Warsaw Business Journal March 2020 #56

WARSAW

BUSINESS JOURNAL S i n c e 1 9 9 4 Po l a n d ’ s l e a d i n g

MARCH 2020 ~ No. 3 (56)

business magazine in English

For daily news visit us at wbj.pl

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PAGES OF REAL ESTATE CONTENT

PETER NOACK

a co-founder of ZEITGEIST Asset Management reveals the firm’s recipe to success

JEROEN VAN DER TOOLEN

of Ghelamco tells how to stand tall among Warsaw’s skyscrapers

ROBERT DOBRZYCKI

CEO of Panattoni Europe states how they aim to continue following their customers’ expectations

Dariusz Kwieciński

Managing Director Fujitsu Poland, explains how Poland leads the way in technology

LUXURY IN POLAND STILL INEXPENSIVE In the historic center of Warsaw, two unique tenement houses from the late nineteenth century are regaining their former glory.

The buildings arouse delight with their richly decorated interiors and facades, as well as their unique character, as they were home to many extraordinary personalities from the world of politics, culture and science.

However, apart from architectural, historical and sentimental issues, Warsaw's luxury tenement houses are a great investment not only on the city scale but also in a much broader sense.

FOKSAL IS ONE OF THE MOST PRESTIGIOUS and beautiful streets in Warsaw, located just off the historic Royal Route, near a multitude of theaters and museums, high-end boutiques, cafes and restaurants. The beautiful tenement houses at Foksal 13 and 15 particularly stand out among the preserved buildings, rightly called gems of the belle ĂŠpoque architecture.

The abundant and unique decorations, spacious high interiors, and luxurious finishing materials arouse even more

delight now than when the buildings were erected, over 120 years ago. Unlike the vast majority of Warsaw tenement houses, both these historic buildings survived the war, which further increases their historical and market value. The buildings underwent a thorough renovation in recent years, carried out

by Ghelamco, which set itself the ambitious goal of restoring the tenement houses to their former glory while creating luxury apartments for demanding customers.

in cooperation with Warsaw Business Journal The main staircase of Foksal 15 residence is decorated with 19th-century polychromes, white marbles and decorative portals

GOOD CAPITAL INVESTMENT No one needs convincing as to the benefits of investing in premium real estate, but it is worth getting familiar with Europe's investment map and keeping track of market trends. According to the Deloitte data, one of the fastest developing and, at the same time, the most promising regions in this respect is Central and Eastern Europe. The prices of Warsaw luxury real estate are extremely lucrative for Western investors. In Vienna, this type of investment costs 15-20 thousand euros per square meter; 1525 thousand in Paris; and up to 25-30 thousand euros in London.

In tenement houses at Foksal 13/15, prices of apartments start from 5,900 and end at 9,300 euros. One should note that this is one of the most prestigious housing investments in Poland.

According to the latest KPMG report, "Luxury Goods Market in Poland", the value of the premium real estate market in Warsaw has been increasing by 7-8% annually over the last decade. Experts predict that this trend will continue, which means that the gap between the local high-end properties and those in Western European capitals will be narrowing. A luxury apartment in Warsaw is, therefore, best purchased now.

According to KPMG, the value of the luxury real estate market in 2019 ranged from PLN 1.4 to 3.8 billion, depending on the criteria adopted. What plays a key role for buyers of this type of liabilities is their unique design.

TRADITION AND LUXURY Right from the start, the tenement houses at Foksal were unique. They were home to the wealthy bourgeoisie and Warsaw's cultural and social elite. It was here that influential politicians and entrepreneurs lived, and the city's first panoramic lift was also installed here.

In line with this tradition and the nature of luxury homes, Foksal 13/15, after revitalization, will continue to be a premiumclass property for lovers of history, eclectic architecture and luxury. The tenement houses offer a total of 55 apartments, ranging from 47 to 260 sq. m. As well as beautiful details, murals and original finishing materials, residents will have many comfortable amenities at their disposal.

The luxurious downtown mansions will include a recreation area, fitness room and spacious terraces on the top floors, with a view of the Warsaw city center. Residents will be able to have their loved ones or business partners overnight in guest rooms on the buildings' ground floor. A garage was built under the historic property, able to hold a total of over 60 cars.

The interior design in common areas, including SPA zones and guest rooms, in turn, is the work of the Dutch designer Eric Kuster, who designed for world music and sports celebrities, including Alicia Keys, Kelis, David Guetta, Zinedine Zidane and Robin van Persie. Kuster's exquisite style combines noble simplicity and sophisticated details and is the essence of this unique investment.

MARCH

13 In Review

News Ambassadors' page Brexit Stat page The Witcher Rule of law Judges' protest

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22 Exclusive

Interview: Dariusz Kwieciński, Fujitsu Interview: Artur Spała, Raben Article: Peter Noack, Zeitgeist Asset Management

30 Features

Interview: Janusz Czapiński Interview: Michael Dembinski Interview: Ahmad Piraiee

39 Tech

News Interview: Paweł Zborowski, Fintredo Article: Proptech Interview: Joanna Izdebska, IPF Digital

51 Lokale Immobilia

News Interview: Harald Jeschek, Karimpol Feature: Gdańsk Port Interview: Jeroen van der Toolen, Ghelamco Interview: Agnieszka Szczepaniak, AP Szczepaniak Interview: Robert Dobrzycki, Panattoni Analysis: PwC Report

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72 Opinion

Communication: Morten Lindholm Investing: Les Nemethy & Sergey Glekov Politics: Sergiusz Prokurat

79 Life + Style

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Interview: Maciej Stompór, Dobre Jachty Restaurant Review: Bocca Bar & Bistro, Warsaw Postępu

PUBLISHER'S NOTE

React, repost, reuse, rethink, renovate – responsible!

Morten Lindholm Editor-in-Chief/Publisher mlindholm@valkea.com

Sankhyayan Datta Managing Editor

sdatta@wbj.pl

Krzysztof Maciejewski Business & Web Editor

kmaciejewski@wbj.com

Kevin Demaria Art Director

kdemaria@valkea.com Contributors

Ewa Boniecka Sergiusz Prokurat Beata Socha Alex Webber Anna Zhuravleva Sales

MORTEN LINDHOLM

PR & Marketing

Dominik Grudziński dgrudzinski@valkea.com

Magdalena Czopur Subscriptions

mczopur@valkea.com Krzysztof Wiliński Print & Distribution

dystrybucja@valkea.com Magda Gajewska Event Director, Valkea Events

mgajewska@valkea.com Contact: phone: +48 22 257 75 00 fax: +48 22 257 75 99 e-mail: wbj@wbj.pl

WBJ.pl WarsawBusinessJournal

All photographs used in this issue are courtesy of partners and companies unless specified otherwise.

Copyright © 2020 by Valkea Media SA All rights reserved. This publication or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permissionof the publisher.

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Valkea Media S.A.

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Tomasz Opiela, CEO

NIP: 525-21-77-350

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PORTRAIT BY PIOTR NAREWSKI

IT SEEMS TO ME that we have finally reached the era where it’s beginning to dawn on the humankind that more and new aren't going to make us happier or better. Entering the new decade it became obvious to me that the fight for climate emergency has to be a revolution originating from the people. And so it has begun. Do I need to mention Greta, Flygskam, meat-eating “shame”? Even WEF 2020 had climate risk at the top of its agenda.

The media and communication industry is also experiencing new times where finally quality over quantity is becoming an unignorable KPI. Big international titles including the NYT and Le Monde have, after serious analysis, come to the conclusion that less is more and that good stories and opinions are the secret to success, making both reposting and readdressing matters an important issue.

The retail industry called a Finnish startup “the new Amazon of reused clothes” as the firm came up with the idea of reselling to people clothes worn at least once for reuse. We are all aware of (and sometimes get bombarded with the information about) how many liters of water go into producing a pair of jeans and how much “poison” cloth production leaves.

You can’t think of “re...” without real estate. I think we are also finally witnessing an industry feeling the pressure to rethink – whether it is renovating or repurposing an old building for new purposes. My hope is that the 2020 edition of MIPIM will be full of inspiring and responsible ideas from innovators across all industries.

Restructuring or transformation? Companies – at least the bigger and smartly-led giants despite already being super successful – are starting to adjust themselves to a different future. Maybe it will be a recession, hopefully shortterm, finally triggering. And therefore, the workforce would need to be resized and supported by AI. Or simply because the business environment is going to change and real leaders would foresee how their businesses can be effectively continued. But let me not dampen your spirit and sign off with a positive hope for the future: we need reliable data and we must reward responsible progress!

Adam Fogler afogler@valkea.com Magdalena Klimiuk mklimiuk@valkea.com Monika Makarczyk mmakarczyk@valkea.com Katarzyna Pomierna kpomierna@valkea.com

February 18, 2020 Polish miners can be seen blocking trains carrying coal to a power plant in the southern town of Łaziska Górne, near Katowice – Poland’s coal capital – in protest against coal imports from Russia.

Poland generates most of its electricity from coal, but domestic coal production has been falling in recent years due to cost savings and geological problems, which prompted higher imports, mostly from Russia.

PHOTOGRAPH BY PAP/ANDRZEJ GRYGIEL (more on page 14)

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VISIT WARSAW AT STAND RIVIERA 8 D1 Warsaw - smart people, smart technology, smart city The Mayor of Warsaw is pleased to invite you to Warsaw events at MIPIM 2020 March 10th 12.00 Panel Session Warsaw & digitalization – transforming real estate and changing people’s lives, at Warsaw stand Riviera 8 D1 Organized with “Top Woman in Real Estate Poland”

March 11th 11.15 Panel Session Blending strategies: public mission, business ambition and human aspiration, at Gare Maritime Organized with Poland Today

March 11th 16.30 Networking Coctail, at Warsaw stand Riviera 8 D1

Our Partners at MIPIM 2020

MIPIM

2020 www.um.warszawa.pl/en | www.mapa.um.warszawa.pl

NEWS HIGHLIGHTS OF THE PAST MONTH FROM WBJ.PL

We will not be told, in foreign languages, what kind of system we should have in Poland and how Poland’s affairs should be taken care of President Andrzej Duda, an ally of Poland’s governing right-wing populist Law and Justice (PiS) party, in support of PiS’ new disciplinary regime for Polish judges, on January 17, 2020 (more on page 20)

HISTORY

PHOTOGRAPH KPRP/KRYZYSZTOF SITKOWSKI

Holocaust survivors mark Auschwitz liberation 75 years on Seventy-five years after the liberation of Auschwitz, a dwindling number of elderly Holocaust survivors gathered at the former German Nazi death camp to honor its over 1.1 million mostly Jewish victims amid fresh concerns over antisemitism.

More than 200 survivors came on January 27 from across the globe to the camp the Nazis built in Oświęcim in then-occupied Poland, to share their testimony as a stark warning amid a recent surge of anti-semitic attacks on both sides of the Atlantic, some of them deadly.

Meanwhile, Poland’s President Andrzej Duda pulled out of an event in Israel to

commemorate the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz after being told he would not be allowed to speak at the event, but Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, would.

The move came amid anger in Poland over Putin’s comments accusing Poland of complicity in the start of WWII. It was one of a number of disputes that cast a shadow over the events.

jets for $4.6 billion.

Defence Minister Mariusz Błaszczak told media sources that the acquisition will enable the country’s military to make a technological leap. He added that the budget of the ministry in 2030 will amount to 2.5 percent of the GDP of Poland.

However, skeptics have claimed that Poland bought the machines that it “didn’t need” in exchange for visa-free travel to the US.

DEFENSE

SOCIAL

The Polish Defence Ministry has signed the formal letter of offer and acceptance with the US Air Force (USAF) to purchase 32 Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II fighter

In a major snub to Poland’s authoritarian regime – the governing conservative Law and Justice (PiS) party – one of its deputy family ministers Barbara Socha has admitted

Poland inks agreement with US to purchase 32 F-35 aircraft

Poland’s child-benefit program ‘has not and will not’ up birth rate: minister

W B J MARCH 2020

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In Review | DOMESTIC NEWS in an interview for the Warsaw-based broadcaster Radio Wnet that the government’s flagship “500+” child-benefit program “has not and will not” improve the birth rate as it intended to.

However, Socha, who is also the government spokesperson for demographic issues, claimed that the program had “not failed” despite being unable to live up to its promise.

The child-benefit program, which according to many critics is a “pork-barrel” project, was introduced on April 1, 2016.

PiS announced their intention before the parliamentary election in 2015 and went on to win the election.

Nearly PLN 90 billion of taxpayers’ money was spent on the project from the time it was introduced until October 31, 2019, according to a report published by Poland’s top audit body, NIK.

device. It contains an element that heats the inhalation fluid (e-liquid) to up to 330C. The high temperature generates aerosol that then hits the respiratory system of the smoker.

Experts have stated that the number of smokers, especially minors, has increased manifold. According to a study conducted in 2019, the number of Polish teenagers who have tried “vaping” (smoking e-cigarettes) has increased almost six times since 2011.

ENERGY

Poland built 800 MW of solar panels in 2019

M&A

Poland flag carrier LOT acquires German airline Condor Polska Grupa Lotnicza – the owner of LOT – announced the acquisition of Condor on January 24, the transaction for which is expected to be completed by the end of April 2020 for a still undisclosed sum.

Condor used to belong to Thomas Cook.

Unlike the latter, Condor received a lifeline from Germany in the form of a €380 million bridging loan and filed for investor protection proceedings, which requires that a company is not yet insolvent and can be saved.

The Thomas Cook Group ceased trading on September 23.

HEALTH

Up in smoke: Poland’s sanitary body blasts e-cigarettes An e-cigarette cannot be the first cigarette a person smokes that might lead to an addiction, especially because it can cause respiratory failure, warned Jarosław Pinkas, the head of Poland’s Chief Sanitary Inspectorate (GIS), adding that there have already been a few cases of lung failure in Poland.

An e-cigarette is an electronic inhalation

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Poland built photovoltaic installations with a capacity of nearly 800 MW in 2019, four times more than expected, according to the “Energy Plus” program data released at a press conference summarizing the program’s outcomes on January 15.

The results show that Poles built home installations with almost 800 MW capacity in total, four times more than expected.

The amount of photovoltaic systems is also bigger than in all previous years calculated in total and produces as much power as the entire hydroelectric power plant in Zarnowiec, southern Poland.

Together with all existing larger green industrial installations, the total capacity of green energy in Poland now stands at 1,200 MW. ENERGY

Over 60% of Polish coal imports from Russia: ministry The head of Poland’s state assets ministry (MAP), Jacek Sasin said that of Poland’s total coal imports that amounted to 12.3 million tonnes, 8 million tonnes came from Russia, while domestic extraction was 46 million tonnes. Asked about the import cost, Sasin claimed that the ministry did not have the data. “The value of contracts for the import of coal from abroad is the economic secret of companies conducting the business. MAP does not have this type of data.”

Meanwhile, the Polish government has

agreed to pay rises for miners in exchange for them suspending further protests against the import of coal, particularly from Russia, which state-run mining giant PGG has also promised to reduce as part of the agreement.

Coal has always been a hot issue in the country that relies heavily on fossil fuels.

Poland’s ruling right-wing PiS party, while facing criticism from environmentalists for not doing enough to improve air quality, have always tried to secure coal miners’ votes. The biggest opposition party, Civic Coalition, wants to cut out coal completely by 2040.

As much as 80 percent of the country’s electricity is coal-powered currently. And the state-owned Bełchatów Power Station in central Poland is the world’s largest lignitefired power station. It produces 20 percent of the total power generation in Poland. One of the biggest carbon polluters in the world, the plant burns approximately 45 million tonnes of coal each year and has emitted approximately 1bn tonnes of CO2 over the course of its lifetime.

CLIMATE

Poland’s green fund cut 50% under latest EU budget proposal Poland would see its €2 billion share of the EU’s Just Transition Fund cut in half under a new EU budget proposal published on 14 February, which penalizes countries that have not signed up to the bloc’s 2050 “climate-neutrality” goal.

European Council President Charles Michel’s attempt at brokering an EU budget compromise includes fresh conditions for the fledgling €7.5bn-strong Just Transition Fund ( JTF), which still needs to be approved by EU member states.

The European Commission unveiled the fund in January as part of its wider Just Transition Mechanism, a €100bn package of grants and investments that is designed to help countries enact stricter climate policies and deal with the impacts of going green.

Poland was the big winner of the commission’s JTF proposal, as it was allocated a share of €2bn from the pot, which is the top limit of funding per country the EU executive has imposed on the fund. Germany, in the second place, is eligible for just over €800m.

In December, Poland was the only EU state that refused to join the rest of the member states in agreeing to make the bloc carbon neutral by 2050, arguing that it will need more time.

>>>

SHUTTERSTOCK (2)

WBJ

What did top diplomats in Poland have to say about…

Brexit

?

Rolf Nikel

Orsolya Zsuzsanna Kovács

German ambassador

Hungarian ambassador

What does Brexit mean for the trade relations between Poland and your country?

It is difficult to make a concrete prediction since we do not know yet under which conditions trade between the EU and the UK will take place after the end of the transition period on December 31, 2020. However, even if some negative impact might be recorded in some spheres, Polish-German trade relations are so broad and develop so dynamically, that, altogether taken, I do not expect any major shifts.

Before the end of the transition period – that is the conclusion of the UK-EU trade deal – it is far too early to tell about the consequences of Brexit on trade relations between Hungary and Poland.

Bilateral turnover between Hungary and Poland is estimated at nearly EUR 10 billion in 2019, and it is still growing, so we are confident that the positive tendency will be maintained.

How is Brexit positive and negative economically?

Brexit is doubtlessly one of the factors which have disrupted international markets, which leads to a “wait and see” attitude among investors and makes planning more difficult for many European and non-European companies.

This certainly has a negative impact on economic growth.

In the global economic competition, none of the European countries seem to have as good a chance alone as a member of the European community. However, it has to be underlined again, that till the negotiations get concluded it is hard to give a clear answer.

What was your first thought when you discovered that the British electorate had chosen to leave the EU?

The British people have taken a decision that we have to respect even if we like it or not. We wish them well on their new journey outside the EU. In any case, we are interested in as close a political and economic relationship with the UK after Brexit as possible.

I personally regretted the decision of British voters, but of course, they have the right to decide the future of their country. I hope that the bilateral relationship between the UK and the EU will remain as close as possible.

(more on page 32) W B J MARCH 2020

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In Review | DOMESTIC NEWS ONLINE GAMING

CD Projekt postpones ‘Cyberpunk 2077’ release date CD Projekt has decided to postpone the release date of the much-awaited role-playing video game “Cyberpunk 2077” to September 17, 2020, from April 16 – the company stated. The decision is justified by the need to provide additional time for work related to testing the game, removing defects and giving it a final touch, the company added.

In June, CD Projekt reported that the world premiere of “Cyberpunk 2077” would take place on April 16. However, the spokesperson informed on January 16 that more time is needed to refine the game.

CD Projekt is a Polish video game developer, publisher and distributor based in the capital Warsaw.

ECONOMY

Toshiba to open plant in Poland, pump millions Japan-based multinational conglomerate Toshiba Carrier Corporation – a part of the Toshiba group – will open its first European production plant in Gniezno, western Poland, in 2020, at a cost of over PLN 100 million (over €20m), Polish Investment and Trade Agency (PAIH) announced on January 21. The tech giant’s decision was announced during a Polish-Japanese investment meeting in the Japanese capital Tokyo.

