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US: Vacation rental property management company VTrips has promoted Scott Seay to the role of CEO, succeeding founder and managing director, Steve Milo.
Seay joined VTrips in April 2022 after his company Southern Vacation Rentals was acquired by the Florida-based firm, and he held the role of COO before the fresh appointment. His career also includes stints as president of both Richmond American Homes and Build-A-Bear, as well as serving as COO of Kinko’s/Fedex and SVP of store operations for CompUSA.
The new CEO will be tasked with continuing to expand VTrips’ portfolio in the United States, while Milo has confirmed that, as founder and majority shareholder, he will continue in a board level role to support the leadership team throughout the transition period.
In a press release provided to STRz, Milo revealed that VTrips was in the process of interviewing investment bank firms for a new capitalisation, possibly as early as late 2025, and that the company expects to hire a bank for that process by early May.
The news comes up to four years after VTrips secured a “significant” minority equity investment from private investment firm Hudson Hill Capital [HHC] – a move designed to accelerate the company’s acquisition strategy and strengthen its technology offering. At the time, it said that it was planning to deploy over $250 million to acquire “attractive” vacation rental management companies.
Founded in 2002, the company has completed more than 20 acquisitions to date, including Taylor-Made Deep Creek Vacation Rentals and Ryson Vacation Rentals, Carolina Retreats, Silver Sands Vacation Rentals, Tybee Vacation Rentals and Miss Kitty’s Fishing Getaways.
Milo also announced that he would continue in his role as managing director of Smoky Cove Phase II, which is developing purpose-built vacation rentals in Gatlinburg, Tennesse for management by VTrips.
As of 2022, VTrips was managing up to 7,000 properties across the United States while employing around 1,000 team members. In September 2023, however, the company reportedly laid off nine per cent of its workforce [75 employees] to focus on outsourcing and moving operations overseas, according to Skift.
