The share price of Sunstone Hotel Investors, operator of 17 hotels with over 19,000 rooms in mostly coastal areas, grew 20 percent last month. It was the stock’s best month of the pandemic except for November, when initial results of Covid-19 vaccine trials were announced.
The pandemic forced hotel REITs to conserve cash at a time when, according to Darling, operating income has fallen more than 100 percent.
Sunstone recently sold a 502-room property outside Los Angeles International Airport for $92.5 million, one of the largest pandemic-era deals of its kind, and handed ownership of the Times Square Hilton hotel in New York City back to its lender.