Operator Selection & Management Agreements
The management agreement you sign shapes twenty years of cash flow and your exit value. We run operator selection and negotiate the agreement from the owner’s side of the table.
How does a clause signed today shape the next twenty years?
One clause through time · illustrative
- Year 0
The agreement is signed. Performance tests and termination rights are drafted when everyone is optimistic.
- Year 3
Results diverge from the plan. Whether that is measurable, and against what, was decided in year 0.
- Year 7
The owner wants an operational change. Who may decide it was decided in year 0.
- Year 12
A repositioning is on the table. What the agreement permits shapes what can be built.
- Exit
The buyer underwrites the agreement as much as the building. It is priced into the offer.
A management agreement is not paperwork around the asset. It becomes part of the economics of the asset.
NMBR Timeline no. 01 · An agreement
| 01 | The term | Length, renewals, and how hard it is to leave. |
|---|---|---|
| 02 | Fees | Base, incentive, and everything called something else. |
| 03 | Control | Budgets, standards, staffing: who really decides. |
| 04 | Performance tests | What underperformance means, and what the owner can do about it. |
| 05 | Exit | The agreement follows the asset into every future sale negotiation. |
The management agreement is an asset document, not an operations document.
Brands and management companies are professional counterparties: they negotiate these agreements every month, with playbooks refined over decades. Most owners negotiate one or two in a lifetime. That asymmetry is expensive, and it hides in clauses that look technical: fees and their bases, performance tests, termination rights, key money, capital reserve obligations, area protections.
Having stood on both sides, operating hotels and representing owners, we know which operator promises are real, which terms are actually movable and what each concession is worth. The goal is not war with the operator; it is an agreement both sides can perform, that still belongs to the owner.
What this work covers
- Operating model strategy: management, franchise, lease or independent
- Operator search, shortlisting and structured selection
- HMA and franchise negotiation support with owner-side benchmarks
- Key money, performance tests and termination mechanics
- Ongoing owner-operator relationship management
Pre-Opening & Operations
The final months before opening decide the first years of operation. We build the pre-opening machine: budget, team, systems and standards, then stay until the hotel runs the way it was planned.
Asset Performance & Repositioning
For operating hotels: we find the margin hiding in the building, the operation and the agreement, and prepare assets for their next chapter, refinancing, repositioning or sale.