(Editor’s note: This report was published before news broke Monday that Sam Nazarian’s SBE Entertainment Group struck a deal to acquire Morgans.)
From the May issue: Morgans Hotel Group is, perhaps, most associated with its co-founder and Studio 54 impresario Ian Schrager, who headed the hospitality company until about a decade ago. Four other Morgans’ heads have come and gone since then. But today the company’s CEO office sits empty.
And that’s not the Morgans’ only problem. The small but storied boutique company is floundering in a way that few would have expected just a few years ago. Not only is it lacking a leader, its stock price is in the toilet at just north of $1 a share, it’s saddled with debt and its stakeholders are at one another’s throats. [more]