Poland has been an attractive partner for Japanese business for decades, PAIH stated.

Over 300 companies with Japanese capital already operate in the European nation, employing approx 40,000 employees. They mainly represent industries such as machinery, automotive, food, electromobility, and the modern business services sector.

The statement came as Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki continued his visit to Tokyo to meet Japanese PM Shinzo Abe, the imperial couple, businesspeople and the Polish diaspora. Morawiecki sought to strengthen Poland’s economic cooperation with Japan, one of the biggest Asian investors present in Poland.

HEALTH

Poles forced to spend almost PLN 10bn on private health services annually Poles end up paying out of their own pocket a third of what the government has promised to add in seven years, the Employers’ Union of Innovative Pharmaceutical Companies (INFARMA) has stated.

INFARMA experts have estimated that

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due to the limited budget for health care it is difficult to achieve better health results in the country. Polish patients consider the long waiting time for visits to specialists as one of the most important unmet needs in the field of medical care.

Poland still allocates significantly lower resources for its citizens’ health than the EU average. In 2017, the government promised that by 2024 it would increase public spending on health care to 6 percent of GDP. However, almost 1.5 percentage points are still missing to achieve this goal. Poles are forced to fork out for treatment and visits to doctors from their own savings.

The report “Health in the EU 2019” shows that in Poland the number of patients whose death could be avoided, thanks to preventive measures and medical interventions, is over one-third higher than the average in the European Union. Every year, at least 20,000 Poles die prematurely.

Meanwhile, an INFARMA report shows that in terms of expenditure on medicines, Poland ranks at the bottom in the EU. On medicines, the Polish government spends slightly over €130 per capita, while the average for Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries is €248.

AGRICULTURE

Poland hit by ‘intense’ drought: Polish water authority Intense drought has hit parts of Poland, Polish state water management (WP) stated in a press release. “The latest data for January 2020 indicates low soil moisture… The reason is primarily the lack of precipitation – snowless and dry, and warmer winter – that prevents moisture buildup in the soil,” adds the communique.

The country’s western, northern and central regions have been affected the most.

According to scientists, 2019 was the second hottest year on record globally.

Marek Gróbarczyk, Poland’s maritime minister, said: “We are facing a very difficult spring because of the low rainfall. If this situation continues, then we can have the worst drought in fifty years.”

ECONOMY

Poland inflation highest since 2011 Inflation rose faster than expected in January to 4.4 percent, hitting its highest point since 2011, Poland’s central statistics office, GUS, data showed in February 2020.

However, the recent rise in inflation in Poland is temporary, Polish rate-setter Eryk Lon has claimed. Some major central banks did not change interest rates despite hikes in inflation, he added.

Polish base rates are at an all-time low of 1.5 percent.

ART AND CULTURE

Book about Polish WWII hero receives prestigious award A biography about Witold Pilecki, the Polish war hero who volunteered to go to the Nazi German Auschwitz death camp and then warned the world about the Nazi death machine, has been granted the Costa Book of the Year award. Earlier the book titled “The Volunteer: The True Story of the Resistance Hero who Infiltrated Auschwitz” by Jack Fairweather won the Costa Book Award in the Best Biography category.

Pilecki's role in informing the world about the Holocaust was really important. He allowed himself to be caught in a round-up in order to enter Auschwitz. He escaped from the camp in 1943, but during his imprisonment, he managed to smuggle reports describing the atrocities taking place there.

He was executed by Poland's communist authorities after a mock trial in 1948. His grave has not yet been found.

Since 1971, Costa Book Awards have been granted to English-language books by writers based in Britain and Ireland.

SPORT

Polish ski jumper wins Four Hills Tournament Polish ski jumper Dawid Kubacki won the 2020 Four Hills ski-jumping Tournament after placing first in the fourth leg in Bischofshofen, Austria, on January 6. Kubacki won the Four Hills title after jumping 143 meters and 140.5 meters in Bischofshofen. The Polish ski jumper took the lead in the tournament after coming second in the competition's Saturday third round in Innsbruck, Austria. Earlier, he was third in GarmischPartenkirchen and in Oberstdorf, Germany.

Kubacki is the third Pole to have won the tournament. In 2001, this prestigious competition was won by Adam Małysz, and in 2017 and 2018, by Kamil Stoch.

Curated from: Artsy, Business Insider, Dziennik Gazeta Prawna, Euronews, Forsal, ISB News, PAP, Radio Poland, Rzeczpospolita

SHUTTERSTOCK

WBJ

BEWITCHED

Polish writer Andrzej Sapkowski’s fantasy novels have been turned into a video game and a TV drama.

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76,000,000 households had watched the first season of the drama on Netflix by February 2020

37

books in the saga, published

by Sapkowski from 1991-2012 in Poland, and in the US (in English) between 2007 and 2018

66% 92%

19,000,000

viewers of the final episode of Game of Thrones

languages the books are translated into

40,000,000 copies of all games sold by August 2019

15,000,000

of professional critics and a whopping

of regular watchers gave the drama positive reviews on Metacritic-rival Rotten Tomatoes, with an average rating of 6.06/10, based on 83 reviews

copies of eight novels sold before the release of the drama show

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5,000,000

countries they are available in

copies of the franchise sold in eastern Europe, even before the games were out

Ranking of regions with the highest demand for The Witcher series in December 2019 USA Poland Brazil Uk Germany Canada Australia France Spain Russia

39.1 28.5 24.6 23.5 19.7 18.2 17.9 17.4 17.3 17 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 Demand expressions per capita (DEx/c) Source: Parrot Analytics

500,000

additional copies currently (January 14, 2020) being reprinted by the US division of the Londonheadquartered international publisher Orbit Books to meet the “exceptional” and “phenomenal” demand in all formats – print, ebook and audio

103,000

gamers concurrently played The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt on January 5, 2020

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In Review | INTERNATIONAL NEWS SPORT

SCIENCE

Kobe Bryant, who became one of the greatest basketball players of his generation during a 20-year career with the Los Angeles Lakers, was killed in a helicopter crash along with his daughter, 13-year-old Gianna, and seven others on January 26. He was 41.

Conditions were extremely foggy when the NBA great’s helicopter went down northwest of Los Angeles on a hillside in the city of Calabasas, killing everyone aboard.

However, critics point out that Bryant’s great legacy includes a rape allegation.

Bryant was accused in 2003 of sexually assaulting a 19-year-old hotel employee in Colorado. He was charged with rape, but the case was dropped after the accuser declined to testify. A civil suit was later settled.

The NBA star, who married his wife, Vanessa, in 2001, admitted to having had sex with the teenager but insisted that it was consensual. He acknowledged that “she did not and does not view this incident the same way I did”. At the time he apologized for “my behavior that night and for the consequences she has suffered”.

Nasa astronaut Christina Koch has completed the longest-ever single spaceflight by a woman.

The Russian Soyuz spacecraft carrying Koch parachuted down to the grasslands of Kazakhstan at around 10:12 CET on February 6. She spent 328 days on the International Space Station (ISS), surpassing the previous record held by fellow American Peggy Whitson. Her stay is just 12 days short of the all-time US record set by Scott Kelly, who was on the ISS from 2015-2016.

After almost a year in space, Koch has conducted numerous science experiments on the orbiting lab, including studying the effects of microgravity on Mizuna mustard greens, combustion, bioprinting and kidney diseases. In addition to her science experiments on the space station, Koch’s extended mission will allow researchers to study the effects of long-duration spaceflight on a woman. This research will benefit future missions to the moon under the Artemis program and Mars.

NBA legend Kobe Bryant dies at 41

HEALTH

China coronavirus kills over 2,300, infects over 78,000 The World Health Organization (WHO) has declared a global health emergency over the outbreak of a new coronavirus, which originated in Wuhan, central China.

As of February 22, more than 2,300 people have died in mainland China. At least 11 deaths have been reported elsewhere.

More than 78,000 people have been infected worldwide, the vast majority of them in China. Coronaviruses are a large family of viruses that cause illnesses ranging from the common cold to more severe diseases such as severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) and Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS), according to the WHO. They circulate in animals and some can be transmitted between animals and humans.

Several known coronaviruses are circulating in animals that have not yet infected humans.

CRIME

German far-right gunman calling for genocide kills 9

POLITICS

Trump acquitted in impeachment trial President Donald Trump, the third president in history to be impeached, has been found not guilty, ending a bid to remove him from office that bitterly divided the US. The Senate, run by the president’s fellow Republicans, voted to acquit him 52-48 on charges of abuse of power and 53-47 on obstruction of Congress.

In the fall, Congress investigated whether Trump pressured Ukraine to smear his potential political rival, Democrat presidential candidate Joe Biden, and his son.

The House Judiciary Committee voted to advance two impeachment articles against Trump – one for abusing his office, and the other for obstructing Congress. On December 18, he was impeached on both articles.

Trump will now become the first impeached president to seek re-election [in November 2020].

Impeachment allows Congress – the part of the US government that writes and brings in laws – to put presidents on trial. It is a rare event and a political process, rather than a criminal one.

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NASA astronaut breaks female space record

CRIME

Media mogul Weinstein found guilty of rape In a New York sexual assault trial, Harvey Weinstein, an American former film producer was found guilty on two counts, but acquitted of the most serious sex crimes. He will be sentenced on March 11.

A jury of 12 men and women found the fallen titan of Hollywood guilty on two of the five potential criminal charges. On February 24, 2020, they found the defendant guilty of a criminal sex act in the first degree for forcing oral sex on the former Project Runway production assistant Miriam Haley in 2006. The count carries a minimum prison sentence of five years and a maximum of up to 25 years.

Weinstein’s sexual abuse of aspiring young female actors sparked the #MeToo movement.

A far-right terrorist who shot and killed nine people of foreign background in a rampage that began at a shisha bar frequented by immigrants had posted an online rant calling for the “complete extermination” of many “races or cultures in our midst,” authorities have said. German Chancellor Angela Merkel said the attack exposed the “poison” of racism in the country.

Tobias Rathjen, 43, was found dead at his home along with his mother, and authorities said they were treating the rampage as an act of domestic terrorism.

Turks, ethnic Kurds and people with backgrounds from Bulgaria, Bosnia and Romania were among those killed when the white supremacist carried the deadly mass shooting at two separate locations, according to news reports. Turkey’s ambassador said five of the dead were Turkish citizens. People of Turkish background make up Germany’s single largest minority. According to unconfirmed reports, the victims also included a Pole.

As a consequence of the attack on February 19 in Hanau – 25km east of Frankfurt – the German interior minister said “sensitive institutions” such as mosques would see an increased police presence.

Curated from: Al Jazeera, AP, BBC, Business Insider, CNN, Deutsche Welle, Guardian, Reuters, Rolling Stone, Space, WSJ

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In Review | RULE OF LAW

PRESIDENT DUDA RATIFIES ‘MUZZLE LAW’ TO DISCIPLINE JUDGES Poland’s human rights commissioner and opposition politicians immediately criticized the move – dubbed a “muzzle law” – calling it a first step in the direction of a “Polexit” out of the EU’s legal order.

P

oland’s President Andrzej Duda signed into law controversial legislation aimed at disciplining judges who question government legal reforms that the European Union says are out of step with the rule of law. The amendment allows the disciplining of judges “whose public activities are incompatible with the principles of the independence of the courts and the independence of judges”.

‘Muzzle law’?

Drafted by Poland’s ruling right-wing nationalist and populist Law and Justice (PiS) party and pushed through parliament by its lawmakers, the measure has been widely criticized by the European Commission and top European legal bodies as undermining judicial independence and in turn, threatening Poland’s democracy.

The crisis has ratcheted up tensions over the issue that has set the country on a collision course with the European Union.

In January, judges from nearly all EU member states joined hundreds of their Polish colleagues in Warsaw in an unprecedented street protest against PiS’ measures to effectively gag critical magistrates.

Background Since taking office in 2015, PiS has introduced a slew of controversial sweeping judicial reforms that it insists are designed to tackle corruption and make the judicial system more efficient.

Before President Andrzej Duda signed the bill into law, PiS said the proposed legislation – which was rejected by the oppositioncontrolled Senate – was necessary to avoid chaos in the legal system, as some judges had started questioning the legality of the appointment of others.

But Brussels, human rights activists and lawyers believe the

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bill was designed to stop criticism of the government’s wide-ranging reforms, which they say seek to increase government control over the judiciary. In late 2017, the EU launched unprecedented proceedings against Poland over “systemic threats” posed by the reforms to the rule of law that could see its EU voting rights suspended.

Who’s Piotrowicz?

Despite the demagoguery, in November, the ruling party officials instated a former PiS lawmaker Stanisław Piotrowicz as a judge of Poland’s Constitutional Tribunal – a legal body supervising the compliance of statutory law with the nation’s constitution. As a state prosecutor in communist times, Piotrowicz was known for prosecuting an opposition activist in the 1980s and for halting a case of sexual harassment of a minor by a priest.

‘Against the law’ A recent Supreme Court ruling underlined the divisions around the Polish judiciary, with some judges questioning the legitimacy of judges appointed by a reformed body that critics say is politicized. “Such a person does not have the right to issue judgments in criminal cases... in civil cases, a panel of judges including a person appointed in this way is against the law,” said Supreme Court president Małgorzata Gersdorf, referring to judges appointed under the new rules.

PiS’ puppet?

Duda signed the law on February 4 just hours after visiting French President Emmanuel Macron warned Poland against undermining European values and rules.

The Polish head of state – a PiS ally – who faces a presidential election this year, has offered a strident defense of PiS’ reforms, saying he would not allow anybody to tell Poland “in foreign languages” what system it should have.

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COVER INTERVIEW

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INTERVIEW BY KRZYSZTOF MACIEJEWSKI

‘Trusted Future’

Dariusz Kwieciński, Managing Director Fujitsu Poland, explains how trust became Fujitsu’s key to success in Poland.

WBJ:

Dariusz Kwieciński, the world of technology is changing fast.

How does Fujitsu keep up?

Dariusz Kwieciński: The world of technology is indeed changing at an enormous pace. And with the multitude of different technologies and solutions available, it is impossible to say that we can do everything. It will sound unbelievable.

We focus on data protection, hybrid IT and end-user services, and these areas overlap – for example, longor short-term data management includes an element of the processing center and its preparation for the transition to a private or hybrid cloud.

It is very important in this case to follow the mottos of Fujitsu: “Human Centric Innovations” or “Driving a Trusted Future”.

Some will probably say that these slogans are tall tales and that each company creates its own. However, I mentioned them because they are helpful in self-determination and also when we turn them into an approach to business.

It is worth noting that this is not about marketing your own products but about using technologies in such a way that they solve very specific problems, both in the field of artificial intelligence and data center.

appear in a dynamic and a bit chaotic way. There are several technologies in which we are leaders even compared with Western Europe. However, in the case of CEE markets, each of them has its own specificity.

For the Czechs, for example, one can see a great fascination for the German market – the solutions devised there are quickly adopted.

The Hungarian market remains a very conservative one – it focuses on the business model and all technological areas are transformed to this level.

In the case of Poland, I would say that our geographical location also reflects our approach to business.

Someone once told me that Poles watch every innovation very carefully first before they start implementing anything for the needs of their company.

Of course, various waves of innovations come to us from Western Europe – such as cloud computing.

However, while the Scandinavians, for example, implemented them practically everywhere very quickly, in Poland public cloud is used very cautiously because firms don’t want to lose control over their own data.

The Polish market seems like a mix of the Czech and the Hungarian markets.

Where does Poland stand within the Central and Eastern European (CEE) markets? Any major differences?

Do you think we are more cautious because conservatism is in our national character?

Of course, from the point of view of business development, some differences are prevalent. But changes also

Perhaps our national character is in some way contaminated by some flaws or prejudices from the Com-

munist era. But I would not push it.

I have the impression that certain technological innovations are easily accepted in Poland if we talk about the private sphere. However, for companies that spend earmarked funds, it is a completely different story. It seems that the most interesting technology companies are usually small ones and despite this limitation, they are creating an international position for themselves.

Of course, they do not gain traction immediately. Such enterprises simply do not seem to exist in Poland.

However, when it comes to technological development, ideas or creativity, we have nothing to be ashamed of. An interesting example is the banking sector, which is thriving, and in addition, it has promoted cashless transactions in Poland to such an extent that many people have stopped using banknotes.

Other markets, such as Spain, are behind us – so for this reason, Fujitsu sells a lot of ATM units there.

You have worked for Fujitsu since 2006. For over a decade already. With the benefit of hindsight, where did Fujitsu succeed? What could have been better? Can you say a few words about your professional path?

Could anything have been better?

In retrospect, we always see some unused opportunities. Some things could have been solved faster, others may be better. It is also worth remembering that a company like Fujitsu is quite an unusual ecosystem of many related elements.

W B J MARCH 2020

23

COVER INTERVIEW

FUJITSU FACTS

1999 Establishment of Fujitsu Siemens Computers in Poland 2009 F ujitsu Poland becomes a 100% Fujitsu company to offer comprehensive IT solutions

3,000 Number of employees in Fujitsu Poland FUJITSU GLOBAL IN YEARS:

1935 1954 2017

– company established – manufactured Japan’s first computer –m entioned in Fortune magazine’s list of “World's Most Admired Companies” for the fifth consecutive year

Yearly income – around

40

billion USD

Returning to what could have been different, we can always say that as a company we could have developed faster. One can always ask whether we have skillfully observed the development of the market.

When assessing ourselves in terms of results or activity, we have noted growth. I will add that this market’s development, especially in recent years, has been very rapid. We look through the prism of a client’s business problem, which we try to solve based on the knowledge we have.

My professional path has been quite interesting. I started my career as a technical person. Then I became the head of the services department. Then I took up sales. And for three years, I have been the head of Fujitsu’s Eastern European part.

I honestly admit that I really like what I do and I have always valued the opportunity to broaden my horizons. It seems to me that I have the right mental structure, which on the one hand allows me to be ready for new challenges, and on the other

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not to be afraid of responsibilities and pressure.

You also need a bit of luck in your life. However, I do not like to say that it worked out somehow. Only someone who won a lottery could say that.

You need to acquire new knowledge all the time. In my opinion, it is difficult to manage a technology company if you have no idea about technology.

I’m a very pragmatic person, which also helped in my professional life.

How is Fujitsu better than its competitors? Where does the room for improvement lie?

We build our relations with customers based on trust. We believe it is the right way to become a trusted advisor to our customers and be able to offer solutions to the challenges customers may have.

So we are in a position to advise which of these solutions are the most suitable – often with the help and technologies of our multiple partners – to the specific demands of our

customers, after having analyzed the customer environment, current and future needs.

Therefore, it is difficult to talk about competition as such, since strict product solutions are often not about competition, but partnerships.

Of course, we try to build systems based on our own technologies.

It is a bit different in the case of IT consulting. Although looking at how Fujitsu is developing and the fact that we have large competence centers in Poland, we can easily compare ourselves with the largest ones.

So basically we position ourselves in the middle – that is, on the one hand, we are still a technology producer and we want to remain one.

As far as I know, there are no plans for something to change in this area.

However, we want to use the best practices and all the things we talked about at the beginning.

