Blackstone Group LP announced today that it has lured Christopher Nassetta, the chief executive of a lodging-industry rival, to lead recently acquired Hilton Hotels Corp. as it pursues an ambitious growth strategy and plans to boost the hotelier’s standing in the luxury market, the Wall Street Journal reports.

Mr. Nassetta, 45 years old, will leave his position as chief executive of Host Hotels & Resorts Inc., the nation’s largest publicly traded hotel owner, and become president and chief executive of Hilton, after a four-to-six-week transition period.

In plucking Mr. Nassetta from Host, Hilton gets a manager with a strong track record in real estate, hotel ownership, and finance as Hilton is rapidly expanding. Some 40,000 hotel rooms under construction in the U.S. alone will eventually carry a Hilton flag and an additional 57,000 rooms are in the development phase.

The announcement, which comes less than a week after Blackstone finalized its $20 billion acquisition of Los Angeles-based Hilton, quells doubts about the private-equity giant’s vow to keep Hilton’s assets in tact. That contrasts with some of Blackstone’s recent, large real-estate acquisitions — particularly the $23 billion Equity Office Properties Trust purchase in February — in which most of the company’s assets were quickly carved up and sold.

“If they were planning to break this thing up, I wouldn’t be sitting here,” Mr. Nassetta said Friday in the Park Avenue office of Jonathan Gray, senior managing director of Blackstone.

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