Assets, debt, private capital and independent sponsors: why the next stage of Italian hospitality will not be driven by real estate alone

Dossier — August 2026. Analysis based exclusively on publicly available information.

1. The point is not Stifel. The point is the model.

To understand how the Italian hotel investment market may evolve, it is necessary, at least for a moment, to stop looking only at hotels.

The real question is the financial infrastructure that makes an investment transaction possible.

A hotel may be a real estate asset. But at the same time it can also be an operating company, a cash-flow stream, a borrower, collateral, an operating platform, a management agreement, an equity-raising vehicle or a business requiring restructuring.

Once a transaction becomes sufficiently complex, the relevant question is no longer simply:

How much is this hotel worth?

It becomes:

What structure allows this asset to generate the highest sustainable value for owners, operators, lenders and investors?

A growing share of modern hotel finance exists precisely in the space between these two questions.

And this is where Stifel Institutional becomes relevant.

Not because it represents a model that can simply be replicated in Italy.

Not because hospitality is at the centre of Stifel’s business.

But because it makes visible a professional category that remains fragmented in the Italian market:

asset advisory + capital structure + private capital + execution.

Stifel does not provide a formula to copy.

It provides something more valuable:

Evidence that this professional category exists.

The underlying argument is not new.

In “Merchant banking at the service of the Italian hotel industry”, I argued that the sector needed to move beyond a model built almost exclusively around real estate collateral and bank lending.

The same thesis was subsequently developed in “From ownership to performance: the role of merchant banking in the transformation of Italian hotels”: a hotel does not become investable merely because the underlying property has value. It becomes investable when there is a credible relationship between asset, performance, capital and transformation potential.

Stifel provides a useful example of how this principle can become financial infrastructure.

2. What Stifel Institutional actually is

Stifel Institutional is the institutional platform of Stifel Financial Corp., the US financial services group listed on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker SF.

Its Investment Banking division reports more than 700 bankers and is organised around sector verticals and product capabilities.

Among those verticals is Real Estate, Gaming & Leisure, which includes lodging and hospitality.

Its product capabilities include:

  • Debt Capital Markets;

  • Equity Capital Markets;

  • Financial Sponsors Coverage;

  • Private Capital Advisory;

  • M&A;

  • Capital Structure Advisory.

This structure allows the same hotel asset to be viewed through very different lenses.

A hotel may be:

a property,
an operating business,
a borrower,
an M&A target,
a private capital opportunity,
an aggregation platform,
a restructuring situation.

Value therefore does not depend on one discipline alone.

It depends on the ability to connect them.

3. Building the platform: acquiring capabilities, not just people

A significant part of Stifel’s growth has come through the acquisition of specialist boutiques and platforms with established franchises and track records.

Over time, the group has incorporated firms including:

  • Keefe, Bruyette & Woods;

  • Eaton Partners;

  • Miller Buckfire;

  • Thomas Weisel Partners;

  • Bryan, Garnier & Co.

The industrial logic is particularly interesting.

Instead of building a generalist institution and gradually adding new desks, the model can involve acquiring specialist capabilities already recognised by the market, together with relationships, execution expertise and transaction history, and then connecting them to a broader distribution platform.

For hospitality, this translates into three main layers:

  1. asset and corporate advisory;

  2. capital structure and debt;

  3. access to capital.

It is the integration of these three layers that deserves attention.

4. Real Estate, Gaming & Leisure: a hotel is more than real estate

Stifel’s Real Estate, Gaming & Leisure Group operates across real estate, gaming, lodging and leisure.

The inclusion of lodging alongside businesses such as gaming, resorts, cruises, entertainment and other capital-intensive industries is not insignificant.

These sectors share a number of characteristics:

  • high upfront investment requirements;

  • a significant real estate component;

  • substantial fixed costs;

  • operating leverage;

  • dependence on monetising physical space;

  • exposure to economic cycles;

  • the need for continuous reinvestment in the product.

This framework helps move beyond one of the most persistent simplifications in hospitality:

A hotel is not merely the building that contains it.