We want to be a company that specializes in solutions that combine technologies and services. Firstly, we respond to customer needs, secondly to technology challenges, and thirdly, we want to find our place on the market that will give us a chance to develop in the coming years. We are addressing today’s needs but also help predict and discuss the future demands that technology may be able to address.

What technologies do you think will develop?

Anything is possible. It should be noted that all the algorithms associated with building something that we call artificial intelligence is developing extremely rapidly. Bots are beginning to be widely used in various areas, including those related to customer service. Therefore, we are talking about automation with elements of artificial intelligence.

When it comes to Internet of Things [IoT – the billions of physical devices around the world that are now connected to the internet, all collecting and sharing data], of course, the world is increasingly populated with various sensors, so this trend will strengthen.

We are waiting for the development of real 5G technology and for ena-

bling data transfer many times faster.

In the case of enterprises related to data centers, there is still a lot to do in Poland, the more so because considerable expenses are still incurred for more traditional solutions, although I would not rule out investment in automation here.

As for building a real quantum computer, it will definitely happen soon – some say that it has already been created somewhere. Fujitsu has also created something like this to increase data processing speed. If this revolution occurs, the world will become a different place, and what it will look like? One can only expect the development of completely new services related to this technology.

How important is Fujitsu Forum Tokyo for Poland, by which I mean Polish consumers? The event runs from May 19-22, 2020.

The schedule is not known publicly yet, although it is already being planned. It is difficult to say what will be of the greatest interest. I would not expect a Polish element in particular, because it is not an event that Fujitsu perceives through the prism of the countries in which its representative offices operate. This does not mean, however, that our country will be absent. Many products that are created under various working groups and so-called Fujitsu laboratories are the work of our specialists.

For example, the tool for migrating data between different clouds was basically created only with Polish hands, and today it is used in many countries around the world.

Do you foresee the birth of more visionaries?

Spectacular ideas in the world also arose in the years after Google and Facebook were created. A dozen or so years ago nobody promised their creators such a career.

Of course, the place of visionaries will always be there, but don’t ask me in which fields. Visionaries should answer this question, and that’s their role.

Today such a person is Elon Musk. It is important not to look back but stare at the needs of busi-

There are several technologies in “ which Poland is a leader even when

compared with Western Europe

ness users in the present and future.

The environment is also important – which I can certify as the head of the part of a company that is the largest employer of Japanese origin in Poland – with over 3,000 employees.

Challenges for the coming years?

The organizational structure of the company is expanding because we also have the competence centers mentioned before in Katowice and Łódź. The latter is the largest of its kind.

On the one hand, I am responsible for developing business in Poland and jointly with Polish partners, and on the other, I must ensure that the entire company operates in accordance with national regulations. With this number of employees, this is quite a challenge, because the point

is that nobody should feel left out.

All workers have the same rights and receive the same benefits.

We also have access to the knowledge and experience of other countries. But above all, it is important that we have competencies we can use in projects for clients from Poland.

What’s the best book you have read in 2019?

Of the industry stuff, I have recently been mainly interested in innovation monetization, but professionally I mainly read a lot of press. In my free time, however, I like to read something unrelated to technology – it can be a combination of a crime, thriller or a horror book. I have read almost all of Stephen King’s books.

W B J MARCH 2020

25

EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW

logistics market and that is how we are trying to act.

What are the principal drivers of the logistics sector and how have they impacted Raben’s activities?

The development of the logistics market is determined primarily by the needs of its customers. These needs are increasingly associated not so much with a given process but rather with issues related to environmental protection or the safety of goods entrusted to the operator. The ever-expanding e-commerce sector is also important, as it’s created a demand for a very effective supply chain – it needs to be fast, relatively cheap, safe and preferably environmentally friendly. On top of that, the process needs to be organized perfectly with reduced waiting times for loading and unloading, and shortened empty runs.

On the subject of e-commerce, how has the industry adapted its rapid growth?

Flying high

Artur Spała, a contract logistics director of Raben Logistics Polska, verifies how the logistics market in Poland took off over three decades ago and how it has been developing since.

WBJ: How has the logistics in-

dustry developed in Poland these last few years and what has been Raben’s role in this?

Artur Spała: Raben Group has been

present in Poland for almost 30 years and during that time every segment of our business has developed dynamically. Due to its geographical location, Poland has proved to be the ideal place for European logistics centers and the TSL [transport, forwarding and logistics] market has constantly grown. Taken as a whole, the industry has great development opportunities based on modern IT solutions, terminal infrastructure development, as well as mechanization and automation.

Despite the long period of returns on investment in automation, we can note that higher class storage facilities with a

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narrowed storage structure, roll conveyors, automatic foil lines and autonomous trolleys, are being created increasingly often.

Only a few years ago, the transport and logistics sector could only dream of such solutions because, with contracts lasting 3-5 years, advanced automation was not economically viable. The industry also faces challenges related to unfavorable regulations regarding international transport and we’ve also been affected by changes to the labor market, where it is increasingly difficult to recruit qualified employees. For example, drivers are now in short supply. Considering all these factors, reliable cooperation in supply chain management is needed between manufacturers, logistics operators and customers in order to change and improve processes together. Only in this way can we develop and educate the

The growth of this segment has required some change in attitude and increased flexibility. You need to be thinking about later hours to prepare individual outgoing orders, two-shift work patterns on Saturdays, round-the-clock courier vehicles, etc. E-commerce has created and consolidated changes in the approach to and the implementation of logistics processes. The rise of online shopping has also meant that the operator needs to work faster from an organizational perspective, and that’s created changes with regards to the optimization of processes and costs.

WBJ: What challenges has that created for those providing logistics services?

We’ve been required to define the profile of the clients that we serve, and the most important criterion here has been the pickup market. For instance, where this is concerned, the operator needs to personalize shipments for each country or handle returns in accordance with the legal requirements of a given nation. The common challenges, however, remain unchanged and are rooted in the quality and punctuality of shipment preparation as well as the ability to expand the scope of warehouse operations depending on seasonal or promotional campaigns.

WBJ: In terms of Poland’s logistics

INTERVIEW BY ALEX WEBBER

sector, which factors have you seen grow in importance?

The growing requirements on the part of customers, together with the lack of staff, including warehouse workers and drivers, have meant that the introduction of modern solutions has been forced through the market. In the face of these challenges, logistics companies must focus on innovation and flexibility, on more than one level. At Raben, we are also aware of the importance of “last mile” transparency from the customer's point of view. It’s important that information about the final delivery is provided to those that are interested in such as soon as possible. In respect to this, and to meet market expectations, we have created the myRaben.com platform in 2015, where our customers can find all information about their shipments, including delivery information, access to documents and invoices, comprehensive reports with graphic presentations and direct contact to their account manager.

What challenges is the logistics industry facing?

The challenges are many and the largest of these remains the rising labor market costs as well as the burdens resulting from anticipated new regulations. These changes apply to the entire market and span all industries which is why close cooperation and understanding across the entire supply chain are so important for the joint improvement of logistics processes.

Logistics has to change, improve and take a new approach to business, and this has to be done through innovation, automation, advanced forms of data exchange and pro-ecological activities.

Only financially stable companies with modern development potential and strong IT and research teams will meet this goal.

Companies like Raben.

What kind of innovations are being introduced to the sector?

For several years we’ve been focusing on the automation and robotization of processes and services on various levels: physical processes, IT processes, as well as the robotization of office processes (RPA). Supply chain information management is another area we’ve looked at and we’ve strived to completely eliminate the circulation of paper documents both internally, as well where clients and other

entities are concerned. Another area we’ve looked at is our approach to analytics where we now use big data systems.

In terms of immediate outlook, how is the new decade shaping up?

Recently, several trends have intensified, the accumulation of which has played a significant impact on the operation of the TSL industry. The logistics operator is expected to provide more, more often, more accurately, error-free and without damage. Distributors expect, above all, a quick response to changes in demand, ie ensuring greater availability of goods in the store. Deliveries for specific hours are also increasingly required, which are undoubtedly a big challenge for a groupage system offered by logistics operators.

In addition, among the key factors affecting the logistics sector, we can mention, above all, the increase in labor costs as well as the low level of unemployment – this has caused a shortage of drivers and warehouse workers, among others, rising energy costs, limited availability of means

of transport in relation to demand and changing expectations of employees, as well as new legal regulations. And let’s not forget about the very important issue represented by environmental protection and the expected minimization of our carbon footprint.

Certainly, even greater automation of operations awaits us. On the one hand, this has been caused by the need to adapt to limited resources, and on the other, it facilitates the daily work of warehouse employees and drivers. In addition, over the next few years, where road transport and distribution are concerned, we will witness a virtually complete liquidation of paper documents. All of the above may be accompanied by the expected slowdown of the European economy and the need to respond quickly to economic fluctuations. Together, these will force the introduction of modern solutions that will not only answer the challenges that face our industry but also help achieve environmental goals, eg in reducing CO2 emissions.

W B J MARCH 2020

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EXCLUSIVE

Nowogrodzka/Św. Barbary, Warszawa

Spirit of NOW

The zeitgeist is a concept from the 18th-19th century German philosophy, meaning “spirit of the age” or “spirit of the times”. BY SANKHYAYAN DATTA

W

ith eight projects in Poland in the pipeline with delivery dates after 2020 – including a well-known building complex at the crossroads of Nowogrodzka and św. Barbary streets in Warsaw and a post office in Kraków – ever since aptlynamed Zeitgeist Asset Management (ZAM) was created, it has been building a land bank.

Full steam ahead. No looking back.

The company was founded in 2014. It buys, develops, finances, manages and sells real estate properties for private and institutional investors in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). Headquartered in Prague, ZAM has offices in Berlin and Warsaw.

Since its establishment, the company has been growing dynamically, currently managing assets worth over EUR 515 million,

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almost 463,000 sq m of plots and 338,900 sq m of leasable area.

‘History defines our company’ Zeitgeist debuted on the Polish market in 2016 and has since purchased over half a dozen period properties – properties that were built during a specific time period, characterized by a distinctive architectural style. “As for period properties, history is something of great value to us, defining our company, the Zeitgeist,” explained CEO Peter Noack, a co-founder of the company.

“Poland is very important for us as it has a growing and stable economy with several regional markets that offer many opportunities. For Poland, three factors should be considered. First, the prices of apartments

are rising, resulting in searching for alternative options. Second, it is getting much harder to get a mortgage, with new collaterals required and other restrictions. And last but not least, is the generation change.

One of the latest PwC reports says that 81 percent of respondents agree that it is more profitable to use somebody else’s goods than to own something. A trend to ‘use without purchasing’ is easy to observe on the real estate market,” he said.

“We brought experience from markets in Germany and Austria. In the CEE region, we observed an increase in living costs for private households. This, in combination with the mortgage policy of the national banks of the Czech Republic and Poland, led us to invest in this niche,” he added.

Poczta Główna, Kraków

“ Poland is very

important for us as it has a growing and stable economy with several regional markets that offer many opportunities

Peter Noack, CEO and co-founder, Zeitgeist Asset Management

Rise in Poland In June 2019, the real estate firm announced the beginning of its investment in the Praga district in Warsaw’s east – a plot that it bought in 2018. It plans to revitalize a building located near the historic Praga Port. There will be apartments for rent and the ground floor will be occupied by commercial facilities. Zeitgeist declared the purchase of two properties in Kraków in August 2019 from Orange, a French global telecommunications giant. One of them is a historic building at ul. Wielopole 2, where the seat of the Main Post Office is located, and the second one is a partially built-up plot at ul. Cystersów 21. Investments in Kraków are interesting for the market as the building at ul. Wielopole 2 is well recognized among the residents – for 120 years it has been the seat of the Main Post Office.

In September 2019, ZAM bought from Orange a complex of six buildings covering almost a hectare in the city center of Warsaw at the crossroads of Nowogrodzka and św. Barbary streets. The French behemoth had got them from Telekomunikacja Polska. The complex includes a four-story block from 1933, a monumental and historic eight-story Post and Telegraph office from 1931 and a 22-story technical build-

ing, towering over the neighborhood. Zeitgeist acquired the complex, located 300 meters from Warsaw’s iconic Palace of Culture and Science, for €81 million. Before buying the buildings belonging to Orange in Warsaw, the firm had around 60 percent of their investments in the Czech Republic, but currently, compared to Poland, it’s about halfhalf.

Most of Zeitgeist’s employees have worked with real estate developers and as a result, they are used to seeing the final product and not so much only the existing structures. They work closely with top specialists in the field, like Dr Josef Holeček, a well-known Prague conservationist as well as Professor Petr Urlich, an architectural historian. The core team comprises of active university lecturers specializing in the 19thcentury architecture. In their projects, they often bring back the original shapes, colors and facades that were destroyed or converted during communism.

‘Zeitraum’ ZAM has developed its own brand for student housing – ZEITRAUM – currently, the biggest Czech student housing operator, running four student houses with nearly 95 percent occupancy. It aims to be in the

three biggest ones in Poland soon. “We have already begun working on projects offering 647 beds in Warsaw, and in the pipeline, there are further 1,000 beds,” Noack stated.

In Poland, there are 1.4 million students and Warsaw is the second-largest academic city in Europe, after Paris. This results in huge demand for student housing that is faced by low-quality dormitories in Poland.

Only 8 percent of students in Poland can count on places in dorms.

“We see many synergies between student housing and long- or short-term leasing.

Our focus on students was a natural consequence of the market analysis,” the CEO emphasized.

What’s success?

Zeitgeist is very flexible when it is convinced of a location and a project. The asset management company always tries to have a win-win situation for the seller and themselves.

“We are not the ones giving up just because we did not succeed in the first round.

Our success is the completed building and tenants moving in as they like the product.

The greatest hurdles are caused by construction regulations that hinder the fast expansion of assets,” the co-founder claimed.

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FEATURE INTERVIEW

DIVIDED WE STAND

As Poland is in the throes of a deep political chasm, Janusz Czapiński, an academic and a renowned Polish social psychologist, tells WBJ that a large part of the Polish society is worried about the governing right-wing populist party’s pork-barrel policies.

INTERVIEW BY EWA BONIECKA

WBJ:

You’re the author of the “Social Diagnosis” report.

What does it tell us?

Janusz Czapiński: The “Social Diagnosis” project analyzed the quality of life of Poles from 2000-2015.

According to the results published in 2015, as many as 81 percent of Poles said they were happy. They were content with their families and work. However, they attributed their achievements to their efforts and not politicians’.

The results also showed that Poles did not trust each other. Their identities were deep-rooted in Catholicism. They were largely conservative and not interested in fortifying the Polish civic society. They thought about making money all the time.

So you could argue that the Polish soul was corrupted to a certain degree. Our happiness was materialistic.

Poles were religious …

Well, some people did give credit to

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God for the improved situation. And if they were not satisfied, they would blame the government.

It seemed Poles equated happiness with money, and having faith in the church and traditional families. Other matters, such as the rule of law, democracy and honesty in the public sphere, did not seem important. Their values appeared to be built on pride, religion, and Polish history, culture and tradition.

What else did the results show?

Many Poles during this period had loans. The majority of the households had cable TVs and as many as 71 percent had access to the internet.

The report showed that more and more people had higher education and could be considered cultured.

You could say that there was a development on a personal level.

However, there was still a huge wealth disparity. There were many poor people in Poland. After joining

the European Union [on May 1, 2004] Poles moved to other countries in the bloc in droves. Their lifestyle choices were influenced by the cultures of their adopted countries.

They earned more money compared to their fellow citizens back home.

The European funds helped develop Polish villages, cities and businesses, in addition to enlarging our export portfolio. As a result, most of the Poles [according to the report] were pro-EU. The project was interpreted differently by political parties?

Various political parties held power during the time the research was conducted. So the reactions depended upon the political attitudes and differed. The findings were based on facts and not politics.

I stress that the social scientists who conducted the [“Social Diagnosis”] study, based their conclusions on answers from people who

“ I hope that the reins of power in Poland will be held by those who build bridges of understanding, not those who build barriers instead The opposition took control of the upper house. A new chapter in Polish politics?

Can you, as a Polish citizen and Yes, it is, largely because the Polnot as a social psychologist, tell us ish society is still evolving. In my why are so many Poles concerned opinion, the last general election was about the current political situaideologized the most since 1989. tion in the country?

[Poland held democratic elections for The majority of Poles these days the first time since the fall of Comdemonstrate an active approach munism in June 1989. For the first to the political situation in the time since, after the fall 2019 eleccountry. They are divided into two tions, the ruling party took control of groups that do not like each other. the lower house of Polish parliament I call them two tribes. The domiwhile the opposition took charge of nant group is the one that is deeply the upper house.]

Catholic. They think that [the ruling Showcasing various views and Law and Justice party] PiS are the lifestyles, many Poles voted for a host only party that can improve their of parties other than the two main economic situation, uphold the sov- ones. The 2019 elections showed that ereignty of the nation and promote the benefits doled out by the ruling Catholicism.

[PiS] party are important but not the On the opposite spectrum is a most important. group of people that rejects PiS’ Not only the Civic Platform (PO) policies – their violation of the rule party – the biggest opposition party of law and Poland’s democracy. This – but also, although unpredictably, other half of the electorate doesn’t The Left alliance and far-right caucus support any one particular party per Confederation Liberty and Indepense but they call out PiS’ demagogudence, had their members voted into ery – appalling treatment of people parliament. It clearly translates as an of color, different religions, different inconvenience for PiS in its second sexuality or ideology. term as the governing party. It also PiS have their own version of means the end of an era of two-sided Polish history. Should something not conflict between PiS and PO. Now, fit their narrative, they reject it. They we have to factor in the reactions of are trying to control all public instiPiS to the stance of the third biggest tutions, budget policies, tax policies. opposition party – The Left – espeUsing the garb of grand words, they cially in issues related to ethics. cover the brazen behavior of their top officials.

There’s also infighting within the As you can imagine, the confron- United Right alliance of which tation between the two tribes is PiS is a part? How will it affect extremely hostile. And the language governance? used in the argument is brutal. So I do not think so. The parties – United one could claim that in Poland there Poland led by Zbigniew Ziobro is a kind of domestic war. and Agreement headed by Jarosław Gowin – that have formed a political After the last parliamentary elecalliance with PiS are entirely depentions [October 2019], PiS won dent on PiS and follow their policy. the majority in the lower house.

Only economists’ predictions of a participated in the project and not on political perception.

weaker economy pose a problem for PiS. The economic predictions for the EU aren’t positive either.

A large part of Polish society is worried. These Poles are critical of the generous promises of Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki. His words that Poles will live in a rich country are beautiful but unrealistic.

[Following PiS’s re-election in 2019, in a speech in parliament in November, Morawiecki gave a speech setting out the goals of the government in the forthcoming terms.]

If the government cuts spending, the benefits will also get scrapped. If that happens, I think the government won’t finish its term in office and will have to call an early election.

Are there any political issues that shock you as a Polish citizen?

The list is long. But I become especially indignant when ruling caucus members are aggressive or use vulgar language against any kind of opposition.

In November, PiS forced through three of their candidates as judges of the country’s constitutional court including two former MPs – Krystyna Pawłowicz and Stanisław Piotrowicz – with controversial pasts. [Established in the early 1980s, Poland’s Constitutional Tribunal is a legal body supervising the compliance of statutory law with the nation’s constitution.]

