The law firm of Baker Donelson is serving as lead counsel for STR, a global leader in benchmarking and analytics for the hospitality industry, in a deal to be acquired for $450 million in cash by CoStar Group, Inc. (NASDAQ: CSGP), the leading provider of commercial real estate information, analytics and online marketplaces.
One of the largest hotel industry transactions of the year, the deal will enable CoStar to provide comprehensive and precise data and analytics on the $3 trillion hotel commercial real estate asset class, offering valuable new services to investors and service providers in the hospitality industry. The transaction, which was announced on October 1, is expected to close in the fourth quarter of 2019.
The Baker Donelson team representing STR was led by Joel R. Buckberg, chair of the Firm's Commercial Transactions and Business Counseling Group and a shareholder in the Firm's Nashville office. Other members of the team included:
- From the Firm's Corporate practice: Christopher Douse (shareholder, Nashville), Ryan M. Richards (associate, Nashville), Hannah McSween Cole (associate, Nashville), John D. McCallister (associate, Nashville), and Greta Messer (associate, Nashville)
- From Baker Donelson's Tax practice: Steven K. Wood (shareholder, Nashville), Stuart M. Schabes (shareholder, Baltimore), Seth Kossman (shareholder, Baltimore), William E. Robinson (of counsel, Chattanooga)
- From Baker Donelson's Real Estate Group: Kenneth P. "Pete" Ezell Jr. (shareholder, Nashville)
- From the Firm's Data Protection, Privacy and Cybersecurity practice: Alisa L. Chestler, CIPP/US (shareholder, Nashville and Washington, D.C.) and Andrew J. Droke (associate, Nashville)
- From the Firm's Business Technology Group: Steve F. Wood (shareholder, Nashville)
- From Baker Donelson's Labor & Employment practice: Martha L. Boyd (shareholder, Nashville)
- From the Firm's Intellectual Property Group: Wendy Robertson (of counsel, Memphis)
STR was founded in 1985 as Smith Travel Research to provide performance benchmarking and comparative analytics to hotels. Over the past 34 years, STR has grown its data assets, product offerings and geographic reach to become the gold standard in the global hospitality industry for premium data analytics, performance benchmarking and market insights. Today, STR aggregates data from over 65,000 hotels worldwide, representing nearly nine million guest rooms in over 180 countries. The company's flagship product – the STARreport – provides hotel brands, owners and management companies vital performance benchmark information with more than 1.2 million reports distributed each month. STR is headquartered in Hendersonville, Tennessee and has 370 employees in 15 countries.