Me retire? Never, says Hartman

Did anyone seriously expect Richard Hartman to stay retired after he left InterContinental Hotels Group last September? The answer would be a flat no.

Hartman himself knew that. “I had never intended to retire from work. I don’t know what I’d do. I was born working.”

And so when news of his appointment as CEO of Millennium & Copthorne Hotels hit the newswires this week, there was very little surprise.

The fact that it was M&C as well was no surprise either – Hartman’s links with Chairman Kwek Leng Beng go back a long way when he was running IHG in Asia Pacific and prior to that, Sheraton and it seemed a natural fit that the two should come together.

Hartman continues, “In Britain, you are supposed to leave your job at 60, take a cruise to Patagonia, come home to tend your garden and do your crossword puzzle and wait to die. I can’t do that.”

Actually, Hartman tried retirement when he was 52 after he left Sheraton following the acquisition by Starwood. “I thought at that time I was the luckiest person on earth, I had enough money and all the time in the world for myself.

“But after I returned to Australia, fixed the apartment, bought a car – the biggest thing in my day was driving my kids to school. I knew if I continued, I’d be dead by age 60.”

So at 62, Hartman is not only not dead but is in full charge of a company considered to be one of the most challenging to work for among hospitality groups. His five predecessors had an average tenure of less than two years – the last one, Peter Papadimitropoulos,lasted only six months.

And there are already bets out there to see how long Hartman will last.

Three days into his new job, Hartman is not getting drawn into that debate. Instead he says, “I’ve known this company a long time, it’s based in the UK. There were other things I could have done, but it would have involved commuting to Dubai, for example.

“This is a known entity and I know I’d do better in a company that has real estate in it.”

Says Hartman: “Some of the brands are shedding their assets and are becoming branding and marketing companies. They have diminishing interest in managing assets.

“As branding companies, they tend to focus on the brand, which is understandable. But a hotel owner is more interested in leveraging the brand. I think there is a divergence of agenda implicit in that business model.”

What he does best, he says, is managing assets and M&C owns more than 90% of its 110 hotels.
As he sees it, owning hotels means having more control of them. “I didn’t want a job where I’d have to beat up the hotel operator and I didn’t want a job where I would have to deal with difficult owners. I am the owner.”

Asked how he felt about occupying “the hottest seat”, he says, “It’s had its challenges. But there are good things about the company – it’s almost debt free, it has strong financial support,

it’s got a lot of assets that are making money.

“Compare this. It has 110 hotels and its market capitalization in the UK is £1.2-£1.3 billion. IHG’s market capitalization is £2.2-£2.3 billion and it has 4,000 hotels.

“Which is the easier to run?”

Catch Yeoh Siew Hoon every week at The Transit Café – www.thetransitcafe.com 

By: Yeoh Siew Hoon