As a state prosecutor in communist times, Piotrowicz was known for prosecuting an opposition activist in the 1980s and for halting a case of sexual harassment of a minor by a priest.

I hope that the reins of power in Poland will be held by those who build bridges of understanding, not those, such as PiS, who build barriers instead.

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FEATURE INTERVIEW

Brexit to blight Poland-UK trade relations?

As all of Blighty geared up for exit from the European Union, Michael Dembinski, chief advisor to the British Polish Chamber of Commerce, told WBJ on Brexit day, how “resilient” Polish exporters will find new and creative ways of getting into the post-Brexit UK market.

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INTERVIEW BY SANKHYAYAN DATTA

WBJ:

What Brexit means for the Polish job market?

Michael Dembinski: First of all, let’s go back to when Poland joined the EU in 2004. The crucial element in all of this was the decision of Tony Blair’s government to allow citizens of the new EU member states unlimited access to the UK labor market. At the time, Poland had the highest unemployment rate in the EU. It was 18.9 percent according to Eurostat [the EU statistics agency]. Today Poland’s unemployment rate according to Eurostat is the third lowest in the EU [Czechia (2%), Germany and the Netherlands (3.2%), Poland (3.3%)]. There is a difference between the way Eurostat and the Polish government measure unemployment.

No other country in history has seen unemployment fall at such a rate as Poland. Despite a blip during the time of the economic crisis [around late 2009], Poland didn’t experience a recession.

Nevertheless, the unemployment rate went back up again a little bit.

But since 2014-2015, the unemployment rate has just been going down.

And this is the biggest problem that our [BPCC’s] members in Poland face right now – recruitment and retention of staff.

So in terms of what Brexit will mean, there are many employers in Poland who hope that there will be a wave of returnees coming back to Poland from the UK. But that does not seem to be borne out by the official UK migration statistics. On the one hand, Poles have been rather slow to apply for settled status, on the other hand, we are not really seeing, even anecdotally, any talk of large numbers of Poles returning to the UK. It’s rather individuals. And certainly, if a Pole or a Polish couple has children in UK schools and has properties in the UK, they are unlikely to be thinking about leaving the UK. Considering what you have just said and according to Poland’s central stats office [GUS], more and more Poles are leaving the

UK. However, many of them aren’t coming back home. They are moving to countries including Germany and the Netherlands. Is Poland going to benefit at all?

I think it has more to do with the export of jobs. We are not talking about the export of head offices to Warsaw. But we are talking about increasingly sophisticated services, [business] processes such as quantitative analysis.

We’ve got three banks – Credit Suisse, Standard Chartered and JP Morgan Chase – looking for hundreds of PhDs in maths in Warsaw to do really high-end stuff which wasn’t really happening in Poland 10-15 years ago when the whole movement toward outsourcing began.

Similar thing in manufacturing. We are seeing more and more companies, SMEs – quite a novelty – moving their production to Poland because the supply chains in automated and aerospace are becoming ever tighter. The clients of many companies from the UK are in Poland … Rzeszów Aviation Valley.

The clients are saying to the suppliers “bring your factories closer to us”.

They aren’t necessarily big factories – some of them employ 50-70 people.

But this is something quite new. This has only been really happening since about 2015-2016. It might have happened anyway. It’s not necessarily a direct cause of Brexit. Supply chain optimization has been going on for a while. But this is all adding up to a situation whereby it is hard for employers to find the right people with the right skills and to hang on to them once they have got them.

Is Brexit in any way good for Poland? The UK is an important trading partner of Poland?

When you are looking at bilateral trade, number one is clearly Germany. Number two is China simply because of the tidal wave of stuff that comes over from China into Poland. Hardly anything goes back the other way … Poland exports twice as much to the UK as the UK exports to Poland. So when we are looking at the value of bilateral trade, it’s not actually that great.

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FEATURE INTERVIEW

France and Italy do better. But the UK was for a while Poland’s second-largest export market. It’s now fallen into third place behind Czechia. And looking at trends from 2019, I think it won’t be long until it falls to fourth place behind France. Poland imports a lot more from France than it does from the UK. So the UK will not be as important a trade partner as it has been to Poland. But a general observation about Polish exporters is that they are a determined bunch. They aren’t a bunch of softies who give up easily. We saw this after 2014 when the Russians imposed sanctions on Polish food products. And very quickly Serbia became the largest exporter of apples to Russia. Most of that came from Poland. Or Belarus became the largest exporter of fish without even having a coastline. So again coming from Poland. Polish exporters are very resilient. They will find new and creative ways of getting into a market if the market is lucrative for them. And the UK certainly is. I think their determination alone will ensure that there isn’t any catastrophe in terms of Poland’s balance of trade.

So Brexit only affects the UK's economy?

Nine percent of the UK’s value-added GDP comes from the manufacturing industry. This means that the UK is condemned to a trade deficit in goods. It simply doesn’t manufacture enough. It has to buy them in.

The UK has a massive trade deficit in goods … Now the problem is that many of the UK’s largest financial institutions had already Brexit-proofed themselves by the end of 2018. We had three missed deadlines for Brexit last year. And each of them entailed a risk of a no-deal Brexit, without any passporting rights. [Passporting rights refer to exercising the right for a company registered in the European Economic Area to do business in any other EEA country without having to request further authorization in that country.]

So the major UK financial institutions that are doing any business

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sition period ends on December 31].

It’s a very similar situation for the automotive [industry]. The entire European automotive industry is predicated by just-in-time delivery.

If you’re a supplier, you have to get your goods to Gate B between 9:15 and 9:30 on Tuesday. It can’t be any earlier, it can’t be any later. That works fine if there is no friction at Dover. We have already seen significant talk of disinvestment from the UK from manufacturers like Nissan, Honda, BMW. Already Jaguar Land Rover is building the new I-PACE in Slovakia. So there is a big risk to the entire UK automotive sector.

From a point of view of Polish suppliers and supply chains, it may simply be that they are no longer sending their parts to factories in the UK but they are sending it to Slovakia, the Netherlands or France. That we don’t know. But as I say those are the two sectors in Poland which are most affected … I think the key thing really for Poland exporters is who your competitors are. If you’re a Polish exporter and your main competitor is from the Far East, then you will have difficulties because you’ll all of a sudden lose that frictionfree access to the UK. You’ll start having to do things like get an EORI number [European Union registration and identification number for businesses which undertake the import or export of goods into or out of the EU] and country of origin certification, sort out your VAT, all of this extra paperwork which your Will Brexit affect any Polish competitor from the Far East has to industries? do anyway.

Two which are at the greatest risk are On the other hand, if your comautomotive and food. Both of those petitor is from a higher cost econodepend on just-in-time logistics. We my in Western Europe, then Polish already had signals last year of Polish exports will have a natural advantage. food exporters to the UK who were They will be able to sell products having difficulties getting perishmore cheaply. And it then becomes able goods insured in transit to the an issue of brand and perception of UK because of the fear of a no-deal quality. And I think that over the 15 departure. Companies that have or so years Poland has been in the long-term contracts with major UK EU, Poland’s exports to the UK have food retailers found that they can’t tripled and Polish exports generally get insurance for the food that they have a good reputation among UK were required to deliver. consumers and UK corporate buyers We still don’t know what the situfor the right quality at an attractive ation at Dover and Calais is going to price. Polish exporters should not look like on January 1, 2021 [the tran- give up on the UK market as long as

in continental Europe, have moved their European operations to jurisdiction within the EU. So looking at our [BPCC] members, for example, HSBC now reports to Paris from its Poland headquarters in Warsaw, rather than to London. Lloyd’s of London – the oldest insurer – here in Poland is now a subsidiary of Lloyd’s Brussels. So any insurance policy that is written here in Poland is treated as an export of Belgium financial services. Not of the UK financial services. Aviva – one of Poland’s biggest insurers and one of Poland’s biggest active fund managers – now reports to the French regulator in Paris. And Prudential, again big in life insurance, they have moved [all their non-British EU business] to Dublin.

So all of this happened right at the tail end of 2018. This is not visible in trade statistics in services for 2019.

We don’t know what 2019 [stats] would look like. But my guess is that there will be a severe diminution in the UK’s export financial services to the EU as a result of those companies Brexit-proofing themselves.

The UK’s trade deficit is destined to grow. The UK’s talking brave about striking up new trade deals all over the world. It will be doing that from a position of weakness. You can’t negotiate with huge economies like the US, China, India, as a country of 67 million. It is so much easier to do it as part of the world’s richest trading bloc.

they are not in the area of perishables or just-in-time, and you still have that determination and will to succeed in the UK market, which is after all still a wealthy market.

The UK is a net contributor to the EU budget and Poland is a net recipient. How is that going to look after Brexit?

People have been talking about that for quite some time here in Poland.

It will be worse. No one is expecting the same level of generosity from the EU in the next financial perspective.

Brexit is one reason. But a bigger reason really is the restructuring of EU funds. No longer looking at the east of the bloc but now the south where the real problems are.

Poland doesn’t have a problem with unemployment today. Greece, Spain and Italy still do. The feeling is that one way or another, with or without Brexit, those funds would be pointed back down south.

There have been many attacks against Eastern Europeans in the UK including Poles. Will Poles be welcome in post-Brexit Britain?

It depends where you live. I was born in west London. Already in the 1960s, one-third of my class at primary school were either migrants or children of migrants. For Londoners, migration, people with different skin color or different accents is nothing new at all. As a result, London voted Remain. Similar stories for cities like Liverpool, Bristol, have long traditions of immigration. The places that voted Leave were small-town England and Wales. A little example.

After Poland joined the EU, Tony Blair opened the labor market to Poles. We as a chamber of commerce held many recruitment fairs around Poland. And we had many UK companies – big employers looking for thousands of people from Poland to work in various industries. They would come here and recruit en masse. We did these fairs in Lublin, Łódź, Białystok, Rzeszów, Kraków, all over the place. Until Poland noticed that they were losing people at too fast a rate. We were doing this for a couple of years …

All of a sudden, a town or a village of over a thousand people, got 100 Poles turning up. Many of these were young men, in their mid-20s. And Friday nights and Saturday nights in the pubs, there’d be friction. You wouldn’t get that necessarily in cities but in places that had never seen immigrants before. This was something completely new. If you look at the results of the referendum, you’ll see that the biggest Leave-voting areas were those that saw the fastest rise in EU migration after 2004. Not necessarily from London where already 50 percent of its population is born abroad or cities like Leicester which is the first city that has a non-white majority. It’s places like … Fleetwood, Grimsby, Boston in Lincolnshire, where the number of people in the 2011 census that were born outside the UK grew from 0.2 per-

cent to 6 percent. That’s where they were screaming “take back control”.

And that’s where you get the biggest growth in xenophobic attacks.

Is Brexit a cause for celebration or gloom for Poland?

Gloom. We talked about the economy but the bigger picture is one about geopolitics. The EU has lost a very significant member state, a great ally of Poland, the country that together with Poland could have formed a counter-balance to the Berlin-Paris axis. France and Germany will become much louder voices in terms of where the EU is going next. The UK had the potential to gather Scandinavian countries, the Netherlands, Poland, the Baltics into some kind of group that could say to the Germans and the French that no, we don’t like this direction … For Poland, it’s a bad day.

“The EU has lost a very significant member state, a great ally of Poland”

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FEATURE INTERVIEW

A TALE OF TWO TRADING PARTNERS

Despite the heightened US-Iran crisis, and in the recent months, Iran imprisoning a British-Australian academic, a British-Iranian mother and detaining two Australian travel bloggers, a Polish Iranian Chamber of Commerce (PICC) board member tells WBJ that “there has always been a great rapport between Poland and Iran.”

INTERVIEW BY SANKHYAYAN DATTA ILLUSTRATION BY AGNIESZKA MILEWSKA

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WBJ:

Tell us more about the Polish Iranian Chamber of Commerce?

Ahmad Piraiee: Established in 2016, the Polish Iranian Chamber of Commerce is a non-governmental and nonprofit organization that was established to support all financial activities between both countries. It came from the need of the market. We always had connections between the two countries. We try to regulate and support businesses by connecting them with the right governmental organizations, individuals and companies. We established this chamber based on the support of the [Iranian] embassy [in Warsaw], Poland’s National Chamber of Commerce (KIG) and its Iranian counterpart.

How good are the Polish-Iranian trade relations?

The countries share a few hundred years of international relations.

During WWII, the Iranians helped over 100,000 Poles. There has always been a great rapport between both countries. Things got a little bit shaky because of the US sanctions against Iran [first in 1979]. But there has always been regular trade between Poland and Iran. It was an all-time high after the sanctions were lifted and Iran deal. That’s when we also established PICC because the volume of trade was big enough.

[Most UN sanctions were lifted in January 2016, following the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action ( JCPOA). JCPOA, known commonly as the Iran nuclear deal or Iran deal, is an agreement on the Iranian nuclear program reached in Vienna on July 14, 2015, between Iran and the five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany together with the European Union.]

Polish and Iranian industries cooperate with each other …

The automotive sector in Poland

is really good. The buses are top quality. Companies such as Solaris are very good besides some Polish tractor and farm equipment manufacturers. Because of [US] sanctions cooperation has been affected. There are political and financial aspects.

Since 2016, PICC has witnessed several cooperation initiatives including Gdańsk Shipyard [northern Poland], a letter of intent between different companies from the agriculture sector, Polish home appliance manufacturing firms, Polish chocolate, confectionery and processed cocoa powder producers, and food producers from both Poland and Iran.

There is a good symbiosis between the countries – so … often the ingredients come from one and the finished item is produced in the other before being distributed around the world. The only complication is the halal certification.

[Halal food is that which adheres to Islamic law.] However, Poland is fine with that aspect of cooperation Poland and with Iran.

Iran share IT companies such as [Krakówa few hun- headquartered] Comarch are leaders dred years in some capacity when it comes to of trade software development. They have relations cooperated with some Iranian firms.

Warsaw hosted a US-led Middle East summit in 2019. It was widely reported to be anti-Iran. Does the conference in any way affect trade relations?

Iranian embassy [in Warsaw] is the entity responsible for the political aspects of the relations. We do work with the embassy. But I’m hesitating to give you an answer because I’m not in a position to tell you what the embassy in Poland has to say. We will have to ask the embassy if they can give us the answers.

PICC works with the embassy to help Polish or Iranian companies do business. We work together to establish contact and make the work of Polish banks, insurers and regulators easier.

Business and politics go hand in hand?

You’re totally right. Finance, politics and society are closely related. The [Iranian] embassy is responsible for the political aspects of trade. We are responsible for the financial and economic aspects.

Our aim is not to touch politics.

Poles are trustworthy and good trading partners, and that’s what PICC focuses on.

So what more can be done to strengthen the already strong Polish-Iranian trade relations?

Think out of the box. That’s the biggest problem. Stereotyping. Iran has a very rich culture. Just don’t think that the Iranian market starts and stops with oil. [Iran holds 10 percent of the world’s proven oil reserves and 15 percent of its gas. It is OPEC’s second-largest exporter and the world’s fourth-largest oil producer.]

Try and see the Iranian market from different angles. The whole history of Iran changed after oil was discovered in 1909. [On April 14, 1909, one year after geologist George Bernard Reynolds discovered oil in Persia (modern-day Iran), Burmah Oil created the Anglo-Persian Oil Company (APOC) as a subsidiary.] We never really benefited from oil. We were a much better country before. Oil was never a good thing for us.

We had tourists. Tourism is a great industry and Iran has a lot to offer.

Tourists and Iran can benefit from each other. None of the tourist agencies are offering any tour packages to Iran yet. Tourism can open more business avenues.

At a recent fashion show in Milan, one of the designers was inspired by Iranian symbols. We can also look at the Iranian fashion industry. It is not Arabic. It is influenced by religion.

It is unique and tasteful. [The vast majority of Iranians practise Shi’ism – a branch of Islam.] However, not many business people think of Iran as a source of fashion. Thinking outside the box would help.

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strategia strategia / kreacja / kreacja / social / social media media / digital / digital / custom / custom publishing publishing / events / events / PR / PR

TECH i n s i g h t s TECH NEWS

>>>

SHUTTERSTOCK

Amazon finally steps in American e-commerce giant Amazon intends to launch its purchasing platform on the Polish market later this year, as reported by Gazeta Wyborcza, a well-known Polish daily.

According to the newspaper, discussions are currently underway on the cooperation of Amazon and Poczta Polska, the state-run postal service.

If the agreement came to fruition, Poczta Polska would take care of shipments from the Polish version of Amazon.com in Poland and Ukraine.

Final talks are due to take place as early as April 2020. However, neither side wanted to comment on these reports.

Until now, Polish customers who wanted to take advantage of Amazon’s offer had to shop using the Polish-language tab on the German Amazon.de. This is about to change.

Not all offers are currently translated into Polish.

In Poland, Amazon has been operating since 2014. Amazon has created more than 16,000 permanent jobs in its seven logistics centers scattered across the country.

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TECH

Allegro to invest PLN 1bn in Poland in 2020

Poland needs 200,000 AI specialists by 2025 Demand for specialists in artificial intelligence (AI) in Poland will reach 200,000 in the next five years, according to the report “Monitoring trends in innovation”

by Polish Agency for Enterprise Development (PARP), a state-owned body responsible for supporting SMEs. The legal framework for the development of AI is set by the AI Development Policy 2019-2027 – a comprehensive document issued by the digitization ministry.

“We live in a time of revolutionary technological change that opens up completely new opportunities for development and building material wealth. The aim of Poland’s economic development strategy is to enter a narrow group of AI building countries. It’s necessary to make the most of Polish intellectual potential and patents in that

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Almost 1/3 of SMEs plan robotization Nearly a third of small and medium-sized production enterprises in Poland plan robotization in the next three years, according to a survey carried out at the request of Universal Robots “Robot Robotic Barometer”.

As many as 38.8 percent of companies in this group are planning to implement collaborative robots.

Smaller businesses are more open to implementing robotics: 42.9 percent of small companies expressed their intention to make use of robots, compared to 36.8 percent of medium-sized enterprises.

The most important factor motivating SMEs to robotize jobs is improving production efficiency.

SMEs expect that robotization will primarily allow them to reduce production costs and thus increase their efficiency, facilitate the increase in the volume of manufactured products and reduce the time from order to implementation. The companies also mentioned the elimination of human errors, difficulties in employing or retaining personnel, increasing competitiveness and work safety, as well as standardization of processes.

field,” Paulina Zadura, the director of analysis and strategy department, said.

Codility raises $22 million in series A round Codility, an HR tech company, opened a new chapter, and after more than 10 years of organic growth and independent business financing, decided to enter the path of venture capital.

It did it with a bang because it immediately raised $22 million.

Last year – record-breaking in terms of the total value of investments in domestic technology companies – only three companies received a higher amount: DocPlanner, Brainly, and Booksy.

Codility convinced two British funds to invest in series A round: Oxx and Kennet Partners.

The company founded by Grzegorz Jakacki provides a platform for testing the technical and programming competences of potential job candidates.

SHUTTERSTOCK (3)

Allegro – the largest e-commerce platform in the Central and Eastern Europe [CEE] region, aims to increase the total number of offers posted on its platform to 200 million, compared to 130 million at the end of last year.

To help improve buyer experience and further grow its business, the company plans to invest PLN 1 billion in 2020 in developing its ecosystem and solutions.

