MD of Athenaeum hotel parent company to step down next year
Christopher Lacey, managing director of Sir Richard Sutton Limited (SRSL) which owns the Athenaeum hotel in London, is to step down from the role in mid-2024 after 12 years.
Lacey plans to build a portfolio career focussing on non-executive roles and will continue to work with SRSL on a part time basis until 2026 to oversee the transition process.
Lacey and Peter Wyman, SRSL's chairman, will over the coming months find and appoint a new managing director to lead the company through its next phase of development.
Wyman said: "Christopher has led the transformation of SRSL from a traditional landed estate family office in 2012 to a modern, operationally diversified commercial organisation, with best-in-class businesses in the hospitality, farming, rural and real estate sectors. We wish him every success during the next stage of his career."
During Lacey's time with the business, SRSL has taken on the trade and assets of both the 303-bedroom Sheraton Grand Park Lane hotel and the 135-bedroom Athenaeum Hotel & Apartments on Piccadilly in London's West End in 2014 and 2015. In 2017, it acquired the trade and assets of the 108-bedroom Castle hotel in Windsor, 84-bedroom Queens hotel in Cheltenham and 98-bedroom Francis hotel in Bath. The three hotels were brought together under the Sutton Hotel Collection last year, named in tribute to the group's late founder, who was murdered in 2021.
Lacey added: "With the support of the board, the Sutton family, and the loyal and dedicated employees, it has been an honour and privilege to have built and led SRSL as a unified team for well over a decade. I have now decided it is time to step down and enable an efficient handover to a new managing director.
"Working together we have achieved remarkable growth, building both the balance sheet and a strong, and sustainable income stream benefitting all stakeholders and the communities where SRSL's businesses are located… I will be pleased to hand over the leadership of a purpose-driven organisation, run patiently for the long term, to a new managing director."
After graduating with a BSc (Hons) in Urban Land Economics, Lacey qualified as a chartered surveyor in 1985, working for three real estate advisors. He has been a member of the Investment Property Forum since inception.
In 1992, he joined the international fund manager Mercury Asset Management (MAM), then part of SG Warburg, the organisation later becoming Merrill Lynch Investment Managers (MLIM) and subsequently BlackRock Investment Management. During these 17 years he specialised in real estate asset and fund management, becoming divisional director, and heading transactions as part of the team that built the UK Property Fund from £180m to £2.3b. He was also a member of BlackRock's European Real Estate Investment Committee.
In 2010 he moved to the Pension Protection Fund, and then in 2012 became managing director of SRSL, responsible for leading and managing day-to-day business activities comprising hospitality, urban and rural real estate, farming, and estate management.
