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Business View Caribbean
Hermitage Bay, Antigua
A natural paradise
Andy Thesen, the founder and owner of Hermitage
Bay, the award-winning, all-inclusive, 5-star resort on
Antigua’s western shore, never intended to be in the
hotel business, at all. “I was planning to be just an in-
vestor,” he says, “rather than getting so involved. But I
wouldn’t hesitate to do it again. It’s been an extremely
rewarding journey – and one that I’m still on.”
Thesen, the accidental hotelier, was in the venture
capital business in England in 2003, and his initial in-
terest in Hermitage Bay was simply to explore the pos-
sibility of investing $250,000 to buy a two-bedroom
villa on the beach. “That’s why I went to Antigua,” he
explains, “to see the beach. There wasn’t anything
there; it was a completely virgin beach - the villa was
only planned. At the time I went to consider buying, the
guy who became my partner, and his son, were trying
to raise equity to build the hotel by selling off planned
villas.”
At some point, though, Thesen decided to join the
venture - but only as an investor. Or so he thought. “I
thought I’d do the investing bit, and the business plan
bit,” he recalls. “Get the money raised and swan out
