Let’s go surfing now

The deckchairs and pouffes in the courtyards between the halls were in great demand, as were the currywurst and weiss bier that were laid on. It was also the day after the final day of the Oktoberfest, but for sure all of the delegates were much too professional to have partied and danced the night away in lederhosen that much the night before. I think. Inside the halls it was apparent that the real estate trade fair was as popular as ever. A total of 37,857 participants were in attendance from 74 countries – 2.6 pct more than last year. Of these there were 18, 985 trade visitors (up from 18,716 last year) and chief among them were visitors from Poland (the fifth largest contingent), with the Czech Republic not far behind in seventh place in terms of participants. The Warsaw stand was one of the busiest, hosting the great and the good from the
Polish real estate scene – naturally including Eurobuild Central & Eastern Europe. Kraków also had a stand, showcasing the numerous PPP opportunities available in the city, as were Sopot, Gdynia and Szczecin on the Baltics stand, along with the Kujawsko-Pomorskie region and the city of Łódź.

The latter was one of the stars of the fair, showcasing its truly extraordinary efforts to bring the infrastructure of the city up-to-date with the help of EU funds. This is by no means the usual PR, as I can personally attest, having nearly missed my train a few days later on my journey back to Warsaw, due to my taxi being stuck for an hour in the Łódź roadworks. But as Marek Cieślak, the deputy mayor of Łódź, told me during Expo Real, the current paralysis of the city is absolutely necessary to attract investment in the long term. He and the deputy mayors of some of the other Polish cities mentioned, joined their Warsaw counterpart on the capital city’s stand at the end of the second day, for a celebration of all their efforts and successes thus far – in a cloud of dry-ice. One of Warsaw’s successes at the event was being ranked at number 15 in
the cities most attractive to young people, according to data revealed by Cushman & Wakefield at the launch of its latest report on global cities, surpassing such illustrious names as Madrid and Rome.

The second day began with the Investment Locations Forum for Poland, hosted by myself and featuring three distinguished experts and players on the Polish market. Eric Dapoigny, the managing director of Yareal Polska, who may have been watching the surfers in Munich’s English Gardens, came up with the memorable phrase that office development in Poland is rather like surfing, in that you need to judge when’s best to ride the crest of the wave of the market cycle. Marek Koziarek, the managing director for commercial real estate finance at Bank Pekao, agreed, but added that the waters are much less choppy than 20 years ago and the market players are much more skilful surfers. When asked whether the prospect of a change in government in Poland would change the property investment environment significantly, Maciej Król, the CEO of Xcity Investment, which is responsible for the Centralny Park project in the heart of Warsaw, commented that although the train might be getting a change of driver, it’s still very much the same train going in the same direction at the same speed, so no Hungary-style exodus of investors is expected – a view shared by the two other panellists.

The warm sunshine had gone by the final day, perhaps helping to bring the participants back to reality after the end-of-day parties the day before. Other developers active in our region making their mark at the fair included HB Reavis, which was able to showcase models of
its large-scale Gdański Business Center and Twin City projects in Warsaw and Bratislava respectively, Ghelamco (showing off its Warsaw Spire development on the Warsaw stand) – and P3, who, along with Cushman & Wakefield, has recently been taken over by consortiums led by TPG, as the US investment giant makes its dramatic entrance onto the CEE stage. For C&W the event was very much a getting-to-know-you exercise, as its experts and executives met with new colleagues from DTZ, with the two consultancies having been merged as a result of the takeover. TriGranit, on the other hand, had also been expecting its own buy-out by TPG to have taken place in time for Expo Real, but the talks were still ongoing behind the scenes and the deal had yet to be finalised by the close of the event. And despite the rain pouring down at the end of the fair, it was clear that the optimism of those on the property investment market has returned and interesting times lie ahead of us.

What some of the region’s CEOs felt about Expo Real 2015...

Stanislav Frnka, Poland CEO, HB Reavis Poland

“I am a regular participant of several similar events in Europe and in my opinion Expo Real has become in recent years the leading trade fair of the real estate industry. During three intensive days, packed with back-to-back meetings with key players and business partners, you can exchange views on the industry, keep an eye on the latest trends but – most of all – talk about actual projects and deals. This year Expo Real was particularly busy, a testament to the good shape of the property sector and the positive prospects for the future. It is clear there is
definitely a lot of money in the market and banks are eager to support the right kind of projects – and I am more than happy to say that our projects across all markets have been creating massive attention. Expo Real 2015 was the perfect opportunity for us to showcase our growth and best designs to an international audience and we presented all our investments, with a particular focus on two of our flagship developments projects: Gdański Business Center in Warsaw and the Twin City complex, now under construction in Bratislava.”

Ian Worboys, CEO, P3

“Expo Real 2015 was extremely busy, the venue was buzzing with people. I would guess that we saw 20 pct more people attending compared to last year, a great indicator that the European market is improving. From P3’s perspective we had three very successful days, with back-to-back meetings at our stand. We decided to bring our whole management team to Expo Real due to the high interest in our pan-European business that we are seeing from potential new customers.”

Árpád Török, CEO, TriGranit

“TriGranit has been present at Expo Real for ten years now – and this was the first occasion after a long period of time that I’ve seen so many visitors and exhibitors. Perhaps the years prior to the financial crisis were similarly busy. It’s a good sign that the industry is back again. The investors are keen on new investments and new developments are underway. The new challenge for investment funds is to find quality products. Nonetheless, it’s really good to see and feel that the market is busy, there are more and more transactions and, overall, the industry is positive again. And the busy-ness of Expo Real reflected this. It was great and really useful being here.”