Hotel Data Giant STR Acquired for $450 Million – Skift

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In the competitive world of global hospitality, data and intelligence are often key to hoteliers maximizing the performance of their properties in a dynamic marketplace.

Commercial real estate information provider CoStar Group will acquire STR for $450 million in an all-cash deal. Formerly known as Smith Travel Research before a recent rebrand, STR is the premier global provider of data on hotel performance and market dynamics. The company is headquartered in Henderson, Tenn., and employs 370 workers in 15 countries.

STR expects to post strong revenue of $64 million in 2019, with about $16 million in profit, according to a press release announcing the deal. CoStar expects 20 percent revenue growth per year in the next few years after the deal closes in late 2019. The multiple on the deal shows the value of information and data companies in the travel and real estate ecosystems.

STR helped pioneer data benchmarking in the hotel world over the years and the value of this deal shows the business opportunity present as global hospitality continues to grow into the next decade.

“We are very excited to become part of CoStar,” said Amanda Hite, STR’s president and CEO, in a release. “CoStar brings leading technologies, analytics and sales capabilities that we believe will enable STR to accelerate growth and increase the value and insights we provide to our hospitality clients. This combination also represents an outstanding career opportunity for all of our employees around the world.”

CoStar is best known for providing data and insights in the commercial real estate world, owning the Apartments.com and a variety of product suites for brokers and property owners. It already provides basic information for the hotel sectors and the deal will help flesh out their offerings in the world of hospitality.

“The STR team has built an extraordinary company that partners with the hotel industry to create benchmarks and analytics that are the primary tools hotel management and investors rely on to optimize and improve their assets,” said Andrew C. Florance, founder and CEO of CoStar Group, in a release. “STR brings an unrivaled reputation within the global hospitality industry for their data integrity, reliability and strict confidentiality, and we look forward to continuing to build on these core values in the next chapter of STR’s growth.”

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