Alta Sera

Investment overview

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Confidential · August 2026

A €26.7M equity raise to restore one village.

€26.7MTotal equity raise
8%Preferred return, then 80 / 20
12.1%Investor IRR, year 10
SeuloSardinia, Italy
The Opportunity

Alta Sera acquires clusters of abandoned heritage property in depopulating villages, restores them to premium standard and operates them as a single distributed destination.

The first village is Seulo, in the mountains of central Sardinia, certified since 2016 as part of one of the world's Blue Zones and holding the highest recorded concentration of centenarians of any municipality on earth. Derelict stock here sells for €8,000 to €30,000 a building, which is a market rather than a negotiating position. The municipality is an active supporter and no scaled platform exists in this category.

One thing we would rather say than have you find. In L'Italia Intatta, Mario Tozzi writes that these Barbagia villages have no particular architectural beauty or monuments, and rather resemble one another. He is right, and the thesis does not rest on architecture. It rests on a wild landscape, a documented longevity culture, real food producers, and building stock cheap enough that the numbers work without pretending the buildings are something they are not.

The plan targets all forty four available buildings in the village. Twenty are restored as guest houses. The remainder are held as land bank, their frontages treated so the village reads as one place, and they carry the expansion. A new building on a hillside site outside the village holds the spa, the restaurant, the bar and the events venue. Investors fund the whole raise and are repaid in full, with a preferred return, before founders receive anything.

Capital

Deployment of €26.7M.

Application€Share
Property acquisition, fees & registration tax517,7501.9%
Restoration, twenty guest houses5,258,00019.7%
Facade programme, land bank buildings100,0000.4%
Hillside hub: spa, restaurant, events7,642,00028.6%
Furniture, fittings & equipment1,272,0004.8%
Village commercial units & fleet2,217,0008.3%
Staff accommodation658,8002.5%
Professional fees1,419,0005.3%
Brand and distribution2,590,0009.7%
Team, founders & pre-opening2,266,0008.5%
Contingency & working capital2,794,05510.5%
Total26,734,605100%

100% equity at close, no development debt. Sardinia carries a 40% state aid intensity ceiling for medium enterprises under Italy's EU approved regional aid map, applied through Article 14 of the General Block Exemption Regulation. On this project's eligible investment that ceiling is €7.63M. None of it is assumed in the returns below. Aid reimburses against expenditure already made, so anything secured returns capital to investors rather than reducing the raise.

Trading

Operating performance.

€10.8M
Stabilised
revenue
€3.31M
Stabilised
EBITDA
30.6%
Stabilised
EBITDA margin
€32.1M
Ten-year
cumulative EBITDA
Where the return comes from

Rooms carry the business. At a rate consistent with the product being built, accommodation is the majority of revenue and everything else follows from the guests it brings.

Stabilised yearRevenueShare
Accommodation€6.16M57%
Spa€1.30M12%
Food & beverage€1.21M11%
Weddings & events€1.76M16%
Retail, experiences, transfers€0.37M3%

Fifty three keys across twenty restored buildings, at a blended €963 a night over a seven month season at 55% occupancy. Castello di Reschio in Umbria, independent and rural, opens at €1,115. The property closes November to March rather than discount into a dead season.

Returns

Exit scenarios.

ExitDistributionsSale proceedsTotalMultipleIRR
Year 10€34.0M€22.0M€56.0M2.09×12.1%

On the full €26.7M of investor capital. Investors receive every euro of cash, and both the year three refinancing and any state aid, until capital plus an 8% compounding preferred return is repaid. Only then is cash split 80/20. Founders contribute no cash and receive nothing until investors are whole. Capital is repaid by year eight. Exit is modelled at year ten and not earlier, because state aid carries a maintenance obligation of three years for an SME and five otherwise, and an earlier sale would trigger clawback with interest. Sale proceeds value the operating business at 7.5 times stabilised EBITDA, the lower of two lenses tested, plus the land bank at €1,200 per square metre.

Sensitivity at Year 10 exit
ScenarioStabilised revenueEBITDA marginMultipleIRR
Rate 20% below plan€8.6M28.5%1.83×9.8%
No state aid secured at all€10.8M30.6%1.94×10.0%
Hillside hub 25% over budget€10.8M30.6%1.96×10.8%
Restoration 20% over budget€10.8M30.6%1.96×10.9%
Only twenty of forty four buildings close€10.8M30.6%2.01×11.4%
Base€10.8M30.6%2.09×12.1%
Occupancy 60% rather than 55%€11.8M31.6%2.17×12.7%
State aid at the full ceiling, small enterprise€10.8M30.6%2.18×14.2%

Every row is a full recomputation, not a percentage applied to an answer. The business is deliberately built so that no single line carries it: a fifth off the rate still returns 9.8%, and securing no state aid at all still returns 10.0%. The assumption most worth interrogating is the rate itself, and the comparables it rests on are named above.

