Family, reputation, business all booming for LTD Management

For the leadership team of LTD Management Co. LLC, the first Monday of November posed a not altogether unpleasant predicament.

All the partners typically attend major milestones for the hotels they own and operate. On Nov. 5, they had two events, 225 miles apart: the groundbreaking for the Residence Inn by Marriott on Brambleton Avenue in Norfolk and the opening of the Westin BWI Airport in Maryland.

So the partners split up for the day: Hari Thakkar and Dilip Desai, two of LTD's founders, and Thakkar's son Malay attended the Norfolk ceremony. Thakkar's other son, Kush, and Desai's sons, Neel and Tejal, went to Maryland. That's the benefit of having six very close partners - two fathers, natives of India, and their four sons.

Next year, LTD will celebrate its 25th anniversary, and the company is booming.

With the addition of the younger partners, it has rapidly expanded, spiraling to 22 hotels - 13 aligned with Marriott - extending from Hampton Roads to Maryland. Just this year, LTD opened four hotels, including its first two with more than 200 rooms: the Westin BWI, with 260, and the Sheraton BWI, with 203.

Combined, LTD manages 2,900 rooms and $500 million in assets. Malay Thakkar would not provide occupancy rates but said they tend to be "very competitive" and above the industry average.

LTD expects to open 10 more hotels in 2008 - including the Residence Inn in downtown Norfolk and two in Chesapeake, where it is based. It's also considering spreading to the Midwest and West Coast.

Perhaps LTD's biggest coup was the recent announcement it would step in as lead developer for a large downtown Norfolk hotel, to adjoin a convention center. It replaces billionaire Robert Johnson's RLJ Development, which bowed out.

LTD has emerged as a favored hotel developer in Norfolk and Chesapeake.

For example, Chesapeake's City Council in September approved a $650,000 grant to help the company finance its two hotel openings next year.

Earlier this year, Norfolk officials sold LTD land for the Brambleton Avenue hotel without soliciting other proposals, at a price $1 million under its appraisal - saying it was a fair deal for an oddly contoured half-acre lot. Most recently, Mayor Paul Fraim said he lobbied William Fuller, head of Fulco Development, which was partnering with Johnson, to choose LTD as a replacement for the downtown hotel project.

LTD has contributed thousands of dollars to politicians including Fraim and his counterpart in Chesapeake. But the mayors and other advocates credit LTD's ascendancy to one simple factor: The company does first-rate work.

"LTD has a great reputation with lenders," Fraim said. "They don't overbuild or overpromise. They operate their hotels well.... They're just great people to work with."

LTD's growth couldn't have happened without the participation of the second generation, the fathers said. The sons credit their elders with establishing a solid foundation. "We realized our fathers created a platform to take to the next level," said Malay Thakkar (pronounced Tucker).

Beyond the added manpower and energy provided by the sons, LTD has thrived by spotting underserved niches - such as Chesapeake's Greenbrier area or Norfolk's Military Highway, observers said. It also has aligned itself with top brands, investing amply in its properties, often exceeding expectations - a larger fitness center here, a higher ceiling there.

"They have a tremendous commitment to quality," said Rick Parsons, a regional vice president for Marriott International. "They build wonderful buildings. They renovate them on time. They always do more than is required, and they're very good people."

At a national Marriott conference last week, LTD won a community service honor and a "Partnership Circle" award, which goes "to our top companies," Parsons said.

David Mumford, senior principal of the Mumford Co., a hotel brokerage firm based in Newport News, said: "The lodging industry is a very competitive one. There are not too many people you don't hear someone sniping about in the course of your interactions. But I can't say I've heard anything negative about Dilip or Hari or their organization."

The Desais and Thakkars also have remained active in the local Indian community, helping finance, among other projects, a Hindu temple in Chesapeake and the "Taste of India" festival at Old Dominion University.

"They are the trailblazers, the crown jewel of the Indian community," said Dr. Dilip Sarkar, a retired doctor and friend. "It is not the wealth they have. It is their leadership, their relationships."

Dilip Desai and Hari Thakkar came here from India - Hari in 1968, Dilip in 1970. That background, the families said, probably influenced their journey into hospitality.

"When you go shopping in India," Tejal Desai said, "the first thing they ask you in a department store is: 'Do you want something cold to drink?' "

Desai and Thakkar didn't know each other in India, but became friends at Norfolk State University. Thakkar was a business professor and Desai an internal auditor. Chesapeake Councilman C.E. "Cliff" Hayes Jr., a former student of Thakkar's, remembers him voicing his dream of starting his own business.

