Ashford Hospitality Trust, Inc. (NYSE: AHT) today announced the pricing of an initial public offering of 22,500,000 shares of common stock at $9.00 per share, all of which were offered by the Company. Friedman, Billings, Ramsey & Co., Inc. acted as the sole book-running manager, and Legg Mason Wood Walker Incorporated and Credit Lyonnais Securities (USA) Inc. were co-managers. The underwriters have a 30-day option to purchase an additional 3,375,000 common shares from the Company to cover over-allotments.
The transaction is scheduled to close on August 29, 2003, subject to the terms and conditions of the underwriting agreement. The offering proceeds of $202.5 million to the Company will be used principally to fund the acquisition or origination of lodging-related assets, repay mortgage indebtedness on some of the Company`s initial properties and for general corporate purposes.
Ashford Hospitality Trust is a self-administered real estate investment trust focused exclusively on investing in the hospitality industry at all levels of the capital structure, including direct hotel investments, first mortgages, mezzanine loans and sale-leaseback transactions, and across all segments. The Company will initially own six hotel properties and through its management team has experience in sourcing, underwriting, operating, repositioning, developing, selling and financing a wide variety of lodging investments. Additional information can be found on the Company`s web site at www.ahtreit.com.
The registration relating to the common stock has been declared effective by the Securities and Exchange Commission. This press release shall not constitute an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy nor shall there be any sale of such common stock in any state in which such offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful prior to registration or qualification under the securities laws of any such state. The offering of these securities will be made only by means of a prospectus, copies of which may be obtained from Friedman, Billings, Ramsey & Co., Inc., 1001 19th Street North, Arlington, Virginia, 22209.

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