“Assuming that the current growth rate is maintained, the sellers will increase their activity on the platform and add 200,000 offers per day. Their total number is to reach 200 million by the end of 2020,” the company headquartered in Poznań, western Poland, announced.

In 2019, sellers on Allegro added 40 million new offers, to reach a total of 130 million. As many as 140,000 traders currently operate on the platform. Every month, the platform is visited by 18 million Polish users.

TECH NEWS

The tool also aims to improve the process of implementing new employees in companies and systematically develop their skills.

In 2019, as many as 1,500 clients used the platform, carrying out a total of 455,000 recruitment processes.

The company has customers in many parts of the world, but more than half of its revenues come from the US. Codility is used by, among others, Microsoft, Tesla and Slack.

A series A round is a firm’s first significant round of venture capital investment.

As many as 94 startups operating in the health care industry have been created in Poland in the last 10 years and over 5,000 throughout Europe.

New EU data regulation EU unveiled

AI predicts coronavirus spread direction Artificial Intelligence (AI) algorithms predicted one week in advance that outside of China, coronavirus posed the greatest risk of infection to Thailand, South Korea, Japan and Taiwan, experts from the Polish Economic Institute (PIE), a Warsawbased think-tank, said.

“Algorithms using artificial intelligence solutions identified the onset of the coronavirus epidemic a few days before official reports from international organizations such as WHO or the American Epidemiological Agency,” the representatives stressed.

As PIE pointed out, citing Accenture data, the value of the market for AI in healthcare could exceed $6 billion in 2021.

The EU has laid out a policy framework for data and AI that is expected to lead to legislative proposals later this year.

Convinced that fines alone won’t compel big US technology companies to conform to their views, EU policymakers now want to force tech companies to share data one way or another.

For companies accused of antitrust violations, including US tech behemoths Alphabet [Google’s parent company], Amazon and Facebook, regulators are considering forcing them to share data with smaller rivals.

For other businesses, the EU wants to make it easier to share industrial data, particularly in areas such as health care, agriculture and manufacturing, with the goal of promoting artificial-intelligence innovation in the bloc.

AI algorithms tend to perform best when they are fed with large amounts of data.

The EU plans to draft legislation later this year that will, among other things, focus on addressing risks in AI applications that could harm privacy and

consumer rights, the European Commission said.

Moonlit Games to focus on simulators Games developer Moonlit Games plans to release two simulators in two years, Michał Gardeła, head of the company’s management board, said.

The first of them, Model Builder, will be on the market in the fourth quarter of this year.

“We intend to create undiscovered and long-awaited simulators. The undeveloped target group is huge. People are increasingly turning to simulations to realize their passions. Currently, almost 40 percent of the most anticipated games on Steam are simulators,” Gardeła said.

The game is also planned for VR consoles and helmets. The total production and marketing cost will not exceed PLN 1.5 million.

The second simulator is slated to be delivered at the beginning of 2022.

Hackers attack Polish companies almost 380 times a month: study In the last six months, hackers have attacked Polish companies nearly 380 times a month, and every tenth company has fallen victim to the Emotet Trojan – a kind of malware originally designed as a banking Trojan aimed at stealing financial data, but it’s evolved to become a major threat to users everywhere.

Enterprises from the financial, energy and transport sectors are most at risk, according to the latest Check Point Research report.

The California-headquartered company’s experts warned that the effectiveness of attacks on Polish companies is well above the global average and amounts to approx 9 percent. Since the beginning of 2020, the number of hacker actions has also increased, and currently, Polish entities are under attack about 500 times a month.

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It’s about the segmentation of our customers. We noticed that Credilo, which is older than Zylion, was not addressing the needs of all customers that we had originally intended to reach. That’s why we launched the second brand. Credilo targets the older population. Zylion focuses on relatively younger people. There are more women in Credilo’s customer base.

The dominant part of Zylion’s clientele is male. Therefore we have two compatible brands to reach, from a marketing perspective, a wider market.

It isn’t so that one brand focuses only on women while the other targets men. If we look at the percentages, the differences are slight.

TECH

Segmentation. Is that another word for failure? The brands were launched two years apart?

No, by segmentation, I mean the segmentation of potential customers. We were successful with the first brand. We thought about expansion in the most efficient way. It turned out that implementing another brand focusing on a slightly different part of the population would be effective.

PAWEŁ ZBOROWSKI, THE CEO OF FINTREDO – A TECHNOLOGICALLY ADVANCED, VERY COMPETITIVE AND VERY PROMISING NON-BANKING FINTECH BUSINESS FROM WARSAW – SHARES THE SECRET TO THEIR SUCCESS WITH THE WBJ.

WBJ:

Tell us in brief about Fintredo.

Paweł Zborowski: Fintredo is a Polish fintech firm. We have been active in the online lending industry since 2016. We have been growing since. Like in any fintech company, there are two main divisions. The first is technology. We focus on

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development as it helps us provide outstanding services. The second is the financial division that’s responsible for lending and building a profitable portfolio.

Fintredo has two brands – Credilo and Zylion. Why two? How are they different?

Can you give us some numbers when you say double?

First, you must know that within our industry it isn’t really common to share the numbers. Secondly, let me give you the numbers. At the end of 2019, we exceeded 300,000 registered customers for both brands. At the end of 2018, there were 141,000 of them. At the same time, the volume of loans increased by 183 percent and their number by 200 percent.

Tell us more about payday lending.

The online lending market is highly-regulated. On the one hand, we don’t have all regulatory and reporting requirements banks have.

That’s why it's so difficult to compare

PORTRAIT BY PIOTR NAREWSKI

A FORCE TO BE RECKONED WITH?

How successful are these two brands?

How do you define success?

Difficult question … How do you define success? Let’s put these considerations aside. We are successful. We have been on the market for more than three years now and in 2019 we doubled our total business. If we are able to double the business every year, to me that means that we are successful.

FINTECH

competitors in our industry. But on the other hand, all the other areas are overregulated.

Our market, by which I mean the non-banking financial sector, contains a lot of entities – up to 500 companies – in Poland as of today. And if you consider the volume of trade, these 500 firms are responsible for the issuance of, more or less, 10 percent of all consumer loans.

That means we aren’t competing with banks. We are doing a different kind of business. Lending institutions provide loan access to customers for whom the banking offer is in many cases limited or unavailable. The clients of loan companies are often less prosperous, less attractive from the banks’ perspective. And banks often have no offer for them. We help to narrow this financial exclusion gap.

If you consider the smallest loans in terms of amount, our [payday loan] industry has more than 50 percent market share. In the non-banking financial sector, there are many companies, but we believe that there is a huge scope to grow despite their number.

Where does Fintredo stand in this market?

Out of the 500 companies in our [nonbanking financial] sector, there are 70 doing more or less the same business as us. Within the 500, there are many small and totally incomparable businesses too, including pawn shops. It’s senseless to compare us to such [small] firms. We compare ourselves and compete with around 70 online lenders. And within this group of 70, we are in the top 15 in terms of traffic that we generate online. Other numbers are not provided so it is impossible to present any other ranking.

How do the Polish government’s policies affect you?

Consumers are protected because we operate in a highly regulated market. A regulation introduced in March 2016 decided how much interest we can charge on a loan.

We aren’t able to charge customers more than the [interest rate] cap decided by the government so customers cannot be overcharged. Actually this regulation helped the industry by eliminating unfair practices.

What are your expansion plans?

As I mentioned before, we are growing relatively fast. We find the Polish market

WE OPERATE IN A HIGHLY REGULATED MARKET, CONSUMERS ARE TOTALLY PROTECTED very promising and we still aim to improve our position here in Poland. At the same time, we have already started to plan our expansion into new markets. We hope that we will operate in two non-Polish markets by the end of 2021 and hope to enter the first market before the end of this year. I don’t want to reveal the names of countries yet. It isn’t a secret but it’s still in progress. I may only tell you that South America is one of the most interesting markets for us. Through a holding – Raisead – we are already operating on more than 20 markets in three continents, including Asia, Europe, and South America, with different products, not only financial. We do have a lot of experience in e-commerce worldwide.

What marketing techniques do you use to reach an average Joe? Through the holding company Raisead, which employs efficient performance marketing techniques, we have a unique advantage. Because of it, we have access to specialists from social media marketing, email marketing, etc. That’s how we reach an average Joe. What is the success rate of an online payday lender? Looking at how many online companies have shut down, how does your company plan to stay afloat?

We try to satisfy the needs of our customers. We aren’t trying to bring something totally new to the market. There are many people in Poland who are excluded by banks because of their type of work.

There has to be an alternative for them.

If our [payday loan] industry didn’t exist, they wouldn’t receive any financing.

What makes firms successful in this market, is how they approach risk management. If your company is reasonable about granting loans, then you won’t have any problems while collecting debts.

The most important thing that helps us to grow is effective risk management.

Another success factor is the financing of

the lending business. You need to have investors who believe in your business plans and finance accordingly.

How politically vulnerable is the payday lending industry?

I think we are just as vulnerable as other, heavily regulated industries. Everyone needs stability and predictable rules. They should not change too often.

When we started our business we had new regulations in place, applicable from March 2016. Everybody in the industry believed that this was it. That there wouldn’t be any further amendments. But it turned out after one year that Poland’s governing party was willing to tighten its control over the industry even further.

Of course, it may affect our business. We wish to know in advance what the regulations would look like so that we know what to expect. We can plan our business keeping the framework in mind.

As an industry, we hope that the law would be clear and remain unchanged for a few years.

How can Fintredo improve?

There is always room for improvement.

We plan to develop in the technology area by implementing tools using AI and machine learning. All that to improve the decision-making and scoring processes.

These tools will be necessary to enter the new markets where we have little experience with customers. We believe that better technology helps pave the way for loss-minimization in a new market.

Have you faced any failures?

We had some failures. The biggest disappointment was that we weren’t able to convince our affiliate networks to trust us at the very beginning. It took months, or rather years, to build trust in this market.

Every day brings successes and failures.

What’s important is what you make of it, whether you learn and change your ways as a consequence.

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OVERHAUL BADLY NEEDED

REAL ESTATE IS NOT READILY RECOGNIZED AS ONE OF THE MOST CUTTING-EDGE INDUSTRIES. IN FACT, A LOT OF PROCESSES THAT ARE PRIME CANDIDATES FOR AUTOMATION ARE STILL LARGELY DONE BY PEOPLE, PARTICULARLY IN CONSTRUCTION. PROPTECH ADOPTION IS NOT UNIFORM, IN SOME AREAS IT SEEMS TO BE THRIVING, WHILE IN OTHERS IT IS TRYING TO MAKE HEADWAY, DESPITE OPPOSITION. BY BEATA SOCHA

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PROPTECH

L

arge developers and asset managers have been at the forefront of adopting innovation. They realized early on that technology can make their assets more valuable on many levels: by improving the experience of tenants and other stakeholders, creating a better interface facilitating the work of property managers, through to lowering the building’s resource consumption and making it cheaper and greener.

“Some proptech solutions already exist such as sensors, beacons, data usage from WiFi infrastructure, applications that guide a user to particular people or places in a building as well as VR and AR. We can see the opportunities in AI-based solutions that drive process automation in the real estate sector, and in 3D printing that could transform real estate, especially on the Project & Development side,” says Tomasz Trzósło, managing director CEE of JLL, a real estate advisory.

Greener and cheaper

One of the key areas where technology is making a difference is optimizing power usage. Stakes are high, as commercial buildings and construction sites account for 39 percent of global energy consumption, according to a recent report prepared by Zonifero, Microsoft and PwC entitled “Smart Real Estate and Proptech 4.0”. State-of-theart energy-saving technology can save up to 50 percent of power. Considering that we spend nearly 90 percent of our lives inside buildings, making their energy consumption as efficient as possible is of vital importance.

For now, the gold standard for power consumption control is IoT sensors monitoring the occupancy of rooms and reducing electricity usage in empty ones. But there is more automation on the cards and in the future, buildings may become fully autonomous in evaluating and optimizing energy use.

“The intelligent building will itself become a customer of utility suppliers and autonomously settle its electricity bills. The potential extends to connecting electric cars and charging their batteries. It doesn’t stop there! A building will gain from occupancy analytics mechanisms in-place, equipped to optimize the use of spaces, positively impacting the well-being of its users,” according to. Alina Prawdzik, managing partner of CEE and head of “Smart & Connected Buildings” for innogy Innovation Hub, cited in the report.

SHUTTERSTOCK (2)

Make and break things

In order to go beyond what is already an accepted standard, property firms look to tech startups, as innovation drivers. Colliers International, a Canada-based global commercial real estate services giant, has recently launched the third edition of its “Colliers Proptech Accelerator”, whose aim is to find groundbreaking solutions

that will change the property market. “Colliers Proptech Accelerator allows us to go beyond our own mindset, look at the real estate market from a different, larger perspective and from a distance. The startups we’ve invited have a fresh view of certain things. It’s a valuable experience for both sides,” states Monika Rajska-Wolińska, managing partner, Colliers International in Poland.

Cooperation can be valuable for both parties – the real estate company may well gain a first-mover advantage in a new niche, while startups benefit from a reality-check that could save them months of work following a deadend or focusing on the wrong thing. What they need most of all is the practical knowledge and access to data that is crucial for developing a new product. “As practice shows, every project we’ve worked on required making some changes – no startup has yet left in the same shape it came in,” Rajska-Wolińska adds.

While the first attempts of finding common ground with the startup scene are usually governed more by a trial-and-error approach, the cooperation between giants

AS PRACTICE SHOWS, EVERY PROJECT WE’VE WORKED ON REQUIRED MAKING SOME CHANGES – NO STARTUP HAS YET LEFT IN THE SAME SHAPE IT CAME IN W B J MARCH 2020

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and tech startups now seems to be maturing. “In the first edition, we saw applications from startups in a variety of fields – property management, retail, big data, analytics, machine learning, AI, blockchain and others. These were broad solutions that were difficult to compare. That is why in the second edition we decided to focus only on solutions in big data and management data, as well as AI solutions,” she explains. The company offers a wide range of cooperation to the selected few: from purchasing a part of their shares and incorporating them into Colliers’ structure, through to contracting specific solutions.

A low bar to clear

While the real estate management segment seems to be well aware of the benefits of proptech, the construction industry still has a long way to go. “Building Information Modelling”, a technology allowing to create virtual 3D models of a building that could be used at every stage of their lifecycle, has long been touted as a game-changer.

However, few companies are actually ready to adopt it.

High implementation costs seem to be the biggest barrier.

That is why a number of processes that could be done automatically are still performed manually, which causes chaos and delays. Instead of using their expertise where it

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What’s in store?

Experts agree that there is still a big market for more proptech solutions and that seeing real estate as a structure of just bricks and mortar will become a thing of the past. “The way modern office buildings have been changing can undoubtedly be put down to the technological revolution. Digital marketing, a growing application market and automation mean that the complexity of tech infrastructure in buildings will continue to grow,” Trzósło adds.

And while Poland may not be at the forefront of adapting expensive technologies such as BIM, local start-up scene will continue to deliver clever and oftentimes ground-breaking solutions for real estate that increase their value. “In Poland, we are seeing a growing number of diverse smart solutions that aim to enhance the building’s occupant experience and as a result, improve the project’s image and market position. There is no doubt that there is more to come for the sector from this technological revolution,” he concludes.

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MOST EXPERTS AGREE THAT THE INDUSTRY URGENTLY NEEDS THREE THINGS: “QUALITY CONTROL APPS, DOCUMENT MANAGEMENT APPS AND PREFABRICATES

is needed, general contractors spend their days circulating documents and blueprints around the construction site and making sure their subcontractors aren’t making easily preventable mistakes by using outdated documentation.

A technological overhaul is desperately needed in the construction business and the bar is not set very high.

When asked about the new technologies being developed today – including drones, VR, laser scanners, 3D printing, and BIM – most experts agree that the industry urgently needs three things: “quality control apps, document management apps and prefabricates. Two of these solutions we are introducing to the market right now,” says Paweł Smolarek, director of new technologies of BauApp, a Warsaw-based mobile app company for the construction industry.

Despite economic indicators being as high as they are now, construction firms are wary of an impending downturn. Their margins are now record-low and as many as 60 percent of them point to the labor market as a major barrier to further development. With constantly growing costs, they are increasingly aware that efficiency is the right way to make their business more competitive.

While competition has forced many companies in the West to invest in technology long ago, Central European ones have thus far relied on their conventional resources and practices. “What is considered standard in the US will only make its way to Central European construction industry in a few years because it is simply too complicated and expensive. That’s where the idea for BauApp came from: it’s an app that facilitates information flow and lowers costs,” claims Adam Dalnoki, CEO of BauApp. The app has already been tested on the Hungarian market for two years and in February 2020, it made its way into the Polish market.

BROUGHT TO YOU BY PRÉSTAMO10

Credit Royal® begins expansion into Western Europe

P

OLISH COMPANIES from the fintech industry feel better and better on international markets. Poland and the Baltic States are becoming a driving force for many innovative ventures on the border between finance and new technologies. In this regard, these relatively young economies stand out from other EU countries.

A perfect example of this is the Credit Royal, which successfully operates on the financial market, achieving excellent results and above-average growth rates.

It has been operating since 2012 and forms the core of the Credit Royal Group. The group is made up of financial institutions providing cash loans to individuals and companies in both doorto-door and online models.

In addition, the group consists of companies conducting professional activities including credit intermediation and debt collection.

The group operates successfully in five European markets – Poland, Spain,

Germany, Latvia and Estonia. In total, the firm employs over 900 employees.

One of the leading companies that make up the group is the Dziesiątka Finanse loan company. It has been on the Polish market for 19 years, and for over nine years as Dziesiątka Finanse.

“Over the years of activity, we’ve learned that the best and most effective model of operation is being a reliable and proven partner for our clients,” the company’s representatives claimed.

“We put honesty and direct contact with clients as well as a firm foundation of the company in local communities in the first place. We have achieved stable and predictable financial results.

The company has recorded a steady increase in the value of assets and developed at an extremely dynamic pace,” they stated.

In January 2020, the Credit Royal group finalized the purchase of a second loan company – Préstamo10 – operating on a foreign market. Préstamo10 is a well-known technology company that

has been providing short-term consumer loans for 10 years, the group said. It is also the oldest online loan company in Spain. The company has over 400,000 registered customers and has serviced over 1.35 million loan applications and granted over 193,000 consumer loans for a total amount of nearly EUR 52 million. The company has ultramodern system tools and extensive databases that enable work based on machine learning and deep learning. Thanks to the use of large data sets and advanced assessment modules, Préstamo10 is able to make credit decisions intelligent, which results in a low loss ratio and high profitability of loan portfolios. The first loan is obtained within a dozen or so minutes, while regular customers can get a loan in almost real-time through the P10 application. The company has today implemented tomorrow’s solutions, added the group.

The owner of Préstamo10 has been wholly owned by the Credit Royal group since January 28, 2020.

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MAY I HELP YOU?

WHILE MUNDANE AND REPORTATIVE “CLICKING” THROUGH THE SYSTEM HAS LARGELY BEEN AUTOMATED, THERE ARE MORE CHANGES ON THE HORIZON FOR THE FINANCE INDUSTRY, SAYS JOANNA IZDEBSKA, OF IPF DIGITAL.

