Group Reportedly Buying Ritz-Carlton Laguna Niguel

A New Mexico hotel investment group recently agreed to acquire the Ritz-Carlton Laguna Niguel luxury resort for about $225 million, according to published reports.

Strategic Hotel Capital Inc. will buy the 393-room oceanfront resort from Prudential Insurance Co. of America, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal, which quoted unnamed sources.

Strategic Hotel is a new partnership made up of New Mexico-based real estate investor Security Capital Group and investment bankers Goldman Sachs & Co. The Journal said the Ritz-Carlton would be the centerpiece of a deal that would eventually include other hotel properties.

Officials at Prudential declined to comment. Security Capital executives in Santa Fe could not be reached for comment.

The hotel, where rooms average $225 a night, is considered one of the most successful operations in the chain of 32 Ritz-Carltons. It has an 80% occupancy rate.

Prudential put the resort on the block at the start of the year as part of a process begun a year earlier to sell some of its landmark U.S. properties, such as the Chicago Hilton and Towers, NationsBank Tower in Dallas and the Prudential Center in Boston.