The Story

By chance, we struck up a conversation with CHIP REIT’s first CEO on a cross-Canada flight. Despite a successful IPO, he was unhappy with his current IR team, noting service issues and a failure to properly articulate his story, and understand the nuances of communicating with income trust investors. From IR strategy and materials to crisis management, media relations and roadshows, our enduring, creative partnership proved instrumental to CHIP REIT’s growing leadership position in the market – helping to successfully thwart a highly publicized hostile takeover bid, and navigate through numerous bolt-on acquisitions and CEO successions. Fast forward 10 years: CHIP REIT was acquired by British Columbia Investment Management Corp. in a $1.2 billion deal, effectively staking its claim as “one of Canada’s best-run hotel businesses” – with 32 hotels and 7,700 guest rooms under the banners of Delta, Radisson, Marriott and Hilton by the time it was purchased.