Interview with Klaas van Lookeren Campagne, CEO of hotel business citizenM

“We’re a disrupter in the hospitality world, the only global hotel business to own all its real estate and have all operations under one roof. We buy the land, design the hotels, then build and operate them. The big brands are asset-light and mainly franchises. Our owner-operator model means we entirely control our guests’ experience. As their requirements change, we can adapt with them.

Our focus is on business guests, building hotels in the most expensive locations in major cities. Business travellers need a perfect bed, good technology, cleanliness and efficiency — all of it luxurious. To help our business grow we want long-term banking partnerships that are reliable, predictable and transparent. That’s something we truly value with ABN AMRO. Our relationship began in 2008 but really picked up from 2012. We started small and grew significantly. ABN AMRO first helped us by funding our hotel at Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris. The bank steered us through France’s sometimes tricky business culture and gave citizenM a great start there.

It stepped up again in 2016 when we gathered our European hotels into one group. Having a local Dutch partner that could deal with other financial institutions was a huge advantage. With our size and geography we often have to deal with global banks and ABN AMRO supports us in that, providing expertise we could never build alone. It arranged a revolving credit facility in 2020 that was instrumental in our global rollout, along with cash flow and Capex management. It demanded innovative thinking on ABN AMRO's part but it trusted us enough to help.

The COVID-19 pandemic was hard on hotels and real estate but ABN AMRO supported us throughout. We had conference calls every Friday to share financial information about how our business was doing. Beyond that, sustainability is a current issue. As with most businesses, it starts with compliance and then becomes a sincere and integrated part of the company’s strategy. Our clients and employees demand it these days.

We’re now quite advanced in ESG and ABN AMRO arranged our first sustainability linked loan, one of the biggest in Europe. We need banks that evolve with us and ABN AMRO can do that. For example, we’re growing fastest in the US where it doesn’t have a huge presence. That hasn’t prevented it from fully supporting us in our global ambitions there and elsewhere.”