Colony Capital reports $3.2 billion defaults on portfolio loans

May 8 (Reuters) - Real estate and investment firm Colony Capital Inc said on Friday its portfolio companies had defaulted on $3.2 billion of debt secured by hotels and healthcare-related properties.
   Colony Capital has received a "notice of acceleration" covering $780 million of the defaulted debt, it said in a regulatory filing
   The firm also suspended its common dividend for the second quarter of 2020 and said it is prudent to conserve cash during a period of uncertainty brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic.
   Earlier this year, Colony Capital reached a settlement with Blackwells, handing the activist investor a fourth board seat and creating a new vehicle to buy Colony's stock on the open market.
   Blackwells and Colony last year decided to give Blackwells two board seats and jointly agree on a third director later.
   Blackwells has kept up the pressure on Colony since then, however, and in November called for Tom Barrack, a billionaire friend of U.S. President Donald Trump, to step down as CEO of Colony.
   Barrack had planned to leave the post in 2021 but will now leave sooner. Since Blackwells became involved with Colony, the company has cut costs, sold its industrial segment to Blackstone Group and pushed Kevin Traenkle to step down as chief investment officer in February.

(Reporting by Abhishek Manikandan in Bengaluru; Editing by Maju
Samuel)
((abhishek.manikandan@thomsonreuters.com; (within U.S.+1 646
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