A property can have excellent underlying real estate value and an inadequate operating model.

It can produce a respectable GOP while being overwhelmed by debt.

It can generate sound operating results but still require capital expenditure that cannot be funded through internally generated cash.

It can have both a strong asset and competent management, yet remain constrained by an ownership structure unable to finance its next stage of development.

Value is created through the interaction of all these elements.

This is also the analytical territory covered by RobertoNecci.it, InvestimentiAlberghieri.it and Investhotel.

5. Capital Structure Advisory: when the liability side becomes the problem

Even more relevant is the Capital Structure Advisory Group, historically associated with Miller Buckfire.

At this point, the question changes completely.

The issue is no longer simply how to acquire, sell or enhance an asset.

The question becomes:

What happens when the financial structure itself is no longer sustainable?

The practice operates across:

  • restructuring;

  • liability management;

  • capital solutions;

  • distressed situations;

  • company-side advisory;

  • creditor-side advisory;

  • in-court and out-of-court transactions.

The most important conceptual shift concerns the role of creditors.

In more developed capital markets, financial advisory does not work solely for the company undergoing restructuring.

It can also advise:

  • banks;

  • bondholders;

  • secured lenders;

  • credit funds;

  • creditor committees;

  • investors that have acquired distressed exposures.

This distinction is particularly important in hospitality.

A problematic loan secured by a hotel cannot be analysed only through the nominal value of the exposure or the appraised value of the property.

The real question is:

What could that hotel be worth after an industrial, operational and financial restructuring?

The value of the debt and the industrial value of the asset are not necessarily the same.

And it is precisely within the gap between these two values that turnaround opportunities can emerge.

6. Selina: when finance meets the limits of the operating model

The case of Selina Hospitality is one of the most instructive examples.

In January 2024, Stifel’s Capital Structure Advisory transaction history included an approximately $300 million mandate for Selina Hospitality PLC relating to an out-of-court restructuring and convertible notes.

Selina was a hospitality operator built around an asset-light model, with hotels, hostels and lifestyle properties across multiple countries.

The central challenge was therefore not the ownership of a large real estate portfolio.

It was the financial sustainability of a rapidly expanded operating platform.

6.1 From growth to restructuring

Founded in 2014, Selina developed an offering aimed primarily at Millennials and Generation Z, combining accommodation, coworking, wellness and local experiences.

In October 2022, it listed on Nasdaq through a business combination with BOA Acquisition Corp.

The transaction implied a valuation of approximately $1.2 billion for the combined entity.

In 2023, Selina appointed Miller Buckfire, part of Stifel, to advise on strategic alternatives and liability management, including the restructuring of its convertible senior notes.

A broader restructuring and financing transaction was completed in January 2024.

But the capital structure was not the company’s only problem.

And this is precisely where the Selina case becomes particularly relevant for anyone analysing hotel businesses.

7. The paradox: improving operating metrics, deteriorating liquidity

Selina continued to report portfolio rationalisation measures and improvements in several operating indicators.

Underperforming properties were being closed.

Unit-level margins were improving.

Occupancy was rising.

Management was reducing losses across individual locations.

And yet the company remained under severe financial pressure.

On 15 July 2024, it failed to pay approximately $455,000 of interest related to a facility provided by IDB Invest.

The missed payment triggered an event of default and created the possibility of accelerating more than $44 million of outstanding principal.

But it would be overly simplistic to say that a $455,000 missed interest payment caused the collapse of a company previously valued at more than $1 billion.

The missed payment was instead the point at which an already severe liquidity crisis became incompatible with normal continuation of the business.

On 22 July 2024, the board stated that it no longer believed there was a reasonable prospect of avoiding insolvency, and joint administrators were appointed.

Financial engineering had bought time.

The operating model had not generated enough cash to make that time sufficient.

8. First lesson from Selina: liability management buys time, not profitability

A financial restructuring can:

  • extend maturities;

  • reduce or modify the cost of debt;

  • convert liabilities;

  • inject new liquidity;

  • alter guarantees and priority;

  • temporarily prevent a default.

