64 | NICK BETTANY WORDS | Geoff Hadwick
THE LAST WORD The giant awakes
The Hideaways Club started quietly and has taken its time establishing a fund designed to acquire 100 high-end, luxury properties scattered around the world’s most desirable places to be. But now, with a new, young and dynamic boss in place, the company is moving on. The fi rst “classic” fund is being joined by a second “city centre” fund and there are already plans in place for fund number three. What drives CEO Nick Bettany and why does he want to shake things up? Top people talk to OPP.
meeting him, “what on earth do I do with my time?” One of life’s natural over-achievers, Bettany clearly seems to have more hours in the day that the rest of us. And, as the recently appointed chief executive of The Hideaways Club, he is using those hours well.
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Not only has he got ambitious plans to push the Hideaways concept into more properties, new territories and new funds, he also has homes in London, the Channel Islands and Portugal to look after; a working vineyard in the Loire Valley to keep an eye on; a directorship to manage with the Banyan Tree Seychelles hotel group; a role as fi nancial advisor to Azura Hotels to maintain (Azura is a hospitality management company
ick Bettany is one of those people who make you think, as you plod home from
based in East Africa and the Indian Ocean); a seat on the board of Rentim Investments to juggle (Rentim is a Jersey-based private equity fund that invests across a wide range of sectors including UK commercial and residential property, electric cars and the high-tech business); an ongoing interest in Clink Renaissance Property Ltd to develop (Clink is a real estate developer based in the Portuguese capital Lisbon that refurbishes luxury city centre apartments); a leading role to play in opening up a business that is going to concentrate on developing new residential care homes for the elderly; and a full commercial pilot’s licence to run (which means a certain number of hours at the controls in the cockpit each year).
And as if to make sure even the family side of things is growing just as fast as the business side of things, when
OPP met Bettany in early Spring his wife was due to give birth to twin boys any day now. Oh yes, and by the way, the 24-hectare vineyard in the Loire Valley produces gold-medal winning Cremant ( a sparkling white wine) as well as Cabernet Franc red wine. How on earth does he juggle all this? ”Don’t know, to be honest,” he says, with a disarming smile. “I guess something is going to have to give a bit when the children appear.” But then he is used to a busy schedule.
“I have lots of good people around me to help me juggle things,” he says. “I’m lucky … they are a very, very competent team.” He goes out to Jersey about once a month for a site team meeting on the residential care home his company is developing and he lets the wine experts manage the farm. He studied the art of delegating well during a spell at the Paris-based management
school INSEAD, one of the world’s best MBA centres.
“INSEAD was more about learning the soft skills for me,” Bettany tells OPP. “I understand the business motivators and the money side of things well, but I wanted to learn the techniques of leading people and how to create a company culture. I can look around me here at Hideaways and see that with fast expansion comes growing pains. Good managers need to know how to spot the problems and deal with them quickly.”
He opted for nearly a year in Singapore as part of his MBA at INSEAD. Why? “I wanted to understand the way business is done out there. I liked their positive attitude to everything. It was a good place to hone my technical skills too.” The course also gave him a world view. INSEAD is unusually multi-cultural and, he says,
Membership: how does it work in reality?
Hideaways grew its membership numbers by 60% last year and is pushing hard to get its number one fund up to the maximum ownership level of 100 properties worldwide. This first, “classic fund” is aimed at wealthy families and seeks out 4 to 5
bedroom luxury properties in prime vacation slots. The second “city centre” fund, launched this year, is targeting young and
busy professionals who want shorter city break options. A third fund is planned which will be aligned to a theme such as skiing or
a defined geographical area. “We will canvass our members and make sure we research the right idea thoroughly,” says Bettany. How does it work? Members buy a share in the fund and then own a
proportion of entire property portfolio. They can then stay at any one of the 100 sites worldwide. When they want to leave, the club facilitates the selling of the member’s share and gives 80% of the capital upside between the share entry price and the exit sale price back to the member who is leaving. Investors also pay an annual property maintenance fee dependent on their level of membership.
Variety | is the spice of life with very diff erent off erings in a range of nice places
www.opp.org.uk | JUNE 2011
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