CV of R. Maurice Robinson, ISHC, CRE, ASA
Mr. Robinson is an expert in the field of hotel and resort consulting. He has been providing litigation support services, conducting market feasibility studies, and appraising hotels, resorts and other hospitality-related real estate for thirty years. His expertise includes dispute resolution, expert witness testimony and advising clients on development planning, deal structuring, and financial issues related to hotel and resort development and investment.
Representative Accomplishments
His accomplishments include providing property valuation, market demand assessment, investment analysis, market repositioning, and acquisition and development advisory services to hundreds of clients nationwide. He has also been involved in resolving disputes, restructuring loans and other agreements, and working out troubled hotel and resort assets, including golf courses, timeshares, master-planned residential communities, spas, and theme parks.
He has testified as an expert witness in venues including jury trials in California, Illinois, Florida and Texas Courts, several AAA- and JAMS-sponsored arbitration panels, Federal Bankruptcy Courts, and mediations. His valuation qualifications and expertise have resulted in many unique assignments, such as one involving appraising the Grand Canyon, for which he was awarded the coveted James Felt Creative Counseling Award by his peers in the Counselors of Real Estate. His experience as a hotel industry expert in disputes in the past few years involves more than 140 hotels, 20,000 hotel rooms, five National Parks, and $2 billion of hotel assets.
Additionally, he has provided assistance to hotel owners and landowners in the areas of negotiating ground leases, loan documents, franchise agreements, management contracts, development agreements, financing arrangements, design-build agreements, tax-exempt bond financings and partnership agreements.
As Principal with KPMG, Mr. Robinson was the primary resource in the western U.S. for hospitality development and financing issues, particularly full-service urban and resort properties.
He has conducted appraisals, workouts and/or the original market feasibility studies on dozens of full-service hospitality properties over the past thirty years, totaling over $12 billion in assets. Recently, he appraised Sea World San Diego, and successfully argued for an increase in the ground lease terms, on behalf of the City of San Diego, to an arbitration panel.
He has co-authored an article entitled “How to Value Commercial Improvements in a National Park” in the Winter 2000/Spring 2001 edition of Real Estate Issues; a chapter entitled “Alternative Dispute Resolution in the Hospitality Industry” in the textbook Hotel Investments: Issues and Perspectives, 4th edition (2006); and an article entitled “Issue Review Boards™ - The Next Wave of Alternative Dispute Resolution for the Hospitality Industry” for the Institute of Conflict Management in 2005.
Background
Mr. Robinson is President of Maurice Robinson & Associates LLC, providing advisory services to investors and developers in the Hospitality and Real Estate industries. Prior to founding his current firm in 1999, he was a Principal with KPMG Peat Marwick LLP, leading their western region Hospitality and Real Estate consulting practice for twelve years (1986-1998). Prior to KPMG, he was a Senior Consultant and Manager in the real estate and hospitality consulting practice of Pannell Kerr Forster (now PKF Consulting) for five years (1982-1986). His previous work experience also includes three years as senior economist with the real estate consulting firm of Williams-Kuebelbeck and Associates (1979-1982), and a year as an independent consultant (1978).
Mr. Robinson holds a General Real Estate Appraisal certificate from the State of California; a master of public administration degree from the University of Southern California; a bachelor of arts degree in economics from Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota; a certificate of environmental management with a specialty in public/private partnerships from the Environmental Management Institute in Los Angeles; and a professional designation in financial planning from UCLA.
He has completed training in arbitration, both as a panel member and chairperson, with the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA), as well as with the Institute of Conflict Management (ICM), and has been selected to serve as an Arbitrator, both for the NASD and AAA. In the majority of his arbitrations, he has served as the Chairperson of the three-member panels. He is also a trained and experienced Mediator, having completed Mediation Training courses by the L. A. County Bar Association’s Dispute Resolution Services and ICM, and successfully mediated numerous hospitality and real estate-related cases in the past few years.
He is a frequent lecturer at various real estate and hospitality industry-related seminars and conferences across the United States, and has spoken more than two dozen times at national and local hotel industry conferences. He was the editor of KPMG’s Hospitality Update newsletter in the mid-1990s, and served on the Program Planning Committee of the annual UCLA Hotel Industry Investment Conference for six years. He is also an annual Guest Lecturer at UC Berkeley’s MBA program’s Haas School of Real Estate, on the topic of complex real estate valuation issues.
Affiliations
Mr. Robinson is a member of the prestigious International Society of Hospitality Consultants (ISHC), where he served for nine years on the Board of Directors and as Chairman of the Professional Conduct Committee. Other professional memberships include the Counselors of Real Estate (CRE), the American Society of Appraisers (ASA), and the Forensic Expert Witness Association (FEWA). He is also a member of the Board of Arbitrators for FINRA.
