Disruputive Real Estate

On Tuesday 7 April, 2015 ACG Holland hosted a lunch session entitled ‘Disruptive Real Estate’. The event was kindly hosted by financial consultants Accuracy, who provide in-depth analysis of figures for companies in special situations such as M&A, disputes and restructuring. Accuracy has a wealth of experience in real estate and their choice to host an industry sector focused presentation and discussion was a new direction for ACG Holland.

Sharing his expertise, Jeppe de Boer, Founding Partner of Masterdam and former Chief Investment Officer of OVG Real Estate talked the audience through the Dutch real estate trends of the last few years. Dutch commercial real estate is one of the most innovative real estate markets in the world. Consumer preferences and occupier behavior seem to have changed faster than anywhere else. The resulting shifts to flexible offices, on line retail and urban apartment living have pushed many traditional market leaders out of business, clearing the way for new investor groups and for young innovative businesses.

These new players have potential to jointly create tremendous value, working with new value drivers such as hospitality, service, community building, flexibility, technology and branding. Many young innovative businesses get stuck however, despite their initial success. Achieving true scale and profitability remains a challenge for most. Obtaining good access to finance is hard for all. Masterdam’s aim is to help companies resolve these issues and to accelerate their strategic development. Masterdam participates with equity, strategic input and access to external finance.

Our second speaker Sven Brookhuis, founder of SKEPP and HNK (Het Nieuwe Kantoor) (positioned left in photo) provided further colour to Jeppe’s story. In his PechaKucha format presentation of 20 images, changing automatically every 20 seconds (6:40 minute presentation in total) Sven convincingly showed how existing and future distressed commercial real estate is being transformed into offices that appeal to the needs and wishes of contemporary tenants. An office is not just a working environment but also a place where you feel at home, where you can drink a cup of coffee and a place to meet people.

The examples of HNK, oVVice, Bouncespace and Atoomclub demonstrate that there are ample opportunities for young real estate entrepreneurs to play a key role in this unstoppable development.

Following the excellent feedback of this event we hope to host more industry focused events in future. Do get in touch if you have ideas or themes to share. For further questions please contact Bas van Helden, Accuracy 020- 2066750.