PHOENIX Industry rating agencies don t carry an undue amount of weight by lodging lenders, according to experts on a Refinancing Panel at the Lodging Conferece. Panel participants included: Jerry Earnest, GMAC Commercial Mortgage; Neil Freeman, Aries Capital; Randy Heller, FINOVA Corp.; and Melissa Moore, GE Capital Real Estate. Discussions turned to hotel company ratings and how they affect many companies ability to obtain financing surprisingly, the consensus was that those ratings are considered, but not followed exclusively. Heller said we don t worry about the ratings the bottom line is we will keep and continue to service our loans out there. Earnest said that too often the ratings are used by lenders as a cop out if they just don t want to lend, but may not really be the reason for companies failing to get funds. (9/14/00)