But it cannot replace the ability of a business to generate cash.

When an operating business consumes liquidity faster than its financial structure can replenish it, liability management primarily buys time.

And time creates value only if it is used to change the economics of the underlying business.

This is a fundamental lesson for the Italian hotel UTP market as well.

Rescheduling the debt of a hotel does not mean the hotel has been restructured.

One must first demonstrate that, once correctly repositioned, the property can generate cash flow compatible with the new financial structure.

9. Second lesson: asset-light does not mean capital-light

During the years of rapid international hospitality expansion, asset-light models were frequently associated with lower capital requirements.

That equation is incomplete.

An operator that does not own the underlying properties certainly avoids tying up vast amounts of capital in real estate.

But it still assumes significant economic obligations:

  • rent;

  • payroll;

  • marketing;

  • corporate overhead;

  • technology systems;

  • pre-opening expenses;

  • working capital;

  • interest;

  • guarantees;

  • contractual investment obligations.

Asset-light reduces the amount of capital invested in property ownership.

It does not eliminate the capital requirements of the operating business.

And in a downside scenario it can create an additional weakness: a lack of recoverable hard assets.

This is why the separation between PropCo and OpCo must be analysed more carefully.

The question is not whether an asset-light or asset-heavy model is inherently superior.

The real question is:

Where is the capital, who bears the risk, and which entity retains value when conditions become adverse?

10. Third lesson: the unit-level profit trap

A hotel can report positive operating results while belonging to a company that is unable to generate cash.

There is no contradiction.

The two metrics simply refer to different economic perimeters.

A positive result at property level may come before:

  • corporate overhead;

  • interest expense;

  • central functions;

  • investment requirements;

  • working capital;

  • certain lease obligations;

  • taxation.

The KPI itself may be entirely correct.

What can be wrong is the conclusion built around it.

A technically correct indicator measured over the wrong perimeter can create a misleading narrative without a single number being false.

This is one of the most important principles in hotel valuation.

One can look at GOP without understanding cash flow.

One can examine OpCo EBITDA while ignoring contractual liabilities.

One can value the real estate without asking what sustainable income it can actually produce.

Hotel finance begins when the analyst reconstructs the entire chain of cash creation and cash absorption.

11. Eaton Partners: organising capital

If Selina illustrates the limits of financial engineering on its own, Eaton Partners represents the other side of the equation:

How capital can be organised around a transaction.

Founded in 1983 and part of Stifel since 2016, Eaton Partners reports more than $140 billion of institutional capital raised across more than 190 funds and alternative offerings, supported by a network of more than 4,500 institutional investors.

The platform operates across private equity, private credit, real assets, real estate and other alternative strategies.

For the Italian hotel market, however, the most relevant element is its Direct Equity capability.

12. Funded and fundless sponsors: the critical distinction

Eaton Partners states that it raises capital on a transaction-by-transaction basis for both:

Funded and fundless sponsors.

This distinction is strategically important.

It means that access to institutional capital does not necessarily require a sponsor to have already raised a multi-hundred-million-dollar blind-pool fund.

A sponsor may instead:

  1. identify the transaction;

  2. structure it;

  3. prepare the business plan;

  4. negotiate the acquisition;

  5. organise governance and management;

  6. raise the required equity;

  7. oversee value creation.

This is the independent sponsor model.

Eaton typically references equity raises in the $25 million to $250 million range, with the possibility of larger transactions in certain circumstances.

The principle fundamentally changes the perspective.

You do not necessarily need to own the fund.

You need to own the opportunity.

13. The transaction comes before the capital

In the Italian market one often hears:

“First we find the investors, then we look for the hotels.”

Institutional capital usually asks a different question:

What exactly am I being asked to finance?

There needs to be:

  • an identified asset;

  • a price;

  • a business plan;

  • a corporate structure;

  • a management team;

  • a defined capital requirement;

  • a downside case;

  • an expected return;

  • a governance framework;

  • an exit strategy.

Only then can an investor assess whether the risk is acceptable.

