DTLA’s Freehand Hotel and Broken Shaker Bar Sold to London Group for $400 Million

The Freehand Hotel’s rooftop bar Broken Shaker and The Exchange all maintain a strong presence in Downtown Los Angeles. As of yesterday, the Sydell Group — Freehand’s parent company that also owns NoMad and The Line hotels — announced it sold Freehand Hotels and Broken Shaker to London-based hotelier Generator and Queensgate Investments for $400 million.

The massive transaction will affect Freehand properties in New York, Miami, LA, and Chicago, with a future hotel headed to Washington, DC in 2020. According to Generator’s statement, the company will not make any immediate changes to the Freehand properties. With this acquisition, Generator operates a total of 18 global properties, including locations in London, Berlin, Venice, and Barcelona. Sydell Group will continue to operate Koreatown’s Line Hotel and Downtown’s NoMad.

Generator hotels began opening throughout Europe beginning in 2011. Self-described as “design-driven affordable luxury,” the European brand believes both companies “capitalized on the sensibilities of the traveling millennial.”

Sydell Group also made headlines in 2019. In late July, New York restaurant superstars Will Guidara and chef Daniel Humm ended their eight-year business relationship. The duo owns branches of the NoMad in New York, Los Angeles, and Las Vegas. In late August, MGM Resorts bought a 50 percent stake in Sydell Group. And last May, a worker filed a complaint against the DTLA Freehand, where he alleges that he was forced to clean up human feces.

• MGM Resorts Buys a Stake in Sydell Group, NoMad [Eater Las Vegas]
• Miami’s Freehand Hotel Drops Drinks and Dinner on Downtown LA in March [ELA]