Monday’s big announced deal to sell off Dallas-based Rosewood Hotels & Resorts to a Hong Kong outfit does not involve the underlying hotel properties themselves–only their management. What New World Hospitality is picking up for $229 million and change is the 70-person Dallas company–RH&R, a 50/50 joint venture between Rosewood Corp. and Maritz, Wolff & Co.–that operates or “oversees” 19 upscale properties in eight countries, including Dallas’ iconic Rosewood Mansion on Turtle Creek.
Each of those 19 properties–the real estate, the improvements, the “hard assets”–is owned by a separate entity or entities. The Mansion, for example, is owned by the family of oil heiress Caroline Rose Hunt and Maritz, Wolff; the Rosewood Mayakoba in Mexico is owned in part at least by a Spanish company called OHR Group. But RH&R does have long-term contracts to manage or operate the 19 properties–really long-term; we’re talking decades upon decades in some cases–which makes the little Dallas company with 70 employees worth the $229 mil. Insiders say they don’t expect any big changes in RH&R’s activities here for at least a year.
