Lindsay Sandes

Experience at a glance

How Lindsay can help

• Selling accommodation businesses: including motel freeholds, motel businesses, franchised hotel businesses and management rights.
• Structuring accommodation transactions: including asset sales, freehold going concern, freehold and other accommodation-specific variations involving the business element of the sale.
• Guiding businesses of different scales: supporting SME accommodation owners through to larger, corporate-scale vendors.
• Working with franchisors and landlords: liaising with the relevant parties where a franchise agreement or lease is involved.
• Accommodation-specific marketing: running a marketing and buyer-qualification process built around the sector.
• Supporting buyers and vendors: from first enquiry through to settlement.

Industry and business type experience

Experience and approach

Lindsay’s move into business broking followed a career in senior hotel and tourism management with some of the world’s best-known accommodation brands. That background gave him a first-hand understanding of how accommodation businesses are run, valued and marketed, knowledge he now applies daily as LINK’s dedicated accommodation specialist.

He works across the full spectrum of the sector, from small, owner-operated motels through to high valued opportunities and is equally at home guiding a first-time seller as he is structuring a more complex franchise or freehold transaction.

Transaction experience

Lindsay’s transaction experience spans the accommodation sector’s full range of structures, including asset sales, freehold going concern, freehold, and other variations involving the business element of a sale.

He sells accommodation businesses of any size, from SME-scale through to corporate valued at over $14 million. His track record includes the sale of the 121-room Quest Highbrook, one of New Zealand’s largest hotel businesses, as well as the Waterfront Hotel and Salt Restaurant (FHGC).

Lindsay has completed sales across New Zealand, working with both national and international accommodation brands.

Buyer pool and network

After years focused solely on accommodation, Lindsay has built an active, wide-reaching database of buyers looking for motels, hotels and management rights opportunities across New Zealand.

This is a network vendors benefit from the moment their business goes to market. On one recent motel sale, Lindsay presented 51 prospective buyers to the vendor.

Recognition and achievements

• 2023 LINK Ellerslie Top Broker — #5
• 2022 LINK Ellerslie Best Marketing Campaign — #1
• FY17 LINK Largest Deal, New Zealand and International — #1
• LINK Chairman's Club — four-time chevron recipient
• 2019 LINK Broker of Year, New Zealand — #1
• 2017 LINK Deal of Year, International — #1
• 2019 LINK Top Marketer of the Year, New Zealand — #1

About Lindsay

Outside of accommodation broking, Lindsay is an avid outdoors enthusiast, enjoying everything from skiing and snowboarding to biking and a range of water activities. He also has a strong interest in food and beverage, and often entertains from the kitchen when he’s not on the road visiting clients.