Grand Wailea Ownership Changes Hands

File photo.

By Sonia Isotov

According to an article in Bloomberg News, last week the Grand Wailea Resort Hotel & Spa was one of eight properties seized by a group of lenders which include the New York-based hedge fund Paulson & Co.

Paulson & Co., owned by billionaire John Paulson, seized control of former CNL Hotels & Resorts Inc. from Morgan Stanley and the takeover is part of a $600 million debt restructuring of Morgan Stanley’s real estate fund, according to the Bloomberg report. According to Bloomberg, the deal closed on January 6, 2010.

In July 2009, Wells Fargo & Co. foreclosed on one of Morgan Stanley’s property funds that included the Maui Prince Hotel; defaulting a $192.5 million mortgage. Originally, Morgan Stanley bought the golf resort with Hawaiian developer Everett Dowling for $575 million in 2007.

Other properties taken over by the lender group include: the Doral Golf Resort & Spa in Miami; the Ritz-Carlton Orlando and JW Marriott Orlando at the Grande Lake Resorts; the JW Marriott Desert Ridge Resort & Spa in Phoenix; and the Claremont Resort & Spa in Berkeley, California.