A Pole in position

Ewa Andrzejewska, ‘Eurobuild Central & Eastern Europe’: Since June 1st you have been the managing director of Savills in Poland. This is a big change – after ten years of the company’s activities in Poland, the position has now been taken by a Pole. What changes can the company expect?

Tomasz Buras, managing director of Savills Polska: The core of the company is not going to change: the office, investment and valuation departments remain strong. My priorities will include a lot of work in the field of human resources: employing a new head of the valuation department and finding one or two experienced people for the investment department, which we want to expand. They will be led by Michał Ćwikliński, whose position has also changed to managing director of the investment department. The selection process for one of these people is already in progress. The next step will involve the expansion of the retail leasing department. The process was put on hold in recent months due to the changes in the company, among other things, but now we definitely want to speed it up and we are starting by searching for a person who will coordinate the work of the department, add one or two leasing specialists, and will manage and coordinate the work of the team. This does not mean that we have been neglecting our services in this sector – we are currently dealing with he commercialisation of the Sukcesja shopping centre in Łódź. Moreover, we are taking on many more management projects, thus we need the support of a person with a track record in leasing, including retail leasing.

And can we expect new departments to be created?

A department of technical consultancy, or project management, is slowly being created. This started from services supporting property management, the implementation and supervision of fit-out work, technical issues in buildings, and now we have more and more contracts for consultancy for corporate clients and the construction of office facilities. And thanks to this the unit has been slowly growing to such a scale where we can start thinking about a separate department. Furthermore, we have employed two people who are licensed building certification and fit-out assessors for the BREEAM system and we already have the first few building certifications under our belts.

Last year you significantly expanded your facility management department by employing the head of the department, Michał Muc, and quite a large team of experts. How are they coping?

In early July we were taking on another retail park for management and on July 31st it will be Galeria Pomorska in Bydgoszcz, which is owned by Resolution. Michał’s team participates in many tender procedures and I hope that in the next few weeks we will win contracts for a few more shopping centres. Michał and his 20-person team have a huge challenge ahead of them because the facility management market is very competitive; still, I am not concerned about our level of success because we offer a great deal of experience and high quality services.

And what about the challenges you personally need to face?

I don’t want to spoil anything [laughs]. But seriously, I will continue, as long as possible, to reconcile the different responsibilities and to work as the head of the office department. This is important from the point of view of the clients whom I have worked with for many years and who want to feel secure. I think that the arrangement of administrative responsibilities will be significant to avoid drowning in this part of the job. It is important for me not work on the business during the day and on the administration at night. My promotion took place at an interesting time for the whole company. We are simultaneously celebrating the 10th anniversary of Savills in Poland and we are undergoing some significant changes globally. I mean the purchase of the Studley agency on the American market and the preparations for joining the UK and Continental Europe together as the EMEA region. So far the UK has been treated separately, despite having the most weight in Europe. We have a lot of changes on the global and European market ahead of us. The purchase of Studley alone, which we waited a long time to achieve, will have a very positive impact on the company’s operations. It will make it possible for us to present and use the knowledge and contact base in terms of corporate real estate. The integration has started and is progressing fast. In the summer we will have some meetings in the United States. I think that we will know more about the possibilities opened up by the merger at the end of the summer.

I was hoping for some bold declarations, such as: in a year’s time we will be the biggest agency in Poland...

Obtaining critical mass in the management department is an important goal for 2015. I am aware that Michał Muc and the team are more experienced in shopping centres, where margins are much higher, but we also focus on offices. Developers are not planning too many new, large retail projects over the next few years. The situation is the opposite on the office market, particularly in Warsaw. The market is also heading towards renovation, remodelling, format changes of the facilities which lag behind the current expectations – and this applies to both retail projects and, increasingly often, offices. Our aim is to be a profitable company. We want to increase our scale of operations in Poland. Furthermore, we are getting closer to the theme of developing in Central and Eastern Europe. So far the expansion plans have been suspended because of negotiations over the business acquisition in the United States. If the choice had been, for example, Cushman & Wakefield, then creating a chain of offices in Central and Eastern Europe countries would not make any sense because of the later duplication of branches. The eventual choice was Studley, which does not have offices in Europe, so now Brian’s Burgess’ role is to determine the possibilities and the potential of individual countries in Central and Eastern Europe in terms of launching offices. More and more of the clients who the valuation and management departments work with want to have one service provider in the region, so we will be developing our presence and operations on these markets fast but realistically.

And what about your turf – the office department? What will change there?

My department will be extended in terms of tenant service and corporate consultancy. The tenant representation sector is in good shape now: we exclusively service 14 buildings, the majority in Warsaw, one in Wrocław, Promenady Zita, and one in Poznań, Malta House. We are signing more and more contracts with funds, which do not put together local teams responsible for the management of the purchased properties and thus need external support in terms of the management and lease. We want to do this and can offer it. The first half of the year was very good for us. We are currently finalising one of the largest office transactions in Warsaw this year.

And how did the team react to your promotion?

It was an important moment for me, but I received a warm welcome: there were congratulations, some people were not surprised, it was clear they expected it. I think that the direction of the changes is positive because the management position was not taken by a person from outside, for instance, from Great Britain. When I joined the company in September 2011 the team consisted of 32 people. Now it has grown to 60 and we have not said our last word. I do not want to make wild promises or empty declarations that we will be number one in a year. I do not want to be number one – at least not straight away. It is enough for me to be number two. Our competitors who have reached a large scale of operations sometimes lose control of the quality – but we want to be able to listen to clients and provide them with what they need at the time when they expect it and at the highest quality. I know that this might sound like sloganising, but there are many consultants who do not do this.

And how do you assess the Warsaw office market?

The market is actually being created by four developers who are building large projects speculatively: Echo Investment, Skanska Ghelamco and HB Reavis. They are the trend setters. We will see in the autumn what happens to these large projects. In my opinion we will be talking about a tenant market for the next two, three years.

A career in Polish property agency

Tomasz Buras was promoted to managing director of Savills on June 1st. He joined the Savills team in September 2011 as the director of the office department, having been employed for six years in the office agency team at King Sturge in Poland. Prior to this he was a member of the corporate solutions team at Jones Lang LaSalle in Warsaw for four years. He is a graduate of the Warsaw School of Economics, a member of the RICS and holds a CCIM certificate. The promotion of Tomasz Buras followed the appointment of Brian Burgess as head of Savills for Central Europe.