Capital Plan

Equity now.
Debt at stabilisation.

The project is deliberately unlevered through development. There is no trading history to underwrite, no income to service a loan and unrestored village stock carries little security value. Development debt would be expensive, slow and dilutive of control.

Once stabilised, that changes. We are not asking a lender to value a village. We are asking them to lend against an established income stream, and not until it exists.

Capital returned to investorsBy year 3By year 5
Operating cash€5.2M€10.2M
Year 3 refinancing€6.0M€6.0M
State aid, if secured€3.8M€3.8M
Total€15.0M€20.0M

The €6M facility is modelled in the base case, not as an upside. Indicative metrics at refinance sit comfortably inside typical stabilised hospitality lending criteria. Debt and state aid both raise IRR by returning capital earlier and both reduce the multiple, one through interest cost and the other because it was never investor money in the first place. The €6M assumes a lender will advance against a trading portfolio in its third year, which is a real assumption and is stated as one.

Structure

Investors own the property.

Investor capital€26.7M, the entire raise
Founder cash contributionNone
Preferred return, compounding8%
Split above capital plus preference80 / 20
Founder profit shareNothing until investors are whole
Founder salaries during the build€360,000 a year, whole team, 3.4% of the raise
Development period30 months
PaybackYear 8

Investors hold 80% of the property portfolio. Founders hold 20% and the operating brand, and earn an enhanced share only once investors have cleared a 15% IRR. Exit is flexible: individual units, the full portfolio or continued hold for income.

Risk

What could go wrong.

01

Property assembly

Forty four buildings across many private owners, several held by multiple heirs, and prices can move once intent is known. Mitigated by a single published price per square metre offered to every owner, twelve month written options secured before any capital is deployed, a fixed sourcing fee rather than a percentage, and a walk-away threshold on every property. The plan needs twenty of the forty four. Everything above that is land bank.

02

Planning & heritage consent

Soprintendenza approval for historic stone buildings is slow and can dictate materials and methods. Mitigated by pre-application engagement with the Comune, with consent milestones as conditions precedent to construction drawdown.

03

Construction cost & programme

Heritage restoration carries genuine overrun and delay risk against a 24-month base case. Mitigated by a bottom-up quantity-surveyed cost plan, €600,000 of contingency held as cash, phased drawdown and a bear case modelled at 15% overrun.

04

Demand & seasonality

A new destination at 900m altitude with limited winter demand and no trading history. Wellness, events and long-stay programming are designed to carry shoulder and off-season months. Year one is modelled as a ramp year.

05

Exit valuation

Inland Sardinia has a thin comparable market and branded-residence premiums are unproven for new brands. Returns are therefore underwritten on operating income rather than capital appreciation, with three exit routes available.

06

Operations & staffing

A village of 750 people cannot supply a full hospitality team locally. Mitigated by staff accommodation within the portfolio, recruitment through an existing multi-site operating platform and regional training partnerships.

In-Villa System

How the spend
actually happens.

Ancillary revenue separates a good hospitality business from an ordinary one, and it is the part most operators leave on the table. Asking a guest to buy something face to face is awkward, and staff do not do it consistently.

Every house has a tablet. It controls the building, it shows what is happening in the village that day, and it sells the experiences. No queue, no reception desk, no awkward conversation. A guest books a dawn milking or a private table by the river at eleven at night, in a dressing gown.

It runs on the same operating platform that manages 1,300 units across the UK and Ireland today, including an automated messaging layer that resolves most guest enquiries without a human. The distributed model works because the systems already exist.

Seulo at dusk
Casa Corrias · Via Ospitone

Good evening.

Nine degrees, clear sky, the stove is lit.

Climate
Ground floor
21°
Light
Whole house
Morning
Evening
Night
Off
Wood stove
Sitting room
Shutters
All
Do not disturb
Housekeeping will not call
Sa Stiddiosa by night
Tonight · 21.15

Full moon walk to Sa Stiddiosa.

Forty minutes down. Bring nothing.

