Brandon Sedloff and Russ Flicker explore the institutional hotel business and the journey from practicing real estate law to building a vertically integrated hospitality firm. Flicker shares how AWH Partners emerged from a borrowed desk during the Great Recession and what shaped his approach to investing through work at the Trump Organization and Blackstone. The conversation covers how AWH differentiates itself through in-house management and development capabilities, and why Flicker believes middle-market hotel assets present compelling opportunities today.
They discuss:
- Why Flicker left Blackstone to start AWH despite limited visibility on deal flow or capital
- How starting with no formal office taught essential lessons about investor expectations and capital raising
- Why seller-prepared hotels often hide operational risks that integrated teams can identify during underwriting
- How vertical integration across acquisition, management, and renovation creates accountability advantages
- Why hotels reprice daily in inflationary environments while other real estate takes years to adjust
This episode offers perspective for investors evaluating hotel allocations, operators building differentiated platforms, or anyone navigating the transition from institutional roles to entrepreneurship during market downturns.
Topics:
(00:00:00) - Intro
(00:00:57) - Introducing Russ Flicker and AWH Partners
(00:02:42) - From engineer's son to real estate lawyer
(00:08:38) - The dotcom startup and meeting his wife
(00:11:52) - Landing at the Trump Organization
(00:20:47) - Why Russ left Trump for Blackstone
(00:23:33) - Working at institutional scale versus entrepreneurial scale
(00:26:58) - The Ian Schrager disaster and the taxi accident
(00:32:24) - Founding AWH from a borrowed desk in 2008
(00:40:27) - Building AWH into a vertically integrated platform
(00:46:00) - Why hospitality gets misunderstood as high risk
(00:49:58) - Opportunity in the next 24 to 36 months
Links:
Russ on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/russell-flicker-67821712/
AWH Partners - https://www.awhpartners.com/
Brandon on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/bsedloff/
Juniper Square - https://www.junipersquare.com/
