Blackstone Places Winning Bet on The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas
October 5, 2021 | Andrew Coen
Blackstone’s $5.65 billion sale of The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas late last month signals that casino properties can produce a winning formula with the right pieces in place.
The real estate giant sold the 3,027-key hotel and casino development just seven years after acquiring the Las Vegas Strip property for $1.8 billion. At $4.1 billion, the deal was Blackstone’s most profitable ever for a single asset and came despite a time of uncertainty for the hospitality market as the sector looks to rebound from headwinds caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.
“When we bought it seven years ago, it was considered a challenged asset from a physical perspective and underperformed other top casinos in the market,” said Tyler Henritze, Blackstone’s head of real estate acquisitions Americas. “We bought the asset for 60 percent below what it cost to originally develop and it was only a few years old.”
