RLJ Lodging Trust, a self-advised REIT that will own 140 premium-branded hotels comprising over 20,400 rooms in 19 states, filed on Wednesday with the SEC to raise up to $550 million in an initial public offering. The Bethesda, MD-based company, which was founded in 2000 and booked $683 million in pro forma sales in 2009, plans to list on the NYSE under the symbol RLJ. BofA Merrill Lynch, Barclays Capital and Wells Fargo Securities are the lead underwriters on the deal, for which pricing terms and timing were not disclosed.
