Looking beyond Kraków

Grzegorz Hajdarowicz:
As a media owner I am obliged to be present there. Even though my first business at the end of the 1990s was in the pharmaceutical industry, I bought my first property as early as 1994 and nowadays I am mostly involved in real estate. This side of my business is located around Kraków, so that might be why I am not so visible in this sector or widely associated with it. Recently I've been visiting Cannes more in May during the film festival than in March, but MIPIM is the right place for large scale projects and I happen to be the owner of one in Brazil: over 2,500 ha, 6.5 km of beach and 1 mln sqm of useable area to be built.

Are Kraków projects unsuitable for the French Riviera?
A few years ago I unveiled a project in Kraków’s Zabłocie district there. Out of the few hectares I bought ten years ago I still own a number of properties (on ul. Lipowa and ul. Romanowicza). They could become the location of a hotel and conference centre development. I gave some of the site over to the city, on which the Fabryka Emalia Oskara Schindlera museum was eventually opened.

What are you planning to do with the areas left in your portfolio?
I am open to a number of possibilities. If a credible partner comes forward who I could do business with, then we could start cooperating. On the other hand, if there is an interesting purchase proposal – if the price is satisfactory and I decide that I could invest the funds in other projects – then I will sell. The development of the area has already been underway for over ten years and we have the opportunity to keep developing it for another fifteen.

And what about the plots on ul. Wrocławska in Krowodrza?
These are plots with an area of 8.5 ha. A few years ago a development company I set up built three luxury apartment buildings there. I wanted to learn about the cost structure and prices and find out about the potential of the area. Today I know that this is substantial, but I do not want to continue the project on my own. We are now preparing to sell the 18-building project with building permits. It will have a combined useable area of 130,000 sqm – a residential area of 80,000 sqm and 50,000 sqm of office space.

With the downturn, many developers are looking for buyers for projects they cannot complete. And you’re putting a similar project onto the market?
We have signed an agreement with Knight Frank to help us to find a partner or partners interested in buying into the project. But we are also open to different forms of cooperation with developers. We are also negotiating with investors ourselves, particularly taking into consideration the fact that two residential buildings (with 8,000 sqm and 6,000 sqm nla) have already received building permits. I believe in this scheme because it has a very good location – only 1.5 km from the Old Town Square. We want to exit the project by the end of 2017.

You mentioned Brazil...
Yes, I have an excellent project there, which after its completion will be worth EUR 250 mln. We want it to be ready for commercialisation within 4.5 years. It’s located in a beautiful bay, 80 km from the largest airport in South America, which is being built in São Gonçalo do Amarante. The architectural concept has been prepared by EDSA and the zoning plan has already been passed. The area is to include a section with four- and five-star hotels as well as a technology park.

Are you also counting on finding an investor interested in acquiring this project?
Yes, I am open to a joint enterprise, a sale or a lease of the area (as in the case of my projects in Yucatán, where property owners are renting the area for 30-year periods). This is a part of Brazil where the temperature never drops below 20 degrees. There is no rainy season and there are only two milder months – from mid-March until mid-May. I hope that the Brazilians themselves, who tend to travel a lot around their own country, will be eager to visit the resort, as well as Americans and Europeans. To put it bluntly: I have driven all over Brazil, from Amazonia to Bahia state, and concluded that there is no other site in such an excellent location that is undeveloped. And I found it while kite-surfing.

The companies you have that currently operate in the property sector are KCI and Jupiter NFI, which, by the way, sold a plot to IMPO for over PLN 45 mln at the end of July. Are you planning to consolidate them into a single business entity?
The sooner, the better. However, this is in the hands of the Polish Securities and Exchange Commission, because both companies are listed on the Warsaw Stock Exchange.