Every day
07.30
Bread and pastries left at your door
08.00
Coffee in the piazza with Bruno
18.30
Cannonau hour in the cellar
20.00
Dinner at the hub
This week only
Sat
Sagra di Santa Croce. The whole village eats outside
Sun
Shearing at the Corrias fold. You are welcome to help
Mon
Zia Maria is making culurgiones. Four places left
Experiences

Things you cannot book
anywhere else.

Arranged with people who live here. Tap to add.
Milking at dawn
Dawn at the sheepfold
05.40 · two hours · with Antonio Corrias
€60 pp
Add
Dinner by the river
Dinner by the river at Sa Stiddiosa
Private table · two · chef and boatman
€340
Add
The painted cave
The cave of the painted figure
Half day · with an archaeologist · 6,000 years old
€120 pp
Add
Lunch with a centenarian
The centenarians' table
Lunch in a private home · four courses
€95 pp
Add
Cheese by the fire
Cheese by the fire
Two hours · you make it, you take it home
€70 pp
Add
Bread with the women of Seulo
Bread with the women of Seulo
Three hours · in a village kitchen
€75 pp
Add
Foraging on the mountain
Forage, then supper
Full day · the mountain, then the kitchen
€140 pp
Add
Walk with the shepherd
Walk with the shepherd
Any morning · ask the night before
Included
Add
The Table

Dinner.

Eat at the hub, or never leave the house.
Dinner at the hub
A table at the hub
20.00 · five courses · included in your stay
Included
Reserve
A chef in your kitchen
A chef in your kitchen
Your house · up to six · menu agreed on the day
€420
Add
The cellar
The cellar, opened for you
Older Cannonau · with Giovanni · one hour
€95
Add
Breakfast on the terrace
Breakfast on the terrace
Tomorrow · laid before you wake
€30 pp
Add
A hamper for the mountain
A hamper for the mountain
Bread, cheese, salami, wine, a blanket
€90
Add
Service

Anything else.

Someone answers within a few minutes, at any hour.
Housekeeping
Last visit 09.40 today
Request
Transfer to Cagliari
Two hours ten · €180
Book
Laundry
Collected 08.00, back by 18.00
Request
Firewood
Left at the door
Request
Message Marta, your house manager
Usually replies in under five minutes
Write
Every request routes to the same platform that runs 1,300 units today.
Working demonstration · tap through it
Why it matters

A guest who books three experiences in a week is worth several hundred euro more than one who books none, at a very high margin, because the cost sits with the shepherd, the cook and the archaeologist rather than with us. It also does something a spreadsheet cannot show. It makes the village itself the product, and it means the people who live in Seulo are the reason to come, and are paid for it.

Experience pricing shown is indicative. Ancillary revenue is deliberately excluded from the financial projections on this page.

Basis of Preparation

Figures are drawn from the Alta Sera development model v2.3 (August 2026) and are stated after Italian corporate tax at 27.9% with a 3% capital allowance on qualifying build cost. The model is available in full to investors under NDA, together with the quantity-surveyed cost plan.

Three assumptions carry disproportionate weight and are disclosed deliberately. First, weddings and corporate events represent approximately 49% of year-one revenue in a market where the island hosts a limited number of destination events annually. That line is being rebuilt from bottom-up operational drivers. Second, the exit valuation applies €2,800 per square metre, which sits at the upper end of Sardinian evidence and above inland comparables. Third, a 30% branded-residence premium is applied, where the published evidence comes predominantly from established hotel brands. Investors should test all three.

Nothing on this page constitutes an offer, an invitation to invest or financial advice. Projections are estimates and not guarantees. Capital is at risk and investors may receive back less than they invest, as illustrated in the bear case above.

Founding Members

The part that is
not in the model.

Thirty Founding Memberships at €150,000 to €300,000, taken alongside the institutional structure rather than instead of it.

EquityOn the same terms as the main raise
UseFour weeks a year, in perpetuity, in a named building
First refusalTo buy that building outright at phase two
NameOn the building, or the restoration, permanently
The platformA stake in every village that follows

This exists because a spreadsheet cannot price four weeks a year in a Sardinian mountain village with your name on the wall, and for a certain kind of investor that is most of the reason to do it. The financial return is stated honestly above and stands on its own. This sits on top of it.

Next Step

Let's talk.

The full model, the quantity-surveyed cost plan, the property schedule and municipality correspondence are available in the data room on request.

ben@alta-sera.com
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A place inhabited for six thousand years cannot be built. It can only be restored.