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REAL ESTATE: Hedge-like fund eyes end to strong run for hotels
Ken Cruse, who recently left the top job at Aliso Viejo-based hotel investor Sunstone Hotel Investors Inc., has started an investment company that will try to take advantage of the next downturn in the hospitality industry.
Sunstone announced on Jan. 19 that it had replaced Cruse as Montage chief executive with John Ara- Sells for S360M bia, the company's president. Page 6 Cruse, who had held the chief executive's position with Sunstone for nearly four years, also resigned from the company's board of directors.
A reason for the executive change was not immediately disclosed by the real estate investment trust, which had a recent market value of about $3.6 billion and has seen its stock rise nearly 30% since the start of 2014.
Cruse "will be pursuing other opportunities," the company said in a statement.
Arabia, who has been with the company for about four years, becomes the fifth chief executive of Sunstone in the past 10 years.
"This year, the independent directors concluded that a different management style would be more appropriate as the company continues to execute on its in-place strategy," Keith Locker, the company's nonexecutive chairman of the board, said in a call Cruse: "° Plans/or *...