# Highgate Hotels Highgate Hotels is a Single Family Office based in New York, United States. ## Overview - **Organization type:** Single Family Office - **Headquarters:** New York, United States - **Region:** North America - **Address:** New York, NY, United States - **Founded:** 1984 - **Assets under management:** Undisclosed - **Website:** highgate.com - **LinkedIn:** https://www.linkedin.com/company/highgate-hotels ## Regulatory record - **Reports private funds:** No ## About Mahmood Khimji and his brother Mehdi launched Highgate in 1984, building a hospitality platform that now spans more than 34,000 rooms across gateway cities in the United States, the Caribbean, and Europe. The firm operates as both principal investor and hands-on manager — an unusual dual mandate that avoids the split incentives common between hotel owners and management companies. Highgate's portfolio concentrates on full-service and luxury urban properties in markets with high barriers to entry, including New York, Miami, San Francisco, and London. Highgate deploys capital primarily through wholly owned acquisitions and joint ventures, targeting underperforming hotels where its integrated operating platform can drive renovation, repositioning, and margin improvement. The firm has executed landmark deals across multiple asset classes: the acquisition and repositioning of the Park Central Hotel in Midtown Manhattan, the purchase of the St. Giles Hotel in London's West End, and a joint venture with Cerberus Capital Management to acquire a portfolio of Marriott and Hilton branded properties. Highgate's geographic reach covers major US coastal markets, the Caribbean basin with a concentration in Puerto Rico, and select European gateway cities. Highgate operates additional offices in Dallas and London, supporting a corporate team that oversees asset management, revenue optimization, and development. October 2023: Highgate expanded its European footprint by launching a dedicated European hospitality investment platform in partnership with Cerberus, signaling a formal push beyond its North American core (per the firm, October 2023). The firm also controls an affiliated management division, Highgate Select, which operates a separate portfolio of select-service properties. Highgate's structural distinction lies in its refusal to separate the investment function from operations. Unlike institutional hotel investors who hire third-party managers and sacrifice margin to management contracts, Highgate's owner-operator model captures both the real estate upside and the operating cash flow, an architecture that traces directly to the Khimji family's early career as hotel developers who built what they later managed. ## Sectors - Real Estate - Luxury ## People - Mahmood Khimji — Co-Founder and Managing Principal ## Questions ### Who makes investment decisions at Highgate Hotels? Investment decisions ultimately sit with co-founder Mahmood Khimji and the firm's senior investment committee. Highgate operates as a privately held family enterprise, so day-to-day capital allocation governance is not publicly documented. The firm integrates asset management deeply with operations, meaning the same team that sources deals also manages the properties post-acquisition. ### Is Highgate Hotels structured as a single family office or a hospitality management company? Highgate functions as both — it is a family-owned enterprise that invests its own capital alongside institutional partners in hotel real estate, while also operating the management platform that runs those hotels. This dual structure means Highgate earns both ownership returns and management fees, a model built deliberately by the Khimji family over four decades. ### How does Highgate source its deals? Highgate sources primarily through long-standing relationships with hotel owners, lenders, and real estate brokers in its core gateway markets. The firm's reputation as an operator capable of turning around underperforming assets gives it access to off-market and distressed opportunities. Public record shows Highgate frequently partners with institutional capital — such as Cerberus Capital Management — to acquire portfolios that require operational expertise alongside equity. ### Does Highgate invest only in hotels or in other asset classes as well? Highgate's investment activity is concentrated exclusively in hospitality real estate. The firm targets full-service, luxury, and select-service hotels across the United States, the Caribbean, and Europe. There is no public record of Highgate investing in office, residential, or industrial assets outside of mixed-use hotel developments. ### What is Highgate's relationship with Cerberus Capital Management? Highgate and Cerberus have partnered on multiple hotel portfolio acquisitions, with Cerberus providing institutional equity and Highgate contributing operational expertise and co-investment capital. In October 2023, the two firms announced a dedicated European hospitality investment platform, formalizing a relationship that had previously been deal-by-deal. Cerberus is Highgate's most visible institutional co-investor. ## Related profiles - [Shifamed](https://altss.com/profile/shifamed) - [Ember Infrastructure](https://altss.com/profile/ember-infrastructure) --- Last updated: 2026-06-03T20:00:00.000Z Canonical page: https://altss.com/profile/highgate-hotels Maintained by Altss — https://altss.com — methodology: https://altss.com/methodology