Position title

Fractional Finance Director - European Hybrid Hotel Group

Description

Location - Remote / hybrid UK — within around two hours of London
Engagement - Fractional, three days per week for the first four to six weeks, settling to two days
Sector - Hospitality, hotels and property development
Reporting to - Chief Executive Officer
Day rate -£900 – £1,200 per day, depending on experience
Start - Immediate
Duration - Ongoing, long-term engagement

The business

FD Capital is working with a European hybrid hotel group that has grown from launch to five properties in three years and is now heading for ten. The concept sits between the budget hotel and the traditional hostel — well-designed private rooms, family rooms and pod accommodation alongside genuinely social ground-floor space — and targets the ultra-affordable segment in expensive gateway cities. The group is now among the leading operators of its kind in Europe.

The model is distinctive because the group buys, develops and operates. Rather than taking leases, it acquires non-prime office buildings in city centres and converts them, which gives it control of design and standards but makes it a property development business as much as a hospitality one. Current locations are in London, Edinburgh, Liverpool, Newcastle and Paris, with two UK openings scheduled over the next seven months and a large Paris conversion running as a multi-year capital project. A sixth site is under review.

The group is backed by an established European private investment firm.

Responsibilities

Why the role exists

The Chief Executive is a chartered accountant and has carried the finance brief personally since launch. That is no longer sustainable. Below him sits a capable Finance Manager operating at Financial Controller level, supported by an accountant and a part-time accounts assistant, with payroll outsourced and statutory accounts and audit handled externally. The day-to-day works well. What is missing is the layer above it.

Two things make this urgent. The group is approaching lenders on both sides of the Channel over the coming months for a debt raise of roughly £100 million in total, split between the Paris project and the UK assets. And the conversion programme means very substantial capital expenditure running in parallel across multiple sites. Both need senior finance ownership now, not after the fact.

What you will do

Debt raise and covenant discipline

Support the group and its appointed debt advisors through lender processes in the UK and France, with the French facility at heads of terms stage
Build and own the financial model that shows how the group performs against covenants as assets open and trade, so that headroom is visible well before it becomes a problem
Establish the reporting rhythm that new external lenders will require from drawdown onwards

Capital expenditure control

Own financial oversight of a substantial multi-site conversion and refurbishment programme, including a Paris scheme running over roughly two and a half years
Provide genuine challenge on cost to complete, capitalisation and phasing, working alongside an experienced Construction Director
Bring the discipline needed where capital spend, rather than trading performance, is the dominant financial risk

Investor and group reporting

Take ownership of reporting to the private equity backer, which is detailed and not light touch
Work with advisors on a group structure with genuine tax complexity across multiple jurisdictions

Building the finance function

Mentor and develop the Finance Manager so the function grows with the business, rather than being outgrown by it
Assess what the team will need as the portfolio doubles and plan for it

Senior management contribution

Sit as the finance voice on a small senior team alongside the Chief Executive and the Construction, Sales and Operations Directors
Contribute beyond finance — this is a lean management group and the Chief Executive is looking for someone he can genuinely think out loud with

Qualifications

Who this suits

The strongest fit is someone who has been the senior finance figure in a scaling business that was building or refurbishing property, and who has raised and then lived with real debt.

Essential

Qualified accountant (ACA, ACCA or CIMA)
Finance Director or CFO level experience in a growing, multi-site business
Hands-on property, development or refurbishment capital expenditure experience — commercial conversions, fit-out programmes, cost to complete and contractor payment mechanics
Debt experience on both sides: raising facilities, then modelling and managing covenants once drawn
Comfortable reporting to an institutional investor
The seniority and personal authority to challenge experienced operational colleagues constructively
Available two to three days per week and able to start now

Desirable

Hotel, hospitality or leisure sector experience — welcome, but genuinely not a requirement
Cross-border experience, particularly France or Ireland
Experience mentoring and developing a Financial Controller or Finance Manager
Previous fractional or portfolio work

Job Benefits

How the engagement works

Expect around three days per week for the first month to six weeks while you get across the business, mentor the finance team and prepare for the lender processes, settling to a steady two days per week thereafter. The group works remotely and virtually by default, with the senior team spread across several countries, so location is flexible — but you should be able to reach London within about two hours for quarterly management meetings and occasional site visits.

This is intended as a long-term relationship rather than a project. Most of FD Capital's fractional Finance Director engagements run for two years or more, and there is clear scope here for the commitment to increase as the portfolio doubles.

Contacts

About FD Capital

FD Capital places Finance Directors and CFOs with UK and international businesses on a fractional, part-time, interim and permanent basis. We have been operating since 2018 and every senior mandate is led personally by Adrian Lawrence FCA, founder and Fellow of the ICAEW.

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