This leads to an apparently paradoxical conclusion:

International capital is not necessarily scarce.

What is often scarce are Italian transactions presented in a format that international capital can properly underwrite.

14. From advisory to independent sponsorship

At this point, the discussion moves beyond Stifel and becomes a question about the evolution of hotel advisory itself.

A traditional consultant is paid to:

  • analyse;

  • value;

  • prepare a business plan;

  • find a buyer;

  • identify an operator;

  • restructure a business.

The next stage is to become one of the parties that builds the transaction itself.

This does not necessarily mean becoming a fund.

It means developing functions that are typically associated with sponsors:

  • origination;

  • underwriting;

  • structuring;

  • management selection;

  • aggregation;

  • investor relations;

  • execution oversight;

  • value creation;

  • exit management.

This is precisely the boundary between hotel advisory and hotel merchant banking.

In the first article dedicated to merchant banking applied to Italian hospitality, the core issue was identified as the need to move beyond dependence on real estate value and bank financing alone.

In the subsequent analysis, “From ownership to performance”, the thesis was developed further: capital should be used to transform an asset and increase its ability to generate income.

Independent sponsorship represents a possible operational evolution of that thesis.

15. Italy does not lack assets. It often lacks structure.

Italy has:

  • thousands of independent hotels;

  • family-owned properties;

  • unresolved generational transitions;

  • buildings requiring repositioning;

  • closed hotels;

  • undercapitalised businesses;

  • UTP exposures;

  • assets in judicial or restructuring procedures;

  • fragmented portfolios;

  • operators requiring scale;

  • destinations where potential value significantly exceeds current performance.

The raw material is not missing.

What is often missing is the conversion of an opportunity into a financially intelligible investment product.

A problematic hotel can simultaneously be:

  • too operational for a pure real estate investor;

  • too real-estate-heavy for a corporate investor;

  • too small for certain institutional platforms;

  • too leveraged for a traditional hotel buyer;

  • too specialised for a credit manager to assess its operational upside independently.

It is within this intermediate space that significant value can be created.

16. Italy’s real gap: connecting asset, credit and capital

The expertise exists in Italy.

The problem is often fragmentation.

On one side there is the asset.

On another, the debt.

Then there is equity capital.

Beyond that there are hotel operations, revenue management, turnaround, development, real estate, taxation, law and M&A.

But in complex transactions, value does not arise from the mechanical addition of these disciplines.

It arises from the ability to coordinate them.

Asset + performance + debt + capital + governance.

That is the bridge.

And it is the professional category the Italian market has yet to fully institutionalise.

17. Stifel in Italy: the presence exists. The real question is specialisation.

Stifel is present in Italy through Stifel Europe Bank AG – Milan Branch.

It would therefore be incorrect to describe the group as absent from the Italian market.

The more relevant question is:

How much of the group’s international expertise in lodging, capital structure and private capital is actually deployed in Italian hospitality?

Based on publicly available information, there is not sufficient evidence to describe Stifel as having a significant and continuous track record in Italian hospitality.

The distinction matters.

Institutional presence is one thing.

A specialised local practice focused on hotel capital structuring is another.

And it is particularly in this second area that substantial room for development remains.

18. Hotel merchant banking can become a distinct professional category

The Italian hotel industry will increasingly encounter situations requiring a combination of:

debt restructuring + new capital + management change + capex + repositioning + governance.

In these situations, one is not simply selling a hotel.

One is rebuilding an investment.

This is where merchant banking applied to hospitality can develop its own professional identity.

Not as a bank.

Not as a fund.

Not as a property intermediary.

Not as a traditional consultant.

But as a party capable of:

  1. originating opportunities;

  2. analysing them;

  3. structuring transactions;

  4. determining value;

  5. organising equity and debt;

  6. selecting management;

  7. designing governance;

  8. overseeing execution;

  9. participating in value creation;

  10. preparing the exit.

The distinction is fundamental.

The consultant describes the transaction.

The sponsor helps build it.

19. The document that opens the door to capital

The transition towards this model does not necessarily begin with the creation of a fund.

