Noble Closes $310mil Discretionary Equity Fund

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. October 14, 2008

MARCH 12, 2007. Privately held Noble Investment Group ("Noble"), a leading investment management, operating and development organization in the lodging and hospitality industry, today announced the closing of the Noble Hospitality Fund, LLC ("Noble Fund") with $310 million in equity commitments. The fully discretionary Noble Fund is comprised of seven institutional investors, including major public pension funds and university endowments, as well as significant investments by the principals of the Noble organization. The oversubscribed Noble Fund is the organization's third private equity fund and when combined with prudent debt leverage, will have the capacity to acquire and develop more than $1 billion in lodging assets.

"We know that lodging is an active business that operates in economic cycles," said Mit Shah, Noble's chief executive officer and the Noble Fund's senior managing principal. "Without debating the stage of the current cycle, NCREIF data shows that active lodging and hospitality specialists are better positioned to provide superior risk-adjusted returns throughout changing market conditions. Over the past 13 years, we have diligently built one of the strongest management teams in the industry, and in 2006, our same-store hotel portfolio achieved a 15.9 percent average RevPAR increase, more than twice the industry average. Our same-store hotels also outperformed their respective market competitive sets by more than 67 percent while significantly improving profit margins across the board.

"Noble's leadership has special expertise in real estate investments, complex construction/development, revenue strategies, capital markets and finance, operations and other major disciplines. More importantly, fifteen leaders are principals in an integrated Noble organization who work closely together as partners to execute with their teams a hands-on, value-added investment strategy and then share in the financial success of the organization. This alignment of interests has enabled Noble to realize an exceptional investment track record over multiple market cycles," Shah noted. The organization's investment management team is led by Rodney Williams, Noble's chief investment officer and a managing principal of the Noble Fund.

"The Noble Fund has a disciplined focus on acquiring, developing and re-developing first-class, premium-branded full-service and select-service hotels and resorts located throughout North America," Williams said. "We seek opportunities where our team can create and enhance value by making changes in physical plants, re-branding, re-configuring existing space and/or utilizing additional development opportunites. This strategy alongside our strong property management will continue to allow us to maximize the inherent value of every square foot of the assets in which we invest.

"In addition to strong, conventional acquisition/development experience, we have special expertise, including mixed-use projects that combine office, retail and residential; hospitality within retail malls; public/private development; and adaptive re-use of office and multi-family projects into hospitality," Williams added. "Our competencies, size and distribution give us significant economies of scale, and our platforms give us great resources and flexibility to respond quickly to market conditions." Williams noted that the company has reviewed more than 100 acquisition and development opportunities in the past year and has a significant and active pipeline.

In 2006, Noble utilized its diverse strategic platforms to invest more than $500 million in assets, such as the acquisition of the Westin Long Beach, Calif.; the acquisition of the Sheraton Colony Square currently under re-development into the W Hotel Atlanta-Midtown; the acquisition and re-development of the former 631-room Adams Mark Hotel in Winston-Salem, N.C. into two hotels-a Marriott and Embassy Suites; the new development of the Lodge and Spa at Callaway Gardens Resort; and the Raleigh Center Marriott in Raleigh, N.C., a public-private development currently under construction. Noble also has under construction an aloft hotel by Starwood's W brand that is vertically integrated into an upscale, mixed-use retail, office and residential development in uptown Charlotte, N.C.

Noble was advised by Farragut Capital, LLC, with offices in New York, Chicago and Cleveland; and the Real Estate Capital Markets Group of Morris, Manning and Martin, LLP, with offices in Atlanta, Washington, D.C., Charlotte, Raleigh and Princeton.

Noble Investment Group is an integrated real estate investment management, operating and development organization focused on the North American lodging and hospitality sector. Through its private equity funds, Noble is a value-added, active investor in luxury and upscale hotels and resorts. By strategically utilizing the organization's in-house property management and project development core competencies, Noble and its predecessors have acquired and developed over $1.5 billion in assets and achieved premium risk-adjusted investment returns since 1993.

Noble's development division leads the planning, programming, construction management and realization of complex lodging development, re-development and conversion strategies. Currently, Noble is actively developing more than $1 billion of urban, resort and mixed-use hospitality projects throughout North America.