WBJ:

Automation and robotics have transformed many industries.

Finance seems to be at the forefront of change. Most of the innovation in automation comes from smaller fintech though, not from major institutions.

Joanna Izdebska: Indeed, automation and robotics are increasingly changing the finance industry and many new solutions come from start-ups and small fintechs. They “jump” at novelties because it’s easier for them to make such decisions. They don’t have to go through the

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lengthy process of taking into account many stakeholders. They are more open to change. Their scale of operations makes it possible.

Young and small organizations are better suited for implementing new solutions, while the same cannot be said for large, well-established institutions that have existed for decades in the finance industry.

A large financial institution needs to analyze how millions of their customers will respond to change. That’s why startups are at an advantage here.

Are large financial corporations reluctant to adopt automation then?

They are facing a challenge. Their scale of operations is large, they have multiple processes and products. The systems they are using are not new and building one from scratch or a thorough overhaul is costly and takes time. These institutions see automation and robotics as a way to improve their current state or to “patch up” their old systems.

What processes do they routinely decide to automate?

SHUTTERSTOCK

INTERVIEW BY BEATA SOCHA

FINTECH

BANK EMPLOYEES SPEND ABOUT 80 PERCENT OF THEIR TIME ON MANUAL TASKS THAT ARE PRIME CANDIDATES FOR AUTOMATION Finance companies usually automate consumer service, as this is where large savings can be generated and where investment in technology can be easily justified. It also improves customer satisfaction, particularly for companies with multiple products.

As is usually the case, large-scale laborintense processes are the first to see the benefits of robotics. These are mundane tasks of “clicking” through the systems, checking boxes, verifying data correctness, etc.

According to Capgemini, a French consulting firm, bank employees spend about 80 percent of their time on manual tasks that are prime candidates for automation.

This means that the bulk of automation is still ahead of us. Employees will soon be able to devote their time to work that is more rewarding and less repetitive.

Which areas have yet to be automated?

According to research firm Gartner, the bulk of Robotized Process Automation (RPA) is made for financial, insurance and telecommunications companies. That is also true for Poland. Financial institutions adopted robotics fairly quickly but only in very specific areas. As mentioned before, their primary focus was on automating customer services. But there are more novel and complex solutions, such as NLP (Natural Language Processing), which are used in voice bots and speech recognition systems dedicated to mass service and large numbers of processes.

Other areas that have yet to be automated are scoring and credit decisions.

In these cases, there is always a human at the end of the decision process to make the final call. But sooner rather than later it will be a machine doing these tasks, and as more research shows, they can do it

better than we can. Quite soon, technology will be very helpful in catching frauds and extortions too.

Your panel discussion at the FinTech & InsurTech Digital Congress event in November discussed women in finance. Both finance and technology are still relatively masculine industries.

Is the share of women increasing?

It has been changing significantly over the past few years. There are more women in our industry, also in high positions.

According to Oliver Wyman, a management consulting firm, women account for 25 percent of all managers in Polish financial firms. Women are making headway in the industry, also in the boardroom.

IPF Digital puts a lot of emphasis in all its eight markets – Australia, Estonia, Finland, Spain, Lithuania, Latvia, Mexico and Poland – to make headhunters present also female candidates to any position. We want to have a choice. And this works.

In Mexico, at the beginning of our activity, we had almost 100 percent of male candidates in the recruitment process.

This trend has been reversed and we see more women at the recruitment stage, as well as within the company.

This naturally translates into more women at every level, both middle and top management. Only a few years ago only one country manager was a woman.

Today, there are three.

Most importantly, we have a rule of equal pay – salary is based on the position a person is recruited for, irrespective of their gender.

From my own experience, I know that a woman at a top-level position is more involved and determined as she’s had to overcome much more to get there.

What was your own personal experience in the business?

For me, the decision to work in finance was easy. When I was 19, I decided to become a banker and I told myself I’d do anything to achieve that. There were no faculties teaching banking at state universities back then, so I chose a private school.

Afterward, I studied in Germany, where I also did my internship at some of the largest financial corporations. I need what I want to do so I took the path and followed it through.

After so many years of working in finance, I have to admit that you need to have tough skin when you venture into a male-dominated industry. It’s not going to be easy.

IPF Digital is my fifth start-up – a company where I’m building everything from scratch. When we started, our team was a few dozen people, now there are over 1,500.

It’s very similar to the previous projects I carried out, ie launching Deutsche Bank and Vanquis Bank in Poland.

I think I can say that this is what I’ve been doing my whole professional life – building and developing projects from the get-go and bringing them to maturity.

JOANNA IZDEBSKA

Global sales and marketing director, IPF Digital – a Tallinnheadquartered subsidiary of the UK-based finance company, International Personal Finance

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Karimpol: 2020 and beyond

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Is Gdańsk port one of the fastest growing in the EU?

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Ghelamco's expansion plans

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An expert's view on impact of ecology in residential architecture

NEWS HB REAVIS’ green project “Forest” office campus is the second-largest HB Reavis investment in Poland after “Varso Place” tower. The buildings erected in Warsaw on the border of Wola, Śródmieście and Żoliborz districts will offer 78,000 sq m of workspace, public areas with gastronomy and services, and a green patio for office employees and guests. A loan of €162 million to finance the project was granted to HB Reavis by a consortium of four banks – Santander, Pekao, PKO and BNP Paribas. Construction of the “Forest” business campus located near the Arkadia shopping center has been in progress since June 2019.

This is one of the largest office projects currently under construction in Europe and one of the greenest in Poland, the company claims. Completion of the first stage of the project is planned by the end of 2020 – the construction of overground stories of buildings on ulica Burakowska. The first phase will be ready by the end of 2021.>>>

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How does the future of Panattoni's commercial properties look?

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Emerging trends in real estate analysis

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LOKALE IMMOBILIA | NEWS Primark lease acquisition in west Poland Dublin-based Irish global fast-fashion retail behemoth Primark was represented by Cresa in the lease acquisition of its store in Poznań, western Poland. The unit of 3,500 sq m of retail space will be located in Posnania – the largest regional shopping center in Poland’s Wielkopolska region. “We are delighted to have this opportunity to support Primark in their entry into the Polish market,” said Szymon Łukasik, Head of Retail at Cresa Poland, the Polish arm of the Washington-based commercial real estate advisory firm. Owned

by Associated British Foods, Primark currently trades from more than 370 stores in 12 countries and employs over 79,000 people.

79,000 The number of people Primark, an Irish fast-fashion retailer, employs across the world Source: Primark

BRIEFS E-COMMERCE GIANT OPENS LOGISTICS CENTER

Berlin-headquartered European e-commerce giant, Zalando has officially opened its third logistics center in Poland. The investment in Głuchów, near Łódź, is an important milestone in the development of Zalando’s network. With an area of ​​ 130,000 sq m, it is one of the largest logistics facilities in Poland.

FIRST VIENNA HOUSE R.EVO IN KATOWICE First Vienna House R.evo will open in March 2021 in Katowice, the center of business, commerce and industry in Silesia, southern Poland. The contract for renting the facility with 203 rooms and suites has

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been signed and renovation work has already begun.

Vienna House R.evo is a combination of “revolution” and “evolution” in the hotel industry, states their press release. The facilities of this brand combine the luxury of a hotel with a personal, home-like character.

MURAPOL BUILDS OVER 1,000 FLATS IN SEVEN LOCATIONS

Murapol Group has started selling 1,119 apartments at seven different locations – Warsaw, Gdynia, Łódź, Gliwice, Siewierz and Mikołów – as part of the “project 1000”, the company said. The residents of Łódź have the

largest selection in the new offer from the group, where the developer has made available 320 flats in the Murapol Nowa Przędzalnia investment.

SINGLE-FAMILY HOUSE CONSTRUCTION RISE

In the housing construction sector, there was a rapid increase in the number of single-family houses built by people for themselves. At 5,200, the number was about 62.6 percent higher than in January 2019, according to an HRE-Investments analysis.

LOKALE IMMOBILIA | NEWS “Today’s results once again reflect the ongoing tangible success of the asset rotation strategy we have been executing over the last few years” – Liad Barzilai, CEO of Atrium Euro-

BRIEFS NUMBER OF FLATS COMPLETED IN JANUARY UP Y/Y Approx 17,400 flats were finished in January 2020, Poland’s Central Stats Office (GUS) stated. It rose by 0.5 percent more than the same time in 2019. The number of dwellings in which construction has begun has also increased. The largest number of flats (10,600) was delivered by developers, while individual investors built 6,400 premises.

pean Real Estate, on February 26, 2020

DEVELIA BEGINS SELLING OVER 200 FLATS IN GDAŃSK

‘Results reflect success’: Atrium CEO “Today’s results once again reflect the ongoing tangible success of the asset rotation strategy we have been executing over the last few years,” said Liad Barzilai, CEO of Atrium European Real Estate – a leading owner, operator and developer of shopping centers in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). Atrium announced its results for 2019 on February 26, 2020, and called it a “strong operational performance”.

Warsaw a city of the future?

Warsaw was placed sixth in the fDi’s European Cities and Regions of the Future 2020/21 ranking. Interestingly, Stryków in Łódź Voivodeship bagged the 17th spot ahead of Oslo, Barcelona, Stockholm ​​ and Cambridge. fDi that belongs to the Financial Times publishing house, analyzed a total of 505 different European locations, awarding them points in six different categories: economic potential, lifestyle and human capital, cost-effectiveness, business friendliness, connectivity and FDI strategy. London won the overall ranking despite the potential threats arising from Brexit. Warsaw trails behind Paris (2nd), Dublin (3rd), Munich (4th) and Amsterdam (5th).

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Developer Develia has started selling 239 premises as part of its Baltea Apartments project in Gdańsk, northern Poland.

The investment is a modern multi-story residential and service building with a twolevel underground car park and individual garages. The construction will start in Q1 2020. The delivery of flats to clients is scheduled for the third quarter of 2022.

MARVIPOL ANNOUNCES AGREEMENTS FOR €30 MLN Marvipol Development special purpose vehicles have concluded two preliminary property sale agreements with LaSalle Investment Management KVG. The initial sale price is approx €29.6 million net, the company said in a press release. Both SPVs are joint ventures of Marvipol Logistics and PG Dutch Holding I. The companies are implementing logistics and warehouse projects on the properties sold.

LOKALE IMMOBILIA | OFFICE

SKY’S THE LIMIT

Harald Jeschek, a managing partner of Karimpol Group, brings forward what it takes to erect one of the tallest skyscrapers in the Polish capital, Warsaw INTERVIEW BY SANKHYAYAN DATTA

WBJ:

Karimpol has been present in the Polish market for over two decades. What are the highlights?

Harald Jeschek: Regarding our projects, the office tower Skyliner in the city center of Warsaw at 195 meters definitely stands out.

From Q1 2021, Skyliner will provide the latest generation office space on 44 floors in a city center location.

In over 20 years of Karimpol’s history in Poland, this has been definitely the most interesting and exciting project. In a more general way, I would highlight the fact that Karimpol is firmly established in Warsaw one of CEE’s most dynamic markets, and set for further expansion.

What are the company’s expansion plans for 2020 and beyond?

During 2019 our group has been able to sell various office and logistics projects to institutional

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Our projects have always focused on sustainable operation

investors across the CEE region.

Examples are the sale of Equator II and IV in Warsaw to CPI Property Group, WOOD & Co. or the sale of Greenline Kačerov in Prague to Wood and Co. Due to these recent sales, our expansion strategy across the CEE region is fortified with Warsaw being one of the main targets. We will continue the strategy proven so far, which is the development of office, logistics and commercial real estate at the high end of the quality spectrum and creation of an investment grade product.

What have been the biggest challenges so far since its inception?

The challenges for Karimpol on the Polish market have been the constant need to react to changes in a rapidly changing market. The development of Warsaw from the 1990s to today has been spectacular. Such a degree of change

requires a continuous adaption of products tailored to meet clients’ needs. Currently, we are all facing a shortage of labor force across the Central and Eastern European (CEE) region. Under such conditions, the quality of the work environment, which our office buildings provide can be a decisive factor.

What could have been done differently?

Such times of change always trigger an internal analysis of expanding into further fields of business or into other areas like regional cities. Not all of these opportunities we have been able to make use of. On a different note, the focus on our existing specialization, creating investment-grade real estate in the CEE capitals, has been proven as the right way in the long run.

How ecologically sustainable are

your past and upcoming projects?

It is important that sustainability has now become a general condition of developing highclass projects. The basic idea is no novelty for our company since our projects have always focused on sustainable operation, lowering service charge, increasing lifecycle, etc., even long before rating systems emerged.

Obviously, with the progress of technology, new techniques are now able to achieve this goal and we put a high emphasis on implementing them. Skyliner has been pre-certified in the BREEAM system at the “excellent” level with an innovative mixture of solutions applied in the office.

[BREEAM, first published by the Building Research Establishment in 1990, is the world’s longest established method of assessing, rating, and certifying the sustainability of buildings.]

The key environment-friendly assets of the building include façades made from materials reducing overheating or heat loss, using rainwater for watering plants in the building, ventilation with a heat recovery system, cooling technology being neutral for the ozone layer, energy-saving lighting, segregation of recyclable materials, a waste reduction policy and the control of air pollution sources. The project uses also other state-of-the-art energy-saving solutions, increasing the efficiency and functionality of the area, eg column-free corner windows ensuring optimal lighting and a rectangular floor plan which allows for maximum flexibility in office space arrangement.

One more important thing concerning our green building is an innovative management system that will educate its users and monitor building parameters to enhance its operations. We wanted to have a unique approach to the needs of Skyliner users so that they can feel healthy, safe and comfort-

able. That is why we made a lot of analysis of potential users’ needs and many computer simulations that helped us predict, among others, necessary temperature levels, intensities of daylight, airflow or energy demand in various parts of the building.

The development of Warsaw from the 1990s to today has been spectacular

Tell us more about the Skyliner.

Skyliner is our flagship project, which sets the latest standard office space into a superb location. At 195m, Skyliner will be visible and recognizable from most parts of the city. For the lettable area of 44,000 sq m of office space, we will provide 430 parking spaces. That is a high ratio for city center buildings.

Alternative transports will find ideal conditions with dedicated indoor bicycle parking with showers and changing rooms. All that, in addition to the buildings’ location virtually on top of a metro station.

Supplementing office space the building offers a variety of services on the lower floor retail levels, like conference facilities, gastronomy and even a sky bar on a floor at 160m.

The mix of services within the building will also serve the surrounding neighborhood. A pedestrian zone between buildings will serve as a connection from the residential areas, the metro station and public transport on Rondo Daszynskiego [a Warsaw landmark]. In these ways, Skyliner will become an integral part of Warsaw’s community life.

How’s Skyliner any different to the other skyscrapers in Warsaw?

What differs Skyliner from the other office buildings is its horizontal division into two structures – a 16-meter high platform and a tower. The spaces of repetitive floors, located above the platform, were designed without columns inside the lease areas and in the corners so that the future tenants are able to plan their offices more freely and efficiently.

Moreover, the glass façade with the highest thermal and acoustic parameters will impress with its minimalist style and proportions.

The entrance hall of Skyliner will be four floors high, glazed and surrounded by a colonnade of 16-meter high columns, forming an arcade on the north-west side of the building. A strong architectural element of the lobby are the so-called “Spanish steps”, connecting the inside of the hall with an external public passage. The stairs will go through the façade, connecting the ground floor with the first floor, both inside and outside of the office building. They will not only serve as a traffic route but will also include seating areas and greenery, creating a sort of an informal meeting place.

In addition to this, at the height of 160 meters, there will be the two-storeyed “Skybar”, with a panoramic view over Warsaw’s city skyline, accessible by a dedicated lift. It will be a unique place with an area of 798 sq m, which will distinguish Skyliner from other buildings in Warsaw. The two-level space gives us various possibilities for its arrangement, such as a restaurant and bar, a place to organize events or a representative space that will serve our tenants.

How is Karimpol better than its competitors?

Karimpol’s specialization is creating ideal conditions for tenants in office and commercial space which serves the latest requirements and always keeping the long term perspective. The products and services we provide to tenants are ideally leading to long-term leases which creates a stable investment product for financial investors.

Karimpol’s sales transactions of 2019 show that institutions are increasingly searching for the kind of product we can offer.

As a privately-owned developer, we are not bound by short-term results but dedicated to the longterm perspective.

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LOKALE IMMOBILIA | LOGISTICS

UNCONTAINED GROWTH

The Port of Gdańsk strives for leadership in the Baltic region and is one of the fastest-growing container ports in Europe.

T

he Port of Gdańsk – the oldest and largest Polish seaport – transshipped over 52 tonnes of cargo in 2019, which makes it the fourth-largest port in the Baltic Sea in terms of volumes. It has a port limit – the seaward boundaries of the area over which a port has jurisdiction over navigation and operational procedures – of 15,988 ha.

In the last three years, it outperformed ports in Klaipeda in Lithuania and Gothenburg in Sweden. However, situated in Poland’s north, it is still scrambling for leadership against Russian heavy-

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weights – Saint Petersburg, Primorsk and Ust-Luga.

The seaport, located in the northern part of Gdańsk, comprises two principal sections: the inner port stretching along the Vistula River and the outer port with direct access to the Gulf of Gdańsk. The outer port includes Deepwater Container Terminal (DCT), connecting Asia, the European Union and the emerging markets of Central Europe.

DCT Gdańsk ranks as the most rapidly growing container terminal in the country. Its annual capacity is 3.25 million TEU of cargo. In 2019, it transshipped more than 2

million TEU. A twenty-foot equivalent unit (TEU) is a shipping container whose internal dimensions measure about 20 feet long, 8 feet wide and 8 feet tall.

In September, the terminal received the world’s largest container ship MSC Gülsün, as big as four football fields. The ship unloaded 11,000 containers, marking the largest regular container exchange in Europe.

The Gdańsk port includes passenger and freight ferry terminal located at Westerplatte, liquid fuel and dry bulk terminals as well as an LPG terminal with a storage base. Last year, the government

PHOTOS COURTESY OF PORTGDANSK.PL

INTERVIEW BY ANNA ZHURAVLEVA

also confirmed the plans to install a floating storage and regasification unit in the port.

The ports’ cargo transshipment in the last three years grew by around 40 percent in total. Growth skyrocketed in 2018 when the port marked over 20 percent increase in transported cargo, becoming the fastest-growing port in Europe.

Last year, growth slowed down to 6.4 percent but was still in line with the targets.

The infrastructure of the inner port, however, has limitations that do not allow serving extra-large vessels like MSC Gülsün received

by DCT. The inner port is designed

Gdańsk became the fastest growing port in Europe in 2018

for vessels with a draught of only slightly above 10 meters, while the ships currently often used for cargo transportation need a minimum of 13-14 meters depth to navigate. This is why the port has been working for years to build another deep-water area called the Central Port.

THE FLAGSHIP INVESTMENT

The construction of the Central Port, the flagship investment of Gdańsk, will not only enable receiving the ships with an increased draught but increase the capacity too. It would give the port a chance to rank number

one in the Baltic Sea region and to catch up with the top ports in Europe in the future. In 2018, the port ranked 15th by container throughput in Europe, according to porteconomics.eu data.

