CHICAGO—Hyatt Hotels Corporation announced that it has completed the previously announced acquisition of Apple Leisure Group (ALG), a luxury resort-management services, travel, and hospitality group, from affiliates of each of KKR and KSL Capital Partners, LLC.
Hyatt is doubling its global resorts footprint through the addition of ALG’s AMR Collection brand portfolio, which comprises approximately 100 hotels and resorts operating in 10 countries, as well as a pipeline of 24 executed deals in the Americas and Europe. As a result, Hyatt now offers one of the largest collections of luxury all-inclusive resorts in the world, including new destinations for Hyatt such as Acapulco, Curaçao, the Canary Islands, Menorca, and St. Martin. Through this acquisition, Hyatt has added properties in 11 new European markets and expanded its European brand footprint by 60 percent, strengthening Hyatt’s growth potential in a critical region for global leisure travel demand.
In addition, Hyatt is offering even more options and experiences for its high-end guest and customer base and enhancing the end-to-end leisure travel experience through:
- Unlimited Vacation Club by AMR Collection, an exclusive membership club whose members enjoy preferred rates and other benefits at participating AMR Collection properties
- ALG Vacations, one of the largest packaged vacation providers and leisure travel distribution platforms in North America serving the United States, Mexico, and the Caribbean
- Amstar, a leading destination services management company
- Trisept Solutions, a leisure travel technology platform
Hyatt is determining ways in which the World of Hyatt loyalty program and ALG’s Unlimited Vacation Club can bring value and loyalty benefits to their respective member bases. Hyatt plans to integrate the AMR Collection into World of Hyatt in 2022 so that members can earn and redeem World of Hyatt points at AMR Collection hotels and resorts.
“Hyatt’s acquisition of ALG represents a brand-defining moment in our more than 60-year history and builds on our legacy as a hospitality leader,” said Mark Hoplamazian, president and CEO, Hyatt. “Hyatt and ALG have highly complementary brand portfolios and share a deep commitment to colleague and guest experiences focused on care. Having first entered the fast-growing luxury all-inclusive space in 2013, we are ideally positioned to capture the significant and rising demand for leisure travel and extend the world-class hospitality we provide to a wide range of new travelers. We are excited to welcome the ALG team to the Hyatt family, and look forward to working together to achieve new levels of growth and value creation for all stakeholders—including our shareholders, owners, customers, guests, members, and colleagues.”
“Today marks the beginning of ALG’s next chapter, in which we will continue to build on the strong loyalty and reputation we have established through our luxury travel brands and services, now as part of Hyatt,” said Alejandro Reynal, CEO and president, Apple Leisure Group. “We strongly believe we can achieve more together and are excited by the opportunities ahead for our expanded family, including our ALG team members, who are excited to join a larger global organization. With Hyatt’s added expertise, we expect to accelerate our expansion as we welcome more travelers and turn vacation dreams into life-long memories.”
ALG’s business will continue to be led by Reynal and the current ALG leadership team. ALG will operate as a business unit within Hyatt. Reynal has joined Hyatt’s executive leadership team and reports to Hoplamazian.
In September of 2021, Hyatt fulfilled its asset disposition commitment announced in 2019 of $1.5 billion resulting in a total of more than $3 billion of proceeds realized since its asset-disposition strategy was launched in 2017, at a combined multiple of over 17 times EBITDA. Hyatt also reaffirms its commitment to generate an additional $2 billion in proceeds from asset dispositions by the end of 2024.
In connection with the transaction, BDT & Company, LLC and J.P. Morgan served as financial advisors to Hyatt, and Latham & Watkins LLP acted as its legal advisor. PJT Partners served as financial advisor to ALG, and Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP acted as its legal advisor. Credit Suisse and Deutsche Bank Securities Inc. served as financial advisors to KKR and KSL Capital Partners.
