Six Senses: From Small Brand to $300M Exit
When IHG acquired Six Senses in 2019 for around US $300 million, many in the industry were taken by surprise. Pegasus Capital, the last owner, did an amazing job. The brand wasn’t large: roughly 16 operating properties, minimal real estate ownership, and a development pipeline of around 20 projects. It was a compact management company, not a major hotel owner.
And yet the market valued it at a premium normally reserved for operators many times its size.
To understand why, you have to look at how the company was built.
Where It Started
The story begins with Sonu and Eva Shivdasani. In the mid-1990s, they discovered an untouched island in the Maldives and opened what later became Soneva Fushi. Instead of building a conventional resort, they asked a simple question:
What if travel could help people reconnect — with themselves, with others, and with nature?
It’s a question that has also shaped my own philosophy at Conserve Safari. My experiences in retreats across Ireland and Europe taught me the same lesson: the most meaningful places are not the ones with the most amenities, but the ones that bring people back to themselves. I’m pleased we share that foundation, even though it emerged from very different paths.
For the Shivdasanis, that question became the blueprint of the brand. The first villas were crafted from timber, open to the breeze, and designed with minimal intervention. Guests walked barefoot. There were no televisions or heavy structures. Luxury was defined by space, quiet, and natural materials.
It was the beginning of what later became known as barefoot luxury, a term now closely associated with Six Senses and central to its identity.
A Philosophy That Became a System
As the founders expanded into Thailand, Vietnam, and beyond, they refined the same principles. Buildings followed the land’s contours. Local materials formed the aesthetic language. Interiors were calm, breathable, and sensory. Light and air were treated as design tools.
What looked simple was actually a disciplined system that preserved the brand’s identity as it entered different environments and markets.
Ever wondered what Six Senses actually refers to? The name and logo come from the blessing marks Buddhist monks make with their fingertips in Thailand. Each point represents a sense — sight, sound, touch, taste, and smell — with intuition at the top as the sixth.
Sustainability as Infrastructure
Sustainability wasn’t added later; it was built in from the beginning.
Properties were designed using natural orientation and renewable materials, with minimal disruption to ecosystems. Over time, this became more structured. In 2017, the group created Earth Lab at every resort — a space that publicly tracked energy use, food production, waste reduction, and community impact.
Food followed the same approach: organic gardens, fruit trees, herb plots, and partnerships with local farmers. Produce supplied kitchens, spa treatments, and the Alchemy Bar where guests made natural products. It was practical, not promotional.
Scaling the Model
Six Senses grew through an asset-light model. Developers funded the construction; the brand provided design direction, sustainability frameworks, and operations. This allowed the company to expand without taking on heavy capital obligations.
A major part of this evolution was Bernhard Bohnenberger, who helped institutionalize systems and scale the company across Asia, the Middle East, and Europe while maintaining consistency.
Why the Market Paid a Premium
By the time of the IHG acquisition, Six Senses had:
a clearly defined brand
a distinctive design and experience philosophy
a recognized wellness and sustainability platform
a loyal global audience
and a strong pipeline for future growth
These were intangible assets with real commercial value. The market wasn’t paying for real estate. It was paying for trust in a system that reliably produced high-value hospitality assets around the world.
Implications for Safari Real Estate
Six Senses proved that hospitality brands don’t need vast scale to create outsized value — they need clarity, consistency, and a strong sense of place. Safari hospitality begins with an even greater advantage: one of the last untouched natural environments on the planet, where wildlife, silence, and open landscapes do most of the experiential work.
No desert, beach, or mountain resort can match the immediacy of a lion sighting at dawn, elephants passing through camp, or the stillness of the savannah at night. Nature isn’t a backdrop in safari real estate — it’s the core asset.
At Conserve Safari, this is the foundation we build on: tented villas positioned lightly on the land, experiences that reveal the landscape rather than compete with it, and an asset-light model inside national parks that allows nature to remain the hero.
If Six Senses showed how far a clear philosophy can go, safari hospitality has the potential to go even further — because the raw material it starts with is already extraordinary.
We are expanding our camp portfolio in Tanzania’s national parks. If you would like to explore investor opportunities, please get in touch.
