US real estate investment firm EOS Investors has raised $150m (£112.5m) at first close of its inaugural hotel credit strategy.
The strategy will focus on senior whole loans, mezzanine financing and structured debt opportunities in the hospitality sector.
The firm’s specialist lending platform, EOS Credit Partners, is led by Christopher Jordan, a real estate banking veteran who joined the firm after more than 30 years at Wells Fargo in senior roles.
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While at Wells Fargo, he launched the firm’s sector-focused hospitality finance unit in 2009 and scaled the business into one of the largest lodging and leisure balance sheet lending platforms in the US.
“EOS Credit Partners aspires to be a highly knowledgeable, relationship-oriented lender rather than a transactional capital source, capitalizing on established relationships across the lodging industry landscape and offering a partnership-driven approach,” said Jordan. “And, because EOS is a significant hotel owner and operator, we have access to expertise, capabilities, and insights which EOS believes provides differentiated insight into the lodging sector.”
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EOS sees opportunities in the hotel credit market for alternative funders due to reduced lending activity by traditional lenders and upcoming hotel loan maturities.
EOS owns a diversified hotel equity portfolio and operates nearly 60 hotels through EOS Hospitality, which collectively generates approximately $800m in gross annual property-level revenue.
It also launched a residential investment platform in 2023, led by Nicole Sermier. The residential strategy invests across multiple housing sub-sectors and capital stack positions and has raised about $251m in investor commitments, alongside $200m of co-investment capital.
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