A fantastic year in recruitment

There's no question about it, 2015 was a fantastic year for everyone involved in real estate, not only in Poland, but across all of Central Europe! From an HR perspective, it has been a great year too. We were involved in over 50 real estate searches in Poland during 2015. “We have also increased our own staff from four to eight people during this time to meet the growing needs of our clients.

Obviously the big news of 2105 was the DTZ and Cushman & Wakefield merger. A lot of people were expecting the same level of fall-out as was seen at King Sturge and JLL, but this simply didn’t happen. This was not one company taking over another for market share – this was two companies joining forces in an attempt to keep up with the pace set by JLL and CBRE. Of course, this merger didn’t suit everyone, so some people have moved on to new pastures.

The other big news of 2015 was Daniel Bienias of CBRE being promoted to managing director of CBRE Poland. Colin Waddell returned to the UK in July 2015 which left CBRE with a choice, either, appoint a local person from the Polish business to the MD role or take another expat over from the UK. They opted to go for the local person and appointed Daniel, which has been very well received locally and internationally. This follows on from similar moves by JLL, Colliers, Skanska and others to appoint local Polish heads for the Polish businesses.

Other interesting news has been Griffin's continued expansion. It appears portfolios are no longer big enough to satisfy their appetite and they are now only interested in entire structures, with Echo being the most notable. Deka have been on this market for over ten years and have 19 assets in Poland, but they had never established a team in the country, that is, until 2015, when they hired two local asset managers in Warsaw.

Prelios announced their arrival on the Polish market, or maybe their 'second coming' might be more accurate. Not as a developer this time, but rather as an asset management advisory service. Maja Biesiekierska, formerly of Valad, has joined Prelios to head up this new operation in Poland. At Prologis, Ben Bannatyne has been promoted to president for Europe from his previous position as managing director of Central Europe. He will succeed Philip Dunne, who has held that role for the last seven years.

We could probably fill a couple of pages with everything that happened in 2015. The market is growing – there is no doubt about this. Based on the number of new recruiting projects we have already been involved in in January, I fully expect 2016 to surpass 2015 in terms of new transfers on the market. So, Ladies and Gentlemen, buckle up and get ready for the ride!