From left: 337-343 West 39th Street, 320 Pearl Street
From the April issue: “I guess you’re big boys now,” one Wall Street analyst quipped during a recent conference call with Hersha Hospitality Trust honchos Jay and Neil Shah.
Indeed, the brothers have become “big boys” on the country’s biggest stage as they’ve ramped up their company’s focus on New York City hotels.
After taking their family’s modest Harrisburg, Pa., business public in 1999 and expanding it under multiple monikers (Hiltons, Hamptons, Holiday Inns) throughout the Northeast suburbs, the Shah brothers are now betting most heavily on the Big Apple.
Following February’s $164.5 million purchase of three hotels from developer Sam Chang in Times Square, which Hersha financed through the sale of more than 51 million shares of stock, New York now accounts for 27 percent of the decade-old, Philadelphia-based real estate investment trust’s geographic footprint.
