Blackwells Supports the Election of Braemar Hotels & Resorts’ Eight Director Nominees
NEW YORK, Nov. 04, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Blackwells Capital LLC (“Blackwells”), a shareholder of Braemar Hotels & Resorts Inc. (“Braemar” or the “Company”) (NYSE: BHR), today issued a statement regarding the director nominees presented by the Company for election at its 2026 Annual Meeting of Stockholders, to be held on December 21, 2026.
THE FULL TEXT OF THE STATEMENT FOLLOWS:
Braemar is weeks from completing its separation from Ashford Inc. The termination of the advisory agreement has been triggered, the asset sales funding the separation are closed, and the Company has published the balance sheet, cost structure and full-year 2027 outlook of the self-managed company that will emerge. The last piece is the board that will govern it. The slate announced on October 26 is that board, and Blackwells supports the election of all eight nominees.
Seven of the eight nominees are new to the Company, all of whom are independent. The nominees were identified by Ferguson Partners, a nationally recognized board search firm. Every other incumbent director, including the Chairman, is stepping aside, and the new Board will elect an independent Chairman. This is not a board choosing its successors. It is a board replacing itself.
Braemar’s nominees bring the required expertise: the former Chief Financial Officer of Vornado and JBG SMITH; the audit committee chairs of Federal Realty and Sabra Health Care; a former hotel-REIT chief financial officer and Hilton senior executive; a senior executive with twenty-four years at Hyatt and Marriott; the former co-head of real estate at Farallon and a director of Macerich; and the founder of a real estate and private-credit firm. What remains to be done — retiring the obligations to Ashford, reducing leverage and, in Blackwells’ view, positioning the Company to restore a dividend — are capital-allocation and governance exercises. These nominees are built for that work and can begin unlocking Braemar’s trapped value the day they are seated. No dissident slate starts there.
The eighth nominee, President and Chief Executive Officer Richard Stockton, is the only continuing member of the current Board. The Board’s Nominating and Corporate Governance Committee retained an independent search firm to reconstitute the Board, and Mr. Stockton is the architect of the organizational structure that will reduce annual corporate overhead from over $40 million to $15 million. A company in the final stage of a complex separation does not improve its position by removing the one executive who knows where every asset, loan and counterparty sits. And a Board on which the chief executive is the sole continuing member, serving at the pleasure of seven directors he did not select and under a Chairman he did not appoint, is not a Board he controls. It is a Board with every means to hold him accountable and, on that record, every reason to keep him at the table.
The market currently values Braemar’s seven remaining hotels at approximately $437,000 per key. The Company’s 2026 sales averaged approximately $1.2 million per key. The enterprise trades at 2.2 times revenue, the lowest multiple in its peer group against an average of 2.9 times — and no peer owns what Braemar owns: the highest proportion of luxury and ultra-luxury properties among lodging REITs, and the highest RevPAR of any public comparable. As set out in Blackwells’ October 13 presentation, “Life After Ashford,” the same seven assets support $2.45 to $5.13 per share, approximately 1.8 to 3.7 times the current share price of $1.50.
A discount of this size prices doubt about whether the separation finishes, who governs what emerges, and whether the plan is allowed to run. The slate announced on October 26 removes the first two. The third is a short list of observable acts: executing the refinancing program, holding corporate costs where the Company has guided them, positioning the Company to restore the common dividend, governing to best-in-class standards, and continuing to exceed its operating targets.
Shareholders have an alternative before them. Brancous LP1, a holder of less than one percent of the Company’s shares, proposes to replace five of the nominees with directors of its own selection. Its campaign has so far produced litigation in two courts, a denied request for a temporary restraining order, and a platform whose principal commitment is a further “independent review” of a Company Sale Fee fixed by contract in 2018, disclosed for eight years, and already reduced by $94.3 million. Its materials commit its nominees to no plan for the business. What the campaign offers instead is cost: months of management attention, legal and solicitation expense, and delay at the moment the separation requires execution and focus most.
The external structure that defined Braemar for a decade is ending. The company that emerges will be judged on results, and the gap between the share price and the value of these hotels closes through execution, not in courtrooms and not through another season of contest. The alternative before shareholders is a distraction from that work. The slate announced on October 26 was assembled to finish it, and it merits election in full.
About Blackwells Capital
Blackwells is a multi-strategy alternative asset management firm that invests in public and private markets globally. Our public markets portfolio focuses on currencies, equities, credit and commodities. When necessary, we engage with public company boards to drive value for all stakeholders. Our private markets portfolio includes investments in space, clean energy, infrastructure, real estate and technology. Further information is available at www.blackwellscap.com.
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