Mark Martinovic, Chief Executive Officer at Hotel Spec will be the Moderator of two panel discussions at this year’s Hospitality Lending Conference, which will be held by Hotel Partners Africa in Lagos, Nigeria on 29^th of October.

Mark will be describing the development process in his first panel discussion from the point of securing funding onwards. He will run through the stages from engagement of the professional team to concept design, planning application, design development and operator input through to tender, form of contract and from mobilisation through to completion. He will emphasise the importance of the right professional team with relevant hotel experience and engaging the operator early to avoid abortive works or costly delays later in terms of design changes, variations etc. The importance of having the funding confirmed and available to avoid delays in payments and attendant claims is a clear and real risk with most projects and should be resolved from the outset prior to mobilising a contractor.

For the second session, which will be on Due Diligence, he will interact with the audience on the specific requirements from various lending institutions on their Due Diligence process in evaluating a project and client prior to confirming project debt facilities.