It begins with the ability to present a transaction according to institutional standards.

An investment memorandum must make immediately clear:

  • the asset and market;

  • normalised performance;

  • corporate and financial structure;

  • transformation strategy;

  • equity and debt requirements;

  • management and governance;

  • expected returns;

  • downside scenario;

  • exit.

At that point, a hotel stops being merely a property available for sale.

It becomes:

An investable opportunity.

And that is the language institutional capital understands.

20. From content to origination

There is one final step.

Systematically analysing:

  • auctions;

  • judicial procedures;

  • NPLs and UTPs;

  • closed hotels;

  • conversions;

  • generational transitions;

  • transactions;

  • corporate distress;

  • new investors;

  • consolidation;

  • changes of use;

is not merely editorial work.

It can become origination.

This is the principle behind InvestimentiAlberghieri.it: systematically observing the market in order to identify situations where value can be created, recovered or transferred.

Investhotel focuses more directly on turnaround situations, special situations and the relationship between capital and hotel assets.

RobertoNecci.it provides the analytical, methodological and thought-leadership layer.

The sequence is straightforward:

Information → analysis → origination → transaction → capital.

When these steps belong to the same professional infrastructure, content stops being merely communication.

It becomes deal flow.

21. What Stifel teaches the Italian hotel industry

The real question is not whether Stifel will become a major player in Italian hospitality.

The more useful question is:

What does the existence of a platform such as Stifel demonstrate?

It demonstrates that, once a market reaches a sufficient degree of maturity, capital intermediation becomes an industrial specialisation in its own right.

Capital is not simply “found”.

It is:

  • structured;

  • segmented;

  • negotiated;

  • placed;

  • protected;

  • restructured;

  • remunerated;

  • managed through to exit.

And the hotel is no longer merely the object of the transaction.

It becomes the economic underlying around which the following are organised:

real estate, operating business, debt, equity and governance.

22. From the hotel to the transaction

For decades, the dominant question in the Italian hotel market has been:

How much is this hotel worth?

The question asked by contemporary capital is different:

What structure allows this hotel to generate the maximum sustainable value?

Between these two questions lies an entire industry.

It exists at the intersection of:

  • real estate;

  • corporate finance;

  • restructuring;

  • asset management;

  • private capital;

  • hotel management.

And it is probably one of the areas with the greatest professional potential still to be developed within Italian hospitality.

Stifel Institutional demonstrates that this category exists.

Eaton Partners adds a second crucial insight:

You do not always need to own the fund. You need to own the opportunity.

The Selina case completes the picture:

No degree of financial sophistication can indefinitely substitute for the ability to generate cash.

Assets.

Performance.

Debt.

Capital.

Governance.

They are not separate disciplines.

They are variables within the same equation.

And an increasing share of the value created in the Italian hotel market over the coming years will come from the ability to analyse, structure and manage them together.

Hotel Management Group

Hotel Management Group supports hotel owners, investors and operators in the analysis and structuring of hospitality transactions, with a particular focus on economic valuation, repositioning, turnaround, operating models and value creation.

For hotel investment, restructuring, repositioning or development opportunities:

info@investimentialberghieri.it

Further analysis and insights:


Roberto Necci - r.necci@robertonecci.it


Main sources

  • Stifel Institutional — Investment Banking

  • Stifel Institutional — Real Estate, Gaming & Leisure

  • Stifel Institutional — Capital Structure Advisory

  • Eaton Partners — Fund Placement & Private Capital Advisory

  • Stifel Europe — corporate and regulatory disclosures

  • Stifel Financial Corp. — corporate documentation

  • Selina Hospitality PLC — filings and corporate communications, 2023–2024

  • Stifel Institutional — transaction record relating to Selina Hospitality PLC

  • documentation relating to the administration of Selina Hospitality PLC

This dossier has been prepared exclusively on the basis of publicly available information. Interpretations concerning the Italian hotel market, OpCo/PropCo structures, independent sponsorship and the evolution of hotel merchant banking represent the author’s analysis and do not reflect the views of the companies mentioned.

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