Columbia Sussex

Columbia Sussex is a private hotel company based in Crestview Hills, Kentucky. The company, owned by the Yung family, owns and operates hotels in various parts of the United States. As of 2017^[update], the company operates 38 hotels under 5 different brands (31 Marriott's, 1 Hyatt, 1 Westin, 4 Hilton's, and 1 Boulder Resort.)The current president is William J. Yung III.

At its peak in 2007, Columbia Sussex owned 85 hotels with 32,604 rooms. Of those, 44 properties with 20,169 rooms, representing about 62% of rooms in the portfolio, have been offloaded as a result of foreclosure, bankruptcy, or under circumstances consistent with debt obligations not being met, such as sale following appointment of a receiver. An additional five hotels, representing 1908 rooms, currently have distressed loans (Minneapolis Airport Marriott, Marriott Phoenix Airport, Renaissance Philadelphia Airport, Marriott Knoxville and Marriott – Jackson) and are at risk of being lost to debt; if this occurs, it will increase the percentage of rooms offloaded to debt to about 68%. In addition Columbia Sussex's Hilton Anchorage Hotel has an upcoming loan maturity date of March 2017 and the company will likely be looking to refinance this loan. The Hilton Anchorage loan represents about 14% of the pool of loans in bond class AJ. Since 2009, the bond has been downgraded five times by Moody's and six times by S&P.On October 4, 2016 Moody's downgraded the bond to a Caa1.

Included in the rooms offloaded to debt are 5,821 rooms (or 14 hotels) that were acquired by Blackstone after it bought out $300 million in debt on the 14 properties at a steep discount. Blackstone seized the portfolio via a "deed in lieu of foreclosure" in December 2010 after the loan securing the portfolio had hit maturity default. Blackstone had previously sold the same hotels to Columbia Sussex for $1.4 billion in 2006.

Columbia Sussex began operation as Columbia Development in 1972 with the construction of a single Days Inn location in Richwood, KY. Rapid expansion followed and by 1978 the company was renamed Columbia Sussex and was the largest Days Inn franchisee with 14 locations many with restaurants named after the founder's wife, Marty.

In 1977 Columbia Sussex purchased their first full service hotel, The President Motor Inn in Fort Wright, KY. The hotel was closed for renovations and re-opened as a Ramada Inn.

Columbia Sussex then began a campaign of acquiring Holiday Inns and renovating them into properties featuring the Holidome concept. Together with the new loyalty program, Priority Club, which was a trailblazing concept at the time, market success followed. Holiday Inns were acquired in Dayton, OH, Springfield, OH, and a group of 4 Holiday Inns in Charleston, WV.