"Nobody in my family worked for anybody else," Thakkar, now 66, said. "I wanted to be entrepreneurial." Desai felt the same and plunged into the hotel business first, buying a Quality Inn on Portsmouth's Frederick Boulevard in 1980.

Three years later, LTD was born. The company's name combines the initials of its three founders: Sudhakar Lavingia, Thakkar and Desai. Lavingia, the others said, left amicably in the late '80s to work on his own in the hotel and construction businesses.

LTD's first development target was the Greenbrier section of Chesapeake, which "they helped to put on the map," former Mayor William Ward said.

The company still has its largest presence in Chesapeake, with seven hotels and its headquarters - though it is considering moving its base to Norfolk. "Mr. Desai and Mr. Thakkar have been willing to stick their necks out to bring jobs and economic growth to our city," Mayor Dalton Edge said.

Military Highway was another spot LTD saw as ripe for hotel development. "Guests wanted to come to Norfolk, but they couldn't find hotels," Hari Thakkar said. So LTD opened the Holiday Inn Select Norfolk Airport in 1999 and a nearby Residence Inn by Marriott in 2004.

The company has stayed away from Virginia Beach, Malay Thakkar said, because the Oceanfront market is saturated. Besides, LTD has focused more on the business traveler than the tourist.

Dilip Desai, 61, described LTD as "very selective." It has primarily associated itself with three brands: Marriott, Hilton and Starwood, which includes Westin and Sheraton hotels.

Norfolk Councilman Randy Wright was delighted when LTD signed onto the long-delayed downtown hotel project.

"They are so unique in that they do what they say they're going to do," he said. "In the hotel business, there's not a lot of history of that happening in Norfolk.... At the end of the day, their product is first-class. If you ever go into one of their facilities, it's as good as there is in the country of that particular flag."

The sons joined LTD in two waves. Malay Thakkar, now 35, and Neel Desai, 32, signed on in 1998. Their brothers, Kush Thakkar, 29, and Tejal Desai, 28, joined them in the past year and a half.

Paul Griffith, an area general manager who oversees four hotels for LTD, said the younger generation brought "a spirit of adventure and change. It isn't like they're stuck to one area or one franchise. They're willing to look at what else is out there and what's new."

The company has expanded outward and upward since the sons arrived, branching beyond the region and opening its first full-service hotels, featuring three-meal restaurants and room service.

The six say they are equal partners who make joint decisions and rarely fall into disputes. Their duties, however, are neatly divided: The elder sons, Malay Thakkar and Neel Desai, are in charge of development, scouting new projects. Their brothers, Kush Thakkar and Tejal Desai, oversee operations, such as asset management. And the fathers? They've turned into consultants.

During an interview last month, the fathers looked relaxed in shirtsleeves, whereas the sons wore suit coats. "Me and Hari don't have to worry about the company," Dilip Desai said. "We can go to sleep and go on vacation."

Malay Thakkar describes the six as "friends first and businessmen second." Malay and Neel, for instance, played soccer and football together as boys and roomed together for a year and a half when Malay was finishing his MBA at George Washington University in Washington and Neel attended George Mason in Fairfax County.

The partners all live in Virginia Beach. Malay Thakkar estimates they get together socially six to 10 times a month with relatives and friends. "Like in any family, some discussions get heated, and we enjoy a good debate, but we leave that in the office," he said.

"It's two families," his father added, "but it's really one family." Hari Thakkar also said they consider their 1,200 employees as family. One partner tries to visit each property monthly.

"If our assistants are happy and satisfied, obviously they're going to treat the guests better," Malay Thakkar said. "Everyone wins, and the guests will come back."

Shelley Smith, executive vice president at LTD, said: "It's on a first-name basis. They know people's kids and grandkids. They know if somebody is sick; they know if somebody has a death in the family."

The partners, she said, attend midlevel managers' meetings and luncheons, but they also "trust myself and the other vice presidents and directors and general managers to run the business. They're not overbearing or micromanaging."

Their generosity, supporters say, extends beyond the LTD network. Hayes, the Chesapeake councilman, recalled LTD stepping up immediately to house families after Hurricane Katrina in 2005 - more than 25 altogether.

Sarkar recalled the attentiveness of the fathers when he had open heart surgery six years ago.

"Within hours, both of them were at my bedside," he said. "Every day, they came to my hospital and then to my home. They were there all the time."