Emmanuel Blouin

Gearing up for MIPIM

noreply@blogger.com (Emmanuel Blouin) — Mon, 17 Feb 2014 08:15:00 +0000

How best to enjoy the world's largest property jamboree?

I must have attended a dozen or so MIPIM by now and - after some tiring and frustrating experiments - can offer some tips on finding the right balance between efficiency and fun:

1. Remember the geography of the Croisette when planning meetings: Palais, Majestic, Carlton and Martinez in that order. Allow for a few minutes' walk between each of them.
2. Schedule 30 minutes slots - wrap up meetings in about 15 minutes - allow 5 minutes for one of the parties to be late, 5 minutes to go to the next meeting, and 5-10 minutes to catch up on emails and impromptu meetings.
3. If weather is clement (it usually is), lunch on the Beach is a must...go there no later than 12:30pm if you want to secure a table without booking.
4. Unless attending a critical client event, avoid meetings in the arrière-pays or worst - in Monaco: too much time to get there and come back.
5. Plan to catch up with people you know already well during some of the cocktail parties (most of them take place on Wednesday late afternoon, with some on Tuesday and Thursday).
6. Focus instead on meeting new people, especially from countries you have not (yet) been to or done business with . This is after all what MIPIM is for.
7. Zig-zag between the booths in the Palais, jump on the yachts if allowed to, stop and inquire if you get to see some interesting projects, make contacts and collect business cards.
8. Leave some time to serendipity
9. Don't try too hard to do business/transact or close.
10: And if you get the chance, try to schedule some nice time avant-MIPIM or après-MIPIM on the Riviera...my personal favourites are Saint Paul de Vence and Eze. And watch Mélodie en sous-sol with Jean Gabin and Alain Delon to get in the mood of 1960's Cannes.
11. Once back home, follow-up. Over the years, great things can happen thanks to contacts at MIPIM.

Enjoy your week, and perhaps see you there for a coffee or drink.
Carpe Diem,
Emmanuel

What to expect? Innovations!

noreply@blogger.com (Emmanuel Blouin) — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 14:59:00 +0000

This is this time of the year again when forecasts are made (where are yields in Central in London heading? Rents in La Defense? Will the banks disgorge all their bad loans?). Useful exercise to budget the next 12 months, but I have always preferred to medium to long term sort: what will the next 5/10/20 years bring on? In short, my answer is loads of innovations...and we don't even have a clue which ones...
I recently learned in an illuminating book (Where Good Ideas Come From - Steven Johnson) the existence of an almost universal natural law applying to metabolism and mass. Simply put, the heavier the animal, the longer he will live and this relationship follows a well observed pattern. A cow weighs 1,000 more than a woodchuck and will live 5.5 times longer. This is the negative quarter power scaling law (called also the Keliber Law) since the square root of 1,000 is 31, and the square root of 31 is 5.5.
Where it becomes interesting is that the same negative quarter power law can be used to compute relationships in human networks, for instance in cities (number of gasoline stations, length of electrical network, etc... in cities of different size.
Now, when it comes to innovation (ideas, inventions, patents etc...), the relationship between the population and measures of innovation breaks away from nature and would follow a POSITIVE quarter law: a city ten times bigger is 17 more innovative. The average resident of a city of 5 million is three times more innovative than a resident of a city of 100,000...
Of course, I would think the reality is much more complex and the actual innovation rate derives from a multiplicity of factors (education, openness, infrastructure, etc...) as opposed to simply population numbers.
However, isn't this what civilisation progress has always been about? The density and size of human settlements have been correlated to technical progress. And when and where human population decreased (Tasmania over the last 5,000 years), technical abilities regressed.
Fast forward to the XXI Century and for the first time, most of us live in cities as opposed to countryside. Technological innovations (transport, internet, etc...) have increased the density, frequency (if not always quality) and speed of human interactions dramatically.
What to make of it?
1. Let's not believe the innovation doom-mongers ("all which has to be invented or discovered has been done so already" someone said...at the end of the XIX Century)
2. Seemingly intractable problems will continue to find their solutions through science (energy, healthcare...) just like cities would not stop growing because of the horse and hygiene issues as was feared by some at the end of the XIX Century
3. Let's not worry too much on extrapolating series on excel...and let's embrace the future with eagerness
Carpe Diem

Back from Expo Real...will it get worse before it gets better - or should we care?

noreply@blogger.com (Emmanuel Blouin) — Mon, 10 Oct 2011 08:50:00 +0000

I am back from Munich after a very productive and intense week, and the feeling of a job well done.

As always, Expo is proving a very good opportunity to catch up with old friends - and get acquainted with new market participants. It is a very helpful counterpoint to Mipim in Cannes in March, with a slightly more business-like tone and a slightly reduced audience (the conference is still very much dominated by Germany and its neighbours so southern European countries/non European countries are much more represented in Cannes). Year after year, we are meeting again and patiently growing the network. People move on, relationships shift, clients become suppliers and executives become entrepreneurs or vice versa. Building trust takes time and these industry events are critical in this respect, if nothing else.

Through the rumour grapevine, it is also a very good barometer of sentiment. This year, on balance, the smart default position of most participants was that 'it will get worse before it gets better'. There are anecdotal (sometimes contradictory) signs that banks (in Continental Europe) are retreating/holding off and suddendly, there are shades of Summer 2008. Except that expectations are on average much more 'reasonable' this time around and serious players have dug in the trenches or built and raised the flood dams already...In the meantime, doom-mongers of all stripes were having a field day ("this time governments have nothing left with to react so this will be a catastrophe", etc...).

Again, best is to cut loose from negative influences, stay the course and try to move decisively towards one's goals. It's the execution, stupid!

September 2008 - September 2011: Deja vu?

noreply@blogger.com (Emmanuel Blouin) — Mon, 12 Sep 2011 09:08:00 +0000

If the jury was out when I wrote my post on 5 September, this time we have the verdict and it furiously feels like three years ago. Markets are tanking and European banks are being hammered. SocGen is through the lows of March 2009. ..Importantly, it somehow feels like it will get worse before it will get better - exactly like three years ago.
In market terms, we say 'don't catch a falling knife'. Now taking a step back, Warren Buffet's mantra resonates: ' be greedy when others are fearful and fearful when others are greedy'. Certainly, some stocks are being oversold at the moment and offer (will offer?) very attractive entry points (lets keep an eye on dividend yields and some screaming buys will emerge). The dislocation should also accelerate the unlocking of some special situations as fatigue and panic will settle in. In my business (European property investment), financing/refinancing needs combined with some investors keen to exit are already resulting in attractive opportunities to inject relatively small amounts of capital at low degree of risk and buy attractive options.
So no time to scheming grand designs, time to get busy talking to companies and partners/investors.
Emmanuel

September outlook

noreply@blogger.com (Emmanuel Blouin) — Mon, 05 Sep 2011 09:29:00 +0000

It's back to school days. At the top of the priorities of many players in the property industry in Europe is to form a view on what September has in stores for us. It is always tempting to err on the side if caution and assess that the worst is in front of us, and plan consequently.

So far I have heard of relatively little evidence either in London, Moscow, Kiev or Prague of any cancellation or revisiting of investment plans...but these may come in the next several weeks.
Markets are down 2% this morning so I guess a few of us will be watching nervously the newsflow.

Taking a step back, my central view and working assumption remain that if 2008 was a earthquake, 2011 will prove an aftershock i.e. less violent, and things will continue to normalise. Lets see in a few weeks' time. The operations of the businesses I am involved in should hopefully provide some hints on where this is all going. Happy to read your views.

Emmanuel