The game changers

When asked what he remembers about David Mitzner, a legend of the Polish real estate market, Andrzej Tokaj from the Magnusson law office told us how the great man knew that although large and complicated deals are made by institutions, they are created by people. There is a human being behind every success, every skyscraper raised, every shopping centre sold for hundreds of millions of euros, every new strategy or every record lease. A person worthy of respect. This is how the originnaly arose idea for a new category in the Eurobuild Awards competition – the Personality of the Year. At the gala ceremony this year, we will be handing over the award for the second time. But how is the Personality of the Year chosen? In the first stage of the voting process, the nominations are submitted to ‘Eurobuild Central & Eastern Europe’ magazine. Then the jury, which this year consists of app. 180 real estate and construction experts, casts its votes to draw up a shortlist of three people. The votes are to be submitted electronically between November 7th and November 9th (inclusive) with the voting supervised by KPMG. Finally, the guests at the Eurobuild Awards gala (app. 800–900 people), which is to take place on December 6th at the DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel & Conference Centre Warsaw, will choose the winner from the three remaining candidates.

The feminine touch and...

This year there are three women among the nominees: Ewa Kuryłowicz, a member of the board and the chief architect at Kuryłowicz & Associates; Katarzyna Pyś-Fabiańczyk, the head of the industrial and logistics department CEE at BNP Paribas Real Estate and Hanna Zdanowska, the mayor of Łódź. Ewa Kuryłowicz was on the jury for the Festival of Architecture awards recently held by Eurobuild Conferences. One of her studio’s designs (the Ferio Wawer shopping centre) has also been shortlisted to win the award in the best shopping centre category. Recently she was invited by Echo Investment to make a speech during the grand opening of the Q22 office skyscraper in Warsaw. Ewa Kuryłowicz is also a charismatic lecturer on architecture at the Warsaw University of Technology; she is the author of many books and articles and an outstanding personality who co-founded one of the country’s most renowned architectural studios, the designs of which (such as a huge complex on ul. Towarowa in Warsaw) which can be seen in major projects all over Poland.

The second nominee works in the field of consultancy and is well known in the world of logistics and warehouses. Katarzyna Pyś-Fabiańczyk has been employed in the real estate sector for fourteen years; she has worked at BNP Paribas Real Estate since 2013 and was promoted in the spring. Now she is not only responsible for the Polish market but also for the wider activities of BNP Paribas in Central and Eastern Europe. “Apart from her typically business related activities such as advising for the contract announced in September signed by Panattoni Europe and Raben for over 40,000 sqm, she has earned plaudits for the enthusiasm with which she has gone about to uniting and supporting women working in the sector. After only a few meetings she managed to bring together a group of committed women to formally register the Ladies First Association in October,” says Katarzyna Matejuk, the director of the Eurobuild Awards.

The mayor of Łódź is equally as dynamic. At the recent 7th Office Market Conference: Trends & Outlook for Poland a number of developers admitted that Łódź had turned out to be the dark horse in their portfolios. The image of the city has been changing and it has now become effective at attracting business – and so many of its residents are ready to forgive the mayor for digging up the centre. The reason why she’s doing it has now become obvious. Hanna Zdanowska graduated from the Łódź University of Technology in construction and architecture and has held the post of mayor of Łódź since the end of 2010. (She stood for re-election in 2014, winning in the first round.)

The masculine point of view

“For taking over at the helm of one of the largest real estate companies in the region and swiftly and efficiently implementing its new strategy, which has made it possible not only to stay on the market but also to start rapidly developing. He has steered GTC back towards profit within the space of two years. The company has made many new investments and it has listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange,” says Tomasz Szpyt, the deputy editor-in-chief at ‘Eurobuild Central & Eastern Europe’, listing the reasons for the inclusion of Thomas Kurzmann among the nominees for the Personality of the Year award. Thomas has been the president of GTC since 2014, having earlier worked with other real estate players including Deka Immobilien and Europolis.

The next candidate is also connected with the JSE even though he took his company not only onto the trading floor in South Africa but also listed in Luxembourg. Apart from his effective promotion of Poland and Polish products, what else does Hadley Dean, the president of Echo Polska Properties, demand respect for? For creating a new significant player on the Polish real estate market and acquiring a huge portfolio of properties from Echo Investment (worth EUR 1.2 bln), for raising EUR 100 mln from investors for further investment, for the sale of his former company, Compass Offices, to Echo Investment, and for a number of new purchases the company has managed to finalise in the space of six months (70 pct of Towarowa and four office projects from Echo). We only found out about Hadley Dean’s appointment as the president of the board half a year ago when the announcement was published in June, so we are still waiting for the company to publish its first results. It will be interesting to see what the head of EPP is going to surprise us with in 2017 as he has certainly been raising the bar over the last few months.