“The Port of Gdańsk found this solution, which is 100 percent in line with our government’s concept of doubling Polish ports transshipment capacity. Only then we will be at the Rotterdam level,” Marek Grobarczyk, the Polish maritime minister, said. Currently, Rotterdam – Europe’s largest container port – transships about nine times more cargo than Gdańsk.

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A consortium of two companies worked for almost a year to prepare six initial concepts for the Central Port until eventually the final one was chosen last year.

The Central Port will cover 1,400 hectares of water and 410 hectares of land. There will be, among others, two container terminals, an offshore terminal and an LNG terminal, along with a space for a shipyard and passenger ships.

The new project will include a total of nine terminals, more than 19km of operational quays and 8.5km of breakwaters. The investment size is estimated at PLN

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12 billion with the first terminals ready in 2029.

Ultimately, the investment is intended to nearly double the port’s transshipment capacity, reaching 140 million tonnes annually by 2050 compared to the current 76.2 million tonnes, Mariusz Jagłowski, the port’s representative, told the Warsaw Business Journal.

Critics, however, have called out the so-called “cannibalization” risks, meaning that terminal operators in the Polish Tri-City – a metropolitan area comprising Gdańsk, Gdynia and Sopot, as well as minor towns in the vicinity

– may start competing with each other as the expansion of infrastructure continues.

The new owners of the DCT – Singapore’s PSA International, Polish Development Funds (PFR) and IFM Global Infrastructure Fund – promised to support DCT plans to further increase the capacity. At the same time, the Port of Gdynia plans to build the outer port with container terminals. These projects running simultaneously raise concerns about whether all the new infrastructure will be used to its full potential. The Port of Gdańsk did not comment on the matter.

PORT’S PARABLE EARLY MIDDLE AGES UNTIL THE 13TH CENTURY

BEGINNING THE SECOND HALF OF THE 14TH CENTURY

FROM THE EARLY 16TH CENTURY TO THE END OF THE 17TH CENTURY

BEGINNING OF THE 19TH CENTURY 1945

BEYOND THE EU

In recent years, the Gdańsk port has accelerated its international expansion. On top of the costeffective connection with Central and Eastern Europe – the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Belarus and Ukraine, the port collaborates with the countries from outside the EU, such as Russia, Norway and China.

In 2017, the port signed a cooperation agreement with 11 ports of global importance. Along with major European partners, such as Rotterdam and Hamburg, the agreement included the South Korean Port of Incheon, the key

Chinese harbor Port of Shenzhen and the principal port in Malaysia, Klang.

Last year, the port marked the launch of the first permanent railway connection from China to DCT. The new route allows shortening travel time from China by about five days and cutting costs, which makes it an alternative to Western European ports for Asian partners. Łukasz Greinke, head of the management board of the Gdańsk port, claimed in October 2019 that Gdańsk was the “only regular Baltic port of call for ships from Asia.”

BEGINNING OF THE 1970S

AFTER 1989

2019

First port infrastructure created Port developed by building separate harbors with wooden quays at the mouth of the Motława River, where it flows into the Vistula River, which in turn drains into the Gulf of Gdańsk Gdańsk’s significant growth as a port started, commercial relations with overseas countries such as Denmark, Sweden, England, France, Spain and Portugal established. Rapid expansion began

An average of 500-1,000 vessels came to Gdańsk annually with the greatest number of ships under the Dutch flag, followed by English vessels. The only significant competitor to Gdańsk on the Baltic Sea was Lübeck Gdańsk fell under the rule of Prussia, became one of the many German ports on the Baltic Poland received the port back but the years after WWII were dedicated to the reconstruction of the city from the ruins The Northern Port with fuel and coal terminals was built. After the project completion, the total turnover of the port reached a record volume of 27.7 million tonnes in 1978 A new chapter in the port’s operations started, characterized by the construction of the LPG terminal at the Northern Port, the short-sea shipping container terminal, further specialist cargo handling terminals and the Westerplatte Ferry Terminal The seaport handled a record 52.2 million tonnes of goods in the year.

It posted a net profit of PLN 60.2 million, while the total revenue stood at PLN 257 million

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LOKALE IMMOBILIA | REAL ESTATE

SETTING THE BAR HIGH

Ghelamco's Warsaw Unit

Jeroen van der Toolen, of Ghelamco – a Belgian real estate developer – ponders over the Warsaw office market developing at a breakneck pace, the last couple of years for his company and the future.

INTERVIEW BY MORTEN LINDHOLM

WBJ:

You have been with Ghelamco Poland for almost 20 years. Looking back over the two decades what are the projects you are most proud of?

Jeroen van der Toolen: Well, we are sitting here on the 41st floor of the Warsaw Spire building. Of course, this is Ghelamco’s and my landmark project. Something that I am extremely proud of. However, looking back on time there have been many nice and interesting milestones for the company. The project on Bitwy Warszawskiej 1920 r. street was a big step for Ghelamco coming from the dense Mokotów office market in southern Warsaw closer to the city center and attracting top tenants such as Commercial Union [Aviva] and Gerling [HDI Global SE]. An unusual but complicated boutique project was the Zaułek Piękna – at the crossroads of Krucza and Piękna streets. When we dug up the ground there, we stumbled upon many special things that we had to take good care of.

However, developing Warsaw Spire and Plac Europejski and all the community responsibility around it was a special achievement. It was our first tower project. We had so far been constructing small buildings. Even in this light, it makes our soonto-be-ready projects The Warsaw HUB and Warsaw Unit easier to comprehend because we have erected a tower already.

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Tell us more about The Warsaw HUB and Warsaw Unit.

The HUB is close to being opened.

The project will be delivered in Q2 2020. It is currently about 80 percent rented. Actually, the HUB is a more complicated project than Warsaw Spire. You think we have finished one tower so the second would be easy. But this one is also like the first time for us because in the HUB every function, I can think of, has been included. There will be two hotels, including one of the biggest hotels in Warsaw, with two different entrances and logistics involved. We have secured full integration with retail on the

-1 level and it is directly linked to a metro station and the public transport connections to that.

How about the Unit?

With Warsaw Unit, it is a little bit different. It is like nine months behind the HUB. Many people said the recession is coming and the Warsaw office market overheating. Considering the comments we decided to lay the foundation so that we could quickly move up when we could see the demand was there. Today we have leased 45 percent of the building out that actually will be higher than the Warsaw Spire. The Spire is 220m

Compare Warsaw to other major capital cities around and you will see we have come far but there is still a long way to go

tall but has 40 meters of spires at the top. The roof of the Unit will be at a level of 202m above ground. A strong and attractive project from an architectural point of view.

In Poland, you are famous for creating a whole new central business district (CBD) in Warsaw around Rondo Daszyńskiego. In the future, will Warsaw still be your main target market? Is there space to create such a visionary impact still?

Warsaw is growing and will still grow. Compare Warsaw to other major capital cities around and you will see we have come far but there is still a long way to go. Everything developed here at Daszyńskiego roundabout – not only by us but other developers too – has a very special urban feel to it, something great for the city.

I believe Warsaw has a couple of areas where you will see new promising districts. Maybe not in the CBD but still centric as the center grows. They will develop into new strong areas like Wola [western Warsaw] because the city has space for it. These areas will probably be mainly residential but with retail and office space as well. But these are attractive solutions for the future. Our main focus is on office space. However, we have secured a potential 100,000 sq m for residential space, in the pipeline.

You won the MIPIM awards for Warsaw Spire and sold it last year at a record-breaking transaction deal. This sets the bar very high?

Winning MIPIM awards was really special. No project in Poland had ever won the award. Our competitors and other agents from Poland voted for us. Warsaw is, of course, a very important city for us but we are very active in

Belgium as well. We are building a multi-use tower there and a stadium. We are active in Luxembourg and in Moscow through logistics projects. Recently, we bought a company in London. So we have many projects and areas to focus on.

We are investing a lot in sustainable elements and green elements of the upcoming buildings. There will be more and more requirements because of the Paris Treaty [an agreement on climate change within the United Nations Framework Convention].

And we are investing to be at the forefront of this.

But you have more plots secured here in the center of the city?

Yes, we can build towers. We are in the stage of getting permits at the moment and we would like to start one of them very soon.

But don’t forget we have started a project in Kraków recently. Soon we will start in Łódź – a central, multifunctional-usage project of 80,000 sq m near the main train station. There is also a residential project in Gdynia and and an office project in Katowice in the pipeline.

Urban space and placemaking through mixed-use projects have been trending for the last few years. What is your point of view?

We set the trend in Warsaw with Plac Europejski. We won a lot of awards – from the residents of Warsaw and from architectural organizations. We, therefore, consulted with the best-in-class experts to help us develop a place that has sand, trees and fountains with underground nozzles so that children can play in the water. We have permanent outdoor exhibitions, an ice-skating rink in winter and an outdoor cinema in summer. We have upgraded this public space.

We want to invest in this because we want to make the places we build better for everybody – workers and residents alike. Therefore, we now spend a lot of time analyzing data before we decide what is needed for the locals and for making the project a long-term success.

And what about mixed-use projects?

Mixed-use depends on the size of the projects. When it is big enough, of course, we want to have mixed-use of complementing functions where life and work stay in harmony. 15 years ago it was different than it is today.

Warsaw was just getting its first quality office building. Today employees’ expectations are different. And a couple of years from now they will be also different.

Today we observe that our new tenants choose us, localities or buildings based on how they can best suit their employees’ needs and satisfaction. It demands something else from developers and changes our analysis.

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LOKALE IMMOBILIA | ARCHITECTURE

FUTURE OF CONSTRUCTION

Ecology leads the way, claims Agnieszka Szczepaniak, an architect and director for AP Szczepaniak – an award-winning architectural firm in Wrocław, southwest Poland. INTERVIEW BY KRZYSZTOF MACIEJEWSKI

WBJ:

What will apartments and office buildings look like in the future?

Agnieszka Szczepaniak: We live in a time when we must care for the environment, care for the health and pursue well-being. We live more consciously, wanting to achieve a state of balance.

This phenomenon is reflected in all aspects of life, including architecture. Residential, office or commercial buildings are no longer limited to one function but are becoming multifunctional objects. Their tasks are varied – increasing comfort and improving the quality of urban space.

Architectural styles are like sinusoidal curves. After colorful and asymmetrical postmodernism, there is calming down in the

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form of color uniformity, symmetry and pattern.

The architecture draws from the achievements of new technologies and uses artificial intelligence but without the aspirations. Putting man and his needs first.

Architects pay more and more attention to urban design.

Each object should be part of the system – buildings should interact with each other in a consistent manner.

Is the trend of ecological buildings already visible?

It has been visible for a long time. It is associated with a change in public awareness.

Modern architecture must take into account aspects related to

the environment. Buildings are becoming more passive, energyefficient and self-sufficient. The barrier between the interior and the outside world is disappearing. Facades are no longer just walls that protect us against weather conditions but have become part of interaction with the environment.

Everything indicates that, as in the case of office buildings, ecology and respect for the environment will play an increasingly important role in residential architecture.

Green rooftops and walls, patios full of vegetation and buildings shaped to give shade can be seen at every step. We have seen good results from contact with nature, hence ideas such as small communal gardens for all residents to grow fruit and vegetables.

What trends are currently dominating? And what trends have become extinct?

I would say that ecology leads the way. Today, “pomposity and glamor, that is, marble and gold” are no longer an exponent of prestige.

It is important how the object interacts and harmonizes with the environment. The architecture of a building is not only a function, a safe shelter, home, work or shop but above all creating emotions and quality of life.

Due to the ease of acquiring knowledge, “moving” to remote corners of the globe, learning on a regular basis, not only on your own but also from someone else’s mistakes – because all these things come together with the ubiquitous internet – we design with greater care, sensitivity and more responsibility. This is probably the most important trend of today.

When it comes to the form

itself, it’s certainly calming down, bringing order and uniformity.

Patterns bring order. Subdued colors, which do not mean boring and without accents.

The shape, that does not create a separate object but through its sculpture connects with the development of the area around it.

How important are intelligent buildings?

By 2040, 65 percent of the population will live in cities. The dizzying influx of people and the increasing number of megacities enforce sustainable development, improving the quality of life of the residents.

Cities are becoming the driving force of the global economy.

To maximize their efficiency and ensure adequate living comfort, modern smart solutions are needed to facilitate functioning in such an environment.

Therefore, it is not only about individual buildings that – thanks to technological prowess – are becoming more intelligent and equipped with new technologies, eg various types of sensors including contact and movement but about intelligent cities too, which are the future of civilization.

However, if we look at individual buildings, we will notice that the creation of self-sufficient office buildings and public facilities is an ongoing trend.

The architecture of such facilities aims to create specialized workspaces – soundproofed, isolated and enable the use of appropriate tools, eg ICT. Around the buildings, we design green bodies, waterrelated elements, terraces and relaxation areas that promote integration.

Architecture intends to achieve a balance between functionality and aesthetics.

How about the development of the Internet of Things [IoT]? Will we negotiate rents and loans with buildings in the future?

To put it simply, this is not possible. Yes, technology is developing very quickly, but not so fast.

Let us bear in mind, however, that large databases are an element of smart cities and are being used more and more today.

A great example is traffic monitoring systems that control traffic lights, which in turn reduces traffic jams. Big Data is the collection of statistical information on the popularity of given places and tourist attractions, and even how tourists visit them.

Advanced smart city technologies have already been introduced in many cities around the world.

It should be remembered that in the past we had often been surprised by the pace of technological development, so maybe something unexpected will happen this time. Like some say, “expect the unexpected”.

Will the rush to build skyscrapers, higher and higher office buildings or apartment buildings persist?

In my opinion, yes. It has become widely known that cities should not spread to other areas because it causes various economic and infrastructural problems. Instead, they should use the space they have by making the built-area dense.

This can be done by completing the buildings and just building up. Then, in a small area, you can create conditions for a truly dignified, happy life. In a smaller area, everything is available, the most important places are within walking distance or bike rides away.

Dense architecture in cities saves time, integration and measurable savings in terms of

communication. In addition, people crave unrestrictive views, even indirect contact with greenery and water. Tall buildings give them that.

Let’s take a look at what prices per meter are achieved by New York “pencils”, ie very tall and slender multi-family buildings.

Skillfully planned architecture makes life better in the city.

Architects pay more and more attention to urban design

On the one hand, we have clear inclinations towards glazing, big “glass houses” like in Stefan Żeromski’s book. On the other hand, the climate crisis can turn these buildings into giant greenhouses. How will this conflict be resolved in the next decade?

[Born in southern Poland in the 1860s, prolific Polish novelist Stefan Żeromski wrote “The Spring to Come” that comprises three parts of which “Glass houses” is one.]

I think this is a too far-reaching hypothesis. The idea of Stefan ​​ Żeromski has been implemented for a long time. Thankfully technologies allow us to feel more and more comfortable and at the same time in accordance with ecology.

In the era of technological progress, a glass building is not synonymous with a greenhouse.

The high quality of materials prevents negative atmospheric effects. The panes have different thermal and acoustic properties.

Even solar panels can be glazed.

Large glazing is commonplace.

Glass has been used and liked constantly for several years and will not disappear quickly.

For most of us, well-lit interiors and views are very important. To meet the expectations of architecture enthusiasts and to meet the demands of residents, architects design buildings facing rivers and green areas, especially in city centers.

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BUILDING BEHEMOTH?

With the main office in Irvine in California, Panattoni – an international developer of commercial properties – intends to “ follow” their customers’ expectations, Robert Dobrzycki, who heads its European arm, tells WBJ. INTERVIEW BY SANKHYAYAN DATTA

WBJ:

Panattoni has been present in Poland since 2005. Major achievements and failures?

Robert Dobrzycki: We have had several achievements. First of all, from the very beginning, we have broken records when it comes to space lease transactions. In the first year, it was 52,000 sq m for H&M in Poznań [western Poland].

In 2008, we signed a lease agreement for the construction of 56,000 sq m for Leroy Merlin in Stryków [central Poland] and two years later we informed the industry about the construction of 57,000 sq m for Tesco. Finally, in 2014, we signed a giant lease agreement for the construction of 246,000 sq m for Amazon near Poznań and Wrocław [south-west Poland], carrying out construction in record time.

To date, we have completed as many as eight buildings for Amazon, including the latest – a record-breaking facility in terms of size and functionality – in Gliwice [southern Poland]. This investment with an area of over 210,000 sq m and four floors is the largest warehouse building in the country and has been equipped with an innovative Amazon Robotics technology. As many as 3,900 transport robots help to store products on shelves there and complete orders.

I am also particularly proud

that Panattoni has started new market trends. We were the first one to implement production facilities outside our warehouse spaces in SEZs. We also initiated investments in new emerging markets. When most developers focused on the most mature warehouse markets, our eyes turned to pioneering locations all across Poland such as Lublin, Szczecin, Bydgoszcz, Zielona Góra, Białystok or Kielce. And it was an excellent decision, as was the implementation of the concept of City Logistics Parks dedicated to urban logistics and growing e-commerce demand.

Such parks were created in Warsaw, Katowice, Wrocław, Łódź, and also in [the German capital] Berlin.

And outside of Poland?

Our international presence is another milestone for the company. In 2014, I was appointed as Panattoni Managing Partner for Europe. After investing in the Czech Republic and Slovakia, we began a great adventure with Western Europe – first Germany, where we became the most active developer and then the UK, since September 2017, where we are currently the largest speculative developer. We have just announced the opening of our offices in the Netherlands

The 2009 economic crisis not only verified the market but also allowed us to spread our wings

and Spain.

This wouldn’t have happened if not for the lesson we learned from the crisis at the end of the first decade of this century. The crisis not only verified the market but also allowed us to spread our wings. It has enabled us to actively manage the situation and taught us how to adapt to new conditions. When our competitors were changing the strategy by narrowing the way of acting and reducing the scale of operations, we maintained activity at a high level and even built a new structure within the group dedicated to tailor-made investments (buildto-suit or BTS). This allowed us to come to the fore after the crisis and become a market leader in terms of the number of delivered and under management space.

What are some of the notable contributions (not strictly monetary) Panattoni has made to Poland?

Thanks to the development of the industrial facilities industry, we have helped create thousands of jobs, not only in major markets but also in the cities where the unemployment rate was very high. Moreover, the investments carried out by Panattoni, especially for global companies, have an impact on the image of Poland on an international level.

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PANATTONI POINTERS

300 Number of Panattoni in Poland employees

8 Number of offices in Poland The total area developed/constructed/ managed by Panattoni in Poland

7.5 million 1 million

(developed)

sqm

(under construction)

How environmentally friendly is Panattoni in Poland?

Panattoni’s logistics complexes have been subject to rigorous BREEAM [sustainability assessment] certification at the “Good” level for several years, and “Very Good” since 2020. Equipping objects with LED lighting became a standard for us a long time ago, as well as increased insulation of walls and roofs or the tightness of buildings, thanks to which we reduce emissions of exhaust gases and carbon dioxide. We also more often equip our facilities with an intelligent building management system (BMS) that integrates all installations in buildings.

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sqm

It should also be added that the shortening of access roads and the waiting time of trucks by appropriate organization and optimization of their traffic is also ecological as it leads to a reduction in carbon dioxide emissions.

That is why all the main facilities implemented by us as part of the “City Logistics Parks” concept are consistent with the assumptions of green logistics by reducing the effect of transport on the environment.

