IHG's midscale conversion brand just became its fastest-scaling flag ever. But 100 open hotels and 80 more in the pipeline raises a question every independent owner should be thinking about... and most aren't.
Berenberg just slapped a buy rating on IHG and called it a quality compounder. Wall Street loves the stock. But the numbers underneath tell a very different story depending on which side of the management agreement you're sitting on.
Hilton is teasing new lifestyle and midscale brands to fill "white space" in its portfolio, but the real question isn't whether the gap exists on a PowerPoint slide... it's whether owners can actually deliver another brand promise with the staff they can't find.
