Build March Issue

Build Magazine 46 &A Property Investors is a Pan European Private Equity Investment Boutique with a current investment portfolio of over €350 million. Their Senior Management Team has extensive experience investing in high-yield investments throughout Europe and has advised and managed in excess of €10 billion of real estate, acquisition, capital markets and restructuring transactions throughout the world. With offices in Switzerland, Luxembourg and the Czech Republic, and local partners in over 20 locations throughout Europe, they are strategically positioned to utilize their global financial experience and local market expertise to source off-market deals and actively manage the entire investment process to provide solid returns for our investors and strong economic assets for the communities. Marc E. Cottino is the founder of M&A Property Investors, established in late 2009 in London and Zurich, and his job is focused on developing relationships with financial partners with the view of implementing Club Deals to co-finance the firm’s pipeline deals. M&A Property Investors activities, visions or investment strategies they evolve quickly according to economic changes, so it is important to not lose the cap and make turn errors from the past into success. “Quick reactions and “Deja-vue” situations can be a strong driver to consolidate experience toward new successes” In 2016 he celebrates 18 years of industry experience and throughout professional life he has discovered that the elements needed to realise a good investment must not be complicated or hazardous. On his firm’s portfolio, he said that “we team up with European Real Estate promoters from Portugal to Czech Republic, people different for cultures and languages, we do require few important facets, Professionalism, Transparency and Will to share ventures with us. Money and profits come later” he says in an in-depth interview. Giving an insight into the work Cottino does behind the scenes, he outlines his main responsibilities and says that “at 62 I am the old stager with tremendous will and commitment as a teenager who rules the corporate strategy, who links relationships with investors, bankers, wealth managers, family offices or any other institutional investors partnering with M&A.” “I carry the responsibility of millions Euro invested in tangible assets thousands of kilometres away from each other, and I have passed unintentionally through the crisis’s peak without anguish or distress which I am proud of it. To avoid failure, I carefully listen to the market trends, including smiff off-market deals opportunities in niche markets to source unique investments for my partners.” Career “I began my career in London at 24 in early 1977 as a junior commodities trader. Years later I moved to Paris evolving to a well-known financial firm who specialised in Capital Market Instruments, which really a great experience” enthuses Cottino when asked about his experience prior to his role in M&A Property Investors. “In 1990 an Anglo- French financial firm offered me to manage the Madrid branch, so I spent 4 years in that beautiful City. In 1995 I was asked to manage the Private Banking Division of a private bank in Switzerland, which was a really boring job for a guy like me” he adds. “In spring 1998 a Real-Estate promoter asked me to loan-finance a luxury residential building in downtown Lugano. I was seated over multi-millions portfolios of Swiss francs, but the question was how to finance the promoter instead of selling bank instruments? Due my experience, I quickly set-up an investment vehicle and subscribed my clients, so in one-week I raised 7 Million Swiss francs and I financed the promoter. The development was a nice trophy project, indeed all magazines wrote positively about it, the investment was great, the asset was sold in short time and return was excellent. At the end of the story I was fired by the bank because I was not on-line with the bank’s investment ‘policy” Cottino tells. Continuing the theme of his career, Cottino explains that he quickly set-up a structure in Luxembourg thanks to the investors who cashed excellent returns and supported him. He started his new venture in Real Estate by applying Private-Equity techniques. In 1999, he began doing investments in Baltics States, in Hungary in Italy and in Côte d Azur. He divorced from his partner in mid-2007 and took an extended period of sabbatical leave until 2010. “Meanwhile, the world went bankrupt, the RE bubble deflated and prices dropped. When the economic recovery shyly restarted in 2010, the banks had no money to finance RE Real Estate FundManager of theMonth M