INVESTMENT
Philosophy
Our investment philosophy is to combine:
- Macro thematic in key growth regions
- A focus on investing into selective localities in major cities
- Early identification of the investment potential of a project
- An intimate knowledge of market through industry participants
- Our knowledge and experience in the target market
- Our ability to work collaboratively with local companies to grow their value, leveraging our experience, expertise and networks
Objective
We invest in companies with quality projects that have strong potential for superior returns and work collaboratively with investee companies to grow their value and realize their potential.
Our future growth will be also be accelerated through assets where the intrinsic value is unrecognized, underappreciated or overlooked and where we can lead the strategic development of these assets to their full potential.
We add value by:
- Providing strategic input and expert support to the business
- Participating on the Board of the investee company
- Assist in lifting the profile and market’s view of the investee company
- Introducing and coordinating strategic, financial or joint venture partners
- Coordinating funding for project development and capital expenditure
- Providing access to networks and relationships within target markets
- If required, providing, or sourcing, management or staff to support the investee company
Restrictions
We aim to achieve geographic diversification for the portfolio of hotels and will only invest in countries where the risks are considered acceptable or manageable.
Given the extensive global experience of our team, we are able to effectively evaluate country risks and the prospect of successful investments in a particular country.
Project Selection
We will review investment opportunities where the macro outlook for the project is strong, the quality of the project is high and there is the strong potential for superior returns. Given our specialist expertise and experience, we are well placed to evaluate and capitalize on a wide range of opportunities.
When will we invest?
We will invest in a diversified range of projects including projects in the development stage as well as early design stage. Early stage projects will need to provide higher growth potential and we seek to mitigate risks by leveraging the experience and expertise of our team and other measures referred to under “risk management” below
Risk Management
We mitigate investment risks through a series of measures including:
- Implementing astringent and documented investment process
- Performing thorough technical, financial, commercial, legal due diligence on all potential investments.
- Investing only in companies or projects whose management has either a proven track record in, or strong potential for, successful development, operations and management of hotels
- Developing a credible strategy to maximize the growth potential of the investments and the realization of that potential
- Implementing a diversified portfolio strategy within the market
- Participating on the Board of investee companies
- Investing in companies or projects where management interests are aligned to shareholders.
- Employing resources professionals who specialize in specific areas and geographies and are able to effectively evaluate technical, infrastructure, country and management risks
- Appointing experienced independent executives to manage the projects
- Setting concentration limits in connection with any single investment in given region, country or city.
Due Diligence
One of our core strengths is our expertise and experience in performing thorough and comprehensive due diligence on projects across many regions in the world and in particular Africa.
The areas covered by our due diligence include:
- Technical – New Build
- Commercial
- Environmental
- Social and community relations
- Financial and taxation
- Management of investee project company including corporate governance