is exploring all alternatives and, with the new board of directors just settling in, has not decided yet on any one plan.
Morgans shares rose 3.8 percent Thursday, to $7.91. That price is below the $8.10 it traded at the morning of the May 14 annual meeting when many shareholders were hoping activists would oust Kalisman.
If Morgans found buyers for the hotels, it would likely use the proceeds to pay off the convertible debt held by Burkle’s Yucaipa Cos. and retire most of the rest of its loans, sources said.
Kalisman, grandson of New York real estate baron Alfred Taubman, could then explore merging Morgans with Highgate Holdings, sources said.
Highgate cofounder Mahmood Khimji is on Morgans’ board.
In 2013, Highgate teamed on some of New York’s biggest property purchases, including the $660 million buy of the Helmsley Park Lane Hotel and the $1.3 billion acquisition of 650 Madison Avenue.
In a Morgans-Highgate hook-up, Khimji could become Morgans CEO, sources said.
“Selling assets will be much easier than merging with a management company,” a source said.
If all this played out, Morgans, too, would likely offer Yucaipa its controlling interest in The Light Group, a lifestyle food and beverage management company primarily in Las Vegas, in exchange for Yucaipa giving up warrants in Morgans that at current values entitle it to about 10 percent of the company, a source said.
Morgans declined comment.