Clarance

Who owns Clarance?

Clarance is currently owned by Finorpa Gestion through Finorpa SCR (1991 vintage), since 2014.

Hand-verified · updated 2026-04-21

About Clarance

Clarance is a five-star boutique hotel in the Vieux-Lille district of Lille, France, occupying an eighteenth-century private mansion built in 1736 for the Countess d'Hespel on Rue de la Barre. The property pairs nineteen individually decorated rooms and suites with a gastronomic restaurant, La Table, a bar, reception salons and a landscaped garden, positioning itself at the top of the northern French luxury-hospitality market. Its restaurant holds a Michelin star and seats around forty covers, and the hotel became the first establishment in the Nord region to carry the Relais & Chateaux label. The concept, blending listed historic architecture with contemporary interior design, concierge service and a cultural programme, was conceived as a scalable model rather than a single site.

Ownership journey

Clarance was created by Aurelie Vermesse, a former marketing executive at Danone, Auchan and McCain and later chief executive of Mader Colors, who acquired and restored the Rue de la Barre mansion into a luxury hotel. In 2014, ahead of the hotel's April 2015 opening, Finorpa SCR invested 300,000 euros in the project, structured as 100,000 euros of equity and 200,000 euros of convertible bonds, alongside Vermesse, her family and her circle. Finorpa, one of the main providers of equity and quasi-equity financing to small and mid-sized companies in the Hauts-de-France region, took a minority position within a total project cost exceeding 6 million euros that included the acquisition and renovation of the historic building. Finorpa continues to list Clarance among its active portfolio companies, and no exit or secondary transaction has been recorded.

Under PE ownership

The 2014 financing supported the conversion of the mansion and the launch of the hotel, which opened in April 2015 with a projected first-year revenue of around 2 million euros and a workforce of roughly twenty full-time equivalents. Since the investment, Clarance has established itself as a reference address in Lille, earning the Relais & Chateaux label as the first such property in the Nord and building a Michelin-starred restaurant that has drawn national attention. La Table was led at launch by chef Nicolas Pourcheresse, once France's youngest Michelin-starred chef, and the kitchen has continued under new culinary leadership, with chef Gaetan Citerne taking over the restaurant in September 2025. The hotel has combined its fine-dining reputation with concierge services and cultural events to sustain its premium positioning in the years following Finorpa's backing.