Asset
Management
Owning a property is not the same as running it. Sarego Group supports owners of hotel real estate in Austria, Switzerland and Germany as well as in the Alps and the Mediterranean through day-to-day operations. Budget, key figures and the decision when a property needs repositioning.
What this is about: Service 06
The loss of value in a hotel almost never comes at once, it draws out over years.
Whoever leases a property or has it managed hands over the business and keeps the responsibility for the value. Asset management means checking budgets before they are adopted, reading monthly reports before the annual figures arrive, and raising deviations while they are still small. This work is unspectacular and decides what is left at the sale, because a report that explains last year in April is a record and is of no use for steering.
The other half is investment planning, in the trade called capex. Rooms, plant and the building envelope age to a pattern that can be planned, so that bundled renewals placed in weak months cost less and displace less turnover. Where a renewal is deferred instead, the owner pays both twice over, at the latest when a buyer deducts the maintenance backlog from the price. The order follows condition and season and not the remainder of the budget. At the end stands a list with year, amount and trigger that any owner can read.
How we proceed: 01 bis 04
Reporting
Monthly and quarterly reports to a single scheme. What is not reported cannot be steered. A fixed format beats a long free text.
Budget and key figures
Annual budget, occupancy, room rate, GOP, that is the gross operating profit before lease, and lease cover, meaning the ratio of result to lease. Deviations are discussed, not filed.
Capex planning
Multi-year plan for rooms, plant and envelope, coordinated with operator, season and financing. Whatever is deferred gets a date and an amount.
Repositioning
Category, target guests, brand, occasionally the operator. When a property stays below what it could be.
For whom: Client groups
Owners, family offices and funds holding one property or several and not present in the operation themselves. Occasionally also banks that have to put a repossessed property in order before it is sold.
- Leased properties with thin reporting.
- Holdings with deferred investment needs.
- Properties before a change of operator or before a sale.
Questions: Three questions
- Do you take over the operation?
- No. The operator runs the business. We represent the ownership side: we check budgets, read the reports, negotiate with the operator and prepare decisions. Keeping the roles apart is the point of the exercise. That way the operator stays responsible for the business and we for the value.
- From what size is this worthwhile?
- As soon as you are no longer in the property every week. For a leased asset a quarterly rhythm with an annual budget round is often enough; with several properties or a management agreement it becomes an ongoing task. What counts is less the number of rooms than the question of who else is looking.
- What if the operator does not play along?
- Then it shows what the contract says. Reporting duties, budget approval and maintenance obligations are negotiable before signing, and hardly afterwards. With existing contracts we look for the way through conversation, otherwise through the next extension.