In mid-September, Rafał Mazurczak was appointed to the management board of Echo Investment. He has been working at the Kielce-based company since 2000, when he started as an office project leasing manager. Now he is a member of Echo’s board and the director of the office and hotel department. According to his colleagues, when he became the director of the office department in 2013, he not only took over the responsibility for the commercialisation of the company’s office projects but for their construction too. He was responsible for co-creating and implementing Echo Investment’s office development strategy. Above all he was responsible for the construction, lease and marketing of the company’s flagship project, the 50,000 sqm Q22 office building in Warsaw. Under his management Echo’s office department is not doing too badly on a very competitive office leasing market. And which deals have been the most eye-catching? The 14,000 sqm lease, the largest in the history of Echo’s office department, of Nokia Networks in West Gate, the 100 pct lease of buildings such as A4 Business Park (IBM, PKP Cargo), and the 80 pct commercialisation before Q22’s official opening.

Marek Błędowski, a member of the board of Apsys Polska, praises Fabrice Bansay for being not just the project leader but the man behind the concept and vision of the Posnania shopping centre – a mall that combines retail and entertainment, technology, design and art. “He created the Apsys LAB think tank within the company. The advanced technological techniques of digital immersion are used to entertain and inform as well as to extend our service offer while creating a unique customer experience. Just as the visionaries in Silicon Valley once combined IT with design, Apsys is today combining retail space with design and emphasising the social and aesthetic benefits of communal areas,” says Marek Błędowski. Apsys spent 20 years waiting for the opening of Posnania because, as Fabrice Bansay explained during the opening of the 100,000 sqm centre. His father became aware of the plot near the Rataje roundabout as early as 1996, when the firm was only just entering the Polish market. He could see that it was the ideal place for a modern shopping centre. Now his son, who has worked at Apsys since 2000, has turned his vision into reality.

Buying, selling and making money

According to Colliers International, everything is pointing to 2016 being just as good in terms of investment volumes in Poland as the previous year. Cushman & Wakefield claims that the Central and Eastern Europe region is approaching the same figures as in 2007, the region’s record year. The sector is red hot. So it is worth mentioning the people behind some significant transactions. The latest news is that South African investment and development company New Europe Property Investments has purchased the Aupark Piešťany shopping centre in Slovakia from the Central Europe Real Estate Fund (CEREIF), which is managed by HB Reavis. The investor paid EUR 39.5 mln for the property. In September, the same Slovakian developer found a company interested in buying the first part of the Gdański Business Center complex in Warsaw. Ths came just a few days after the sale was announced of an office building in Warsaw’s Służew district. Savills Investment Management (SIM) purchased two office buildings on ul. Inflancka with a total area of nearly 50,000 sqm in a transaction worth EUR 186 mln. And let’s just throw in one UK deal from July: the sale of the 33 Central office building on King William Street in the City of London to US banking giant Wells Fargo, reportedly for app. EUR 358 mln. Who is the man behind all these deals? Marian Herman, a board member and CFO of HB Reavis Group. He joined the Slovakian developer in 2010 as the head of its investment management and divestments department responsible for all the markets that HB Reavis is present on. Since that time, he has closed deals in excess of EUR 1 bln. He was also responsible for setting up the company’s investment management business in 2010. In 2011 it raised EUR 165 mln for its first CEE fund and he was appointed as the managing director of HB Reavis Investment Management Luxembourg, the entity responsible for the fund’s management.

TriGranit has not been wasting its time, either. In September the company reported the sale of the Bonarka City Center (BCC) shopping centre in Kraków to Rockcastle. The deal was worth app. EUR 361 mln. The mall, which has a total area of 92,300 sqm, was opened in 2009. The company is also currently extending its Bonarka for Business office complex in Kraków and has celebrated the opening of its sixth building, of 10,000 sqm. Meanwhile in Budapest CA Immo has bought the 70,400 sqm Millennium Towers office complex for EUR 175 mln from a joint venture SPV of TriGranit and Heitman. The head of TriGranit is the last nominee for the Personality of the Year award. Árpád Török, the person recognised to have been responsible for these successes, has been involved in the sector for 20 years and has worked at TriGranit for more than 14.

Now the fate of the nominees is in the hands of the jury.