Hotel Vertu: Financing the Venture in the Boutique Hotel Industry

Two recent MBA graduates are considering a business opportunity in the boutique hotel industry. Having found a seemingly attractive property in Savannah, Georgia, Yvonne D'Arcy and Elisabeth Whiting face questions about financing, deal structure, and unequal power dynamics. This case covers opportunity analysis, financing and deal structuring, and partnership issues. Students are asked to assess the overall financial returns on the project and how those returns should be parsed between investors and owners. Students also examine how the deal with investors should be structured. Exhibits include a Letter of Agreement between the founders, the hotel's historical performance data, the project budget, financial forecasts, and cash flow and return projections. The HBS Brief Case series contains two cases on Hotel Vertu. Both cases are set within the same disguised context but take place two months apart. The earlier case, “Hotel Vertu: Analyzing the Opportunity in the Boutique Hotel Industry” (917-501) overlaps with this case but focuses more on the nature of the opportunity itself, an industry analysis of the boutique hotel segment, and issues related to early career entrepreneurship, while merely hinting at the power dynamic between investors and entrepreneurs. Although each case can be taught on its own (i.e., students do not require data or knowledge from one case in order to benefit fully from the other), the two can be paired in order to give students a more complete sense of the challenges that aspiring entrepreneurs may face. If both cases are taught, it is recommended that instructors begin with “Hotel Vertu: Analyzing the Opportunity in the Boutique Hotel Industry.”