In addition, we not only support our clients with the implementation of ecological solutions but we also implement a green policy internally. We segregate garbage obligatorily, our employees use special cups instead of disposables ones. Recently, we have also introduced elements of zerowaste and upcycling policy by sewing bags for employees and sachets from our used banners.

What are the main upcoming projects in Poland?

We will continue to follow our customers’ expectations and further focus on developing our own locations on core and emerging markets, including our own city logistics parks concept and buildto-suit [BTS] investments.

What are some of the biggest challenges faced by the company?

Despite the fact that crisis is often referred to, I don’t see any special challenges. Firstly, the market foundations are stable, and secondly, a well-functioning enterprise is prepared for changes, mentally, financially and structurally.

However, the challenge for Panattoni, as a really big player, will be keeping the company away from corporate structures in order to maintain our entrepreneurial spirit.

How is Panattoni better than its competitors? Where does the room for improvement lie?

It results from the local-ownership structure of our company, thanks to which we are close to the market and business. And thus, we are flexible and make decisions quickly.

In addition, we offer international cooperation and our customers benefit from the scale of our activity and a brand which is recognized as a good one among subcontractors.

If I were to indicate something for improvement, maybe it would be the intensification of activities to do even more by taking advantage of a favorable market.

The California-headquartered international real estate developer is present in some European and North American markets. Any plans for the other continents?

Certainly other continents are tempting, but for now, there is a lot to do in Europe. We do not want to stop at building only a few projects on one market. We look at Europe more widely and our goal is to be in the top three developers on the continent.

How did Brexit impact Panattoni Europe?

So far it has not. And no matter what happens, we’re ready for Brexit. Currently, Panattoni is the UK’s largest speculative developer and at the same time, we entered the Netherlands, supporting all the undecided as to where locate their business.

Polish politics has witnessed a slew of changes since 2005.

How do government policies affect Panattoni in Poland?

Politics has not directly influenced our activities so far. Economic factors are decisive.

Panattoni Park Wrocław IV in south-west Poland

Panattoni project for Amazon in Gliwice, southern Poland

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LOKALE IMMOBILIA | ANALYSIS

time, rising labor and material costs have added to the risk associated with development – the primary industry concern for 2020 is the cost of construction.”

CLIMATE CHANGE IMPORTANT

EN VOGUE

Europe’s property leaders remain resolute in their belief in real estate as an attractive investment asset class despite strong political and economic headwinds. BY KRZYSZTOF MACIEJEWSKI

E

merging Trends in Real Estate Europe – a forecast publication now in its 17th edition – is a highly-regarded and widely-read report in the real estate industry. Undertaken jointly

by PwC and Urban Land Institute, the report provides an outlook on real estate investment and development trends, real estate finance and capital markets, cities, property sectors and other real estate issues throughout Europe.

So, what can we find in this most recent edition?

As someone said, all that matters in the real estate market is location, location, location ... Still, things get complicated a bit when it comes to some fortune-telling. As Niels Bohr said: Prediction is very difficult, especially about the future. So it’s no surprise that there are consequently question marks against the European economic outlook although the industry draws comfort from central banks’ decision to maintain or

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cut interest rates – a significant change in direction.

The change in monetary policy has led to cap-rate compression in some office and logistics markets and raised the possibility of further value increases to come in 2020. But secure, stable income remains the guiding light for the majority of the industry. With interest rates set to stay lower for longer and bond yields in many European countries in negative territory, real estate income retains its broad appeal to investors. Equity and debt are expected to remain plentiful for most real estate sectors.

As we can read in the report: “Yet there is little evidence of complacency given the inherent risks in a late-cycle market where values are above historic levels.

Market participants are therefore being more careful than ever about how and where they deploy capital, which for many means focusing on cities that offer liquidity and connectivity. At the same

Political risk is a constant concern for interviewees, but environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues have perhaps shown the biggest move up the industry agenda over the past 12 months.

While ESG has been an important reference for years, this survey and interviews suggest a meaningful change of tone. Most obviously, this change has come from the pressure exerted by institutional investors through their ESG investment criteria. But it has also come via developments at the product end of the business – as we see opportunities emerge in response to changing customer demand for real estate that provides a better overall impact.

It seems that big quote by Mahatma Gandhi, about being the change that you wish to see in the world is becoming more and more important these days. Looks like climate change is seen as having the biggest impact on real estate over the next 30 years. A big amount of time but some industry leaders are already rising to the challenge, not least because they bear some responsibility.

“We have reached a tipping point around environmental issues generally, and 40 percent of global emissions are from real estate,” says a pan-European investment manager. “We have ambitious targets around going net carbon neutral that will impact how buildings are built, used and managed,” he adds.

Almost half of the survey respondents say the risk of climate change has increased in their portfolio, and 73 percent expect that risk to become greater over the next five years. The interviews suggest the growing public

outcry over the effects of climate change is influencing sentiment in the industry. That public pressure is translating into a general tightening of ESG requirements among institutional investors.

This tougher ESG regime is in turn being imposed on the real estate specialists in those organizations. “People are waking up to the world’s environmental issues.

Shareholders enquiring about the environmental impact of our buildings has gone up five-fold,” says a UK REIT director.

Some investors are also responding to national emissions reduction targets imposed under the Paris Agreement. For them, making their assets “Paris-proof” overrides short-term political and economic concerns. As one Dutch investor says: “The biggest risk for us is more the longterm risk – is your property good enough to deal with the Paris treaty? But I don’t think every institutional investor shares our concerns over sustainability, at least not yet.”

Indeed, 26 percent of respondents do not see any material impact from climate change on their portfolio today. On the other hand, global climate change is reducing the amount of land that’s viable for habitation and occupation.

WARSAW LAGS

Let’s get to the crème de la crème or the rankings of cities. Paris is ranked number 1 for its overall real estate prospects in 2020.

The Grand Paris project, Europe’s largest transport scheme, is widely lauded as a game-changer for the French capital, setting it apart from the competition. Berlin, Frankfurt, Munich and Hamburg all figure in the top 10. The fundamentals of these markets are judged “quite healthy”, overriding concerns over Germany’s economy.

Similarly, good supply and

Climate change is seen as having the biggest impact on real estate over the next 30 years

demand dynamics are working in the favor of other top 10 cities, such as Amsterdam and Madrid.

At number 4, London’s prospects are highly rated, too.

The interviews indicate a large volume of capital waiting for a Brexit resolution before moving in, although there are lower expectations for the UK’s smaller, regional cities. In terms of sectors, logistics once again tops the rankings for investment and development prospects.

The positions in the ranking were created by the average of votes. Respondents who are familiar with the city scored the expected change for 2020 compared to 2019 on a scale of 1=decrease substantially to 5=increase substantially and the scores for each city are averages.

In the ranking of PwC, the capital of Poland is at 14th position out of 31 cities ranked. “We would definitely venture into Warsaw in a more significant way,” says a panEuropean investor. “The returns are higher, and you get first-class office buildings and good logistics facilities in a market that’s growing strongly. It’s that simple.”

The growth story in the Polish capital is compelling, even for some who previously doubted its sustainability. “Our business in Poland has been going extremely well. The take-up in the office sector has been tremendous, notwithstanding the political gyrations. There was some concern in Warsaw that there might be an office oversupply because there was quite a large pipeline being developed, but so far we have seen heavy supply being met by heavy demand,” says another interviewee.

A local highlights the country’s “very good and stable economic background; profitability is still at a satisfactory level, which attracts new capital investors. Therefore, there should still be a lot of money on the market”.

Much investment has been focused on the office sector, but a German fund manager suggests that other asset classes will take more of the limelight in future: “Poland, given its relatively young population, its retail consumption, and the catch-up that is still visible, has some way to go particularly in hospitality, retail and residential – not so much for offices because occupiers are starting to move their back-office functions even further east.”

Some single out student housing as offering great potential: “You have to look at the short supply in student accommodation relative to the demand – in particular the international student demand in the Polish market, which is phenomenal, with the UK, unfortunately, losing their share of that market because of their own inward-looking views,” says one.

Fewer interviewees raise the risk of political instability this year, but governance is still an issue in some respects: “Tax and financial unpredictability are a big problem in Poland. Regulations change overnight. This contributes to a negative opinion about this country,” observes a local.

Still, Poland looks like an attractive real estate market. “There is a growing number of projects in the industry that involve or enable a change in function during the lifetime of the building. This trend will strengthen in the coming years.

Changing the use of assets is simply profitable and is an increasingly sought-after option for many investors. It is also worth noting that for some investors alternative segments of the real estate market, such as student housing, long-term care homes or logistics facilities, have become the area of main attention and will be highly desirable asset classes in 2020,” says Kinga Barchoń, Partner at PwC Poland.

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Opinion

Communication is the key

We are living in times where the speed with which information inundates us and the access to creating and accessing information is close to unlimited, overwhelming and sometimes dangerous.

T

o understand the challenge we communicators face in this day and age, we have to address what I believe are some of the key issues in business communication in present times. We need to realize that it is not only us who controls what is being said about our company or brand anymore, it’s also the stakeholders including customers, employees, business partners, and even competitors.

Therefore, we must have a clear purpose, engaging and authentic communication, in order to be noticed. Add to this, considering over 60 percent of customer touchpoints with brands today happens on the web, if your company isn’t focused on monitoring and assuring an active online presence to the potential audience it might actually backfire. Contacts may say what they wish to about you without you being in charge. This will surely have an influence when you are hiring or meeting potential business partners or clients.

If your business is not on the internet, then your business will be out of business – Bill Gates, Microsoft co-founder CUSTOMER CARE Just customer service and management are not anymore what you are looking for. It’s one step further. It is what we call, “customer-centric” care. You have to know your consumers inside out – better than they know themselves to have an edge over your competitors.

How? Start by having the proper monitoring tools. Data is what you need to be analyzing to know what is going on in your eco-system. You have to be proactive and foresee when customers need you to step up to ‘confirm’ that they are making the right choices.

Let’s take an example. Your customer has access to all the information in the world. It is only a few clicks away on the mobile. So in the unfortunate situation where you are not active when someone pops questions to you, they might resort to choosing your faster, and seemingly better, competitor over you.

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THE EQ FACTOR Despite being an old-fashioned publisher, I do accept that audio or video content creates better emotions, and as a result, closer ties to the audiences. On top of that, today we all possess the multimedia tools to create audio and video content, making it a doddle to produce this type of content. It is much easier to strengthen relations with a potential client if they have a better emotional connection with you than know who you are and what is important for you.

Don’t even mention Gen Z for whom a YouTube search is what “googling” is for the older generations. Human touch is important – whether it is through influencer marketing, podcasts or tutorial videos – as it gives your company an authentic ‘face’ for the customer to relate to.

TELL THAT STORY The narrative is a crucial element in today’s communication. We learn, remember and participate more when an activity is engaging. Captivating stories make us feel the information as opposed to just consume it.

When you tell stories, remember that our brains, in most cases, are hardwired to avoid risks rather than jump at opportunities at the spur of the moment.

So successful storytelling (films) always start with the problem for the protagonist. During the story, the hero meets a guide (that in our world should be you – the company or brand) that doesn’t speak about itself but gives the solutions to achieve success and overcome the antagonist. A villain is also a usual character (competitor, disruptor, …) in storytelling that you want to include in your script.

Of course, it is easier said than done.

But we work with some of Poland’s top brands and make sure they stay on top of the game and challenge themselves all the time. Last but, by no way, least, communication isn’t easy and it is surely not about you – it is about what you can offer to achieve better results.

Morten Lindholm is the publisher and editor-in-chief of the WBJ. He also advises companies on communication and marketing solutions. He has 25+ years of experience in marketing, sales and business management.

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WBJ

BROUGHT TO YOU BY TFLS

Fluency or proficiency ?

That is the question

T

ry to remember the last time you were asked to assess your foreign language fluency. It was not an easy task, especially if you did not have any internationally recognized certificate to prove it. Describing your level of English as fluent or proficient without hard evidence to support it is no longer acceptable and employers are not willing to take such self-assessment at face value.

Did you know that foreign languages are in the top three skills people most commonly lie about in their CVs? Since every job candidate wants to appear a better fit for the position, it should come as no surprise that they are sometimes not perfectly honest about their qualifications.

The reason why they tend to overestimate their language skills more often than anything else is quite simple – such common descriptors as fluent or proficient tend to be highly stretchable. In other words, everyone understands them differently.

Obviously, if you apply for the position of a translator with specific bilingual requirements, you can expect that your language skills are going to be put to the test.

However, claiming English fluency in your

CV when applying for the job of a graphic designer may seem innocent at first, but it should raise a red flag instead. If you lie about your qualifications on an application – even if it seems harmless – you will irreversibly make a really bad impression on your potential employers.

Therefore, before you put your dream job at risk, consider taking an internationally recognized exam to have a formal proof of your foreign language proficiency.

If you are unsure which exam is most suitable for you, TFLS – the leading English language school in Warsaw preparing for FCE, CAE, CPE, IELTS, TOEFL, TOLES, GMAT and LCCI exams – recommends taking the following factors into consideration: •P lan to apply for a job in Poland – if you’re looking for your first job or intend to change your current position, you may consider taking FCE (B2 level), CAE (C1 level) or CPE (C2 level) exam, depending on your English skills. An official confirmation of your language proficiency will definitely be an asset.

•P lan to work or study abroad – if you wish to work or study abroad, you may start preparing either for TOEFL, which is required by the majority of universities in the world or for IELTS, which enables you to work or study in English-speaking countries.

• J ob position – a candidate for a managerial position probably needs to demonstrate better knowledge of English than a candidate for an entry-level position. Depending on your position, choose among four levels of English for Business LCCI certificates. They are perfect for everyone willing to develop their English language skills for use in a business setting.

•E mployer profile – English used in an accounting firm is different from English used in a law firm, therefore, if you are looking for work-related exams, consider one of LCCI qualifications such as Accounting, Public Relations, Practical ICT Skills, Sales & Marketing. However, if you are a lawyer or a law student, find out more about TOLES (Test of Legal English Skills).

•M BA studies – if you are a candidate for MBA studies, then GMAT is for you. This is the only exam that is needed in admission to this type of study not only abroad, but also in Poland.

Since there is a wide range of exams to choose from, everyone can find something for themselves. At the same time, it is important to remember that having formal confirmation of foreign language proficiency not only adds value to the job application, but it can also help open up unexpected career opportunities.

Anita Zajączkowska Key Account Director, TFLS

TFLS is the leading English language school in Warsaw preparing for IELTS, TOEFL, TOLES, GMAT and LCCI exams. It is a British Council partner preparing for FCE, CAE and CPE exams. It is also an accredited Examinations Centre for LCCI exams, TOEIC, as well as TOLES (Test of Legal English Skills), which are taken every year by hundreds of candidates from all over Poland.

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73

Opinion INVESTMENTS

The rise and rise of impact investing Impact investing has been growing exponentially all over the world recently, even partially displacing traditional charitable donations.

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I

mpact investing is about funding to make a positive impact on the world.

However, its scope is not limited to generating a financial return. You can define the term as an investment intended to generate a measurable positive social and environmental impact alongside a financial return, according to the New York-headquartered nonprofit organization Global Impact Investing Network.

IMPACT INVESTING VS CHARITABLE DONATIONS Despite some similarities, the investments are not the same as charitable donations, wherein the donor typically expects nothing in return – except, perhaps, a tax deduction. Charities and investments have their own separate and crucial roles. The former are important and effective in meeting

immediate needs, such as food, shelter and sanitation. The latter can be more effective in stimulating long-term sustainability through job creation and entrepreneurship.

INTERESTED? Social impact investments may appeal to a wide variety of individual and institutional investors, including: • Fund managers • Development finance institutions • Diversified financial institutions and banks • Private foundations • Pension funds and insurance companies • Family offices • Individual investors • NGOs • Religious institutions

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THE FEATURES There are three key characteristics of impact investing: 1. Aim: The intention to produce a positive social impact by mobilizing capital is the central idea of the whole concept of impact investing.

2. Returns: The target range of returns for impact investments may range from below market to market, depending on investors’ strategic goals. Based on a 2019 survey of social impact investors throughout the world, a majority of impact investors still choose to pursue competitive, market-rate returns. But this is not always the case.

Figure 1: Target financial returns sought by impact investors

15% 19% 66%

Risk-adjucted, market-rate returns elow-market-rate returns: B closer to marker rate Below-market-rate returns: closer to captial preservation

3. Effect: The third and most challenging aspect of an investment is the measurement of its impact on the world. GIIN has established the criteria for measuring the effects: a. D eclaring the social or environmental objectives that an investment is attempting to accomplish. b. Using standardized metrics to set performance targets for these objectives.

c. Utilizing Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) to measure performance and optimizing specific parts of a business model. d. Reporting social and environmental performance in the context of the standardized metrics that were previously set.

IMPACT INVESTING ROOTS IN CENTRAL EUROPE According to GIIN, aggregated assets under management in the impact investment industry was estimated at USD 502 billion at the end of 2018. The growing impact investment market provides capital to address the world’s most demanding challenges in sectors such as sustainable agriculture, renewable energy, conservation, microfinance, and housing.

The majority of impact investing organizations are headquartered in developed markets, mainly in the US and Canada.

However, impact investing is a global phenomenon, also with strong roots in central Europe. The impact investment ecosystem in the Visegrad countries – Poland, Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic – is relatively well-developed, despite still being in its early stage.

A lack of concise national-level strategies and gaps in cooperation between entities need to be addressed in order for the region to ensure the impact investment ecosystem develops to its full potential, shows an index commissioned by Deloitte, a multinational professional services firm.

For many years, numerous investors have been avoiding investments in the socalled “sin” industries like alcohol, tobacco, armaments, etc. Impact investment might be viewed as an extension of that trend, to actively seek out investments that will make the world a better place. One might also view investing in certain high-tech firms as a form of impact investing, if the technology, for example, medtech or drug research, enriches our lives.

There is a perception in society in general that money is often a source of evil.

Impact investing is a positive proof that money can also be the source for good.

Les Nemethy Euro-Phoenix Ltd CEO of Euro-Phoenix, a Central European corporate finance firm, and author of Business Exit Planning

Sergey Glekov Euro-Phoenix Associate Director in Euro-Phoenix, worked as a Head of Research at Skate’s Art Market Research.

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WBJ

Opinion POLITICS

WATER NOT DEEP ENOUGH However, Polish sailors have voiced their concern. The Vistula lagoon is shallow.

Roughly half of it lies within Poland and has an average depth of 2.7 meters. Seamen have said that only boats with a draft of up to one meter can ferry freely across the water body. Moreover, rapid changes in the water level, sometimes falling down to 1.5 meters within 24 hours due to winds or simply low tides, could prevent sailors from navigating across the lagoon. Dredging in such conditions is quickly reverted by nature unless the body of water is dredged continuously.

AND THE COSTS? There are nearly 30 Polish ports on the Baltic Sea that deal with over 2.5 million tonnes of cargo per year. The Elbląg port is expected to transport 100,000 tonnes of cargo – 300 times less than Gdańsk.

It would cost the taxpayer almost PLN 1 billion (€233 million), Poland’s maritime ministry has claimed. Work has already begun and will finish by 2022.

Poland joined the European Union in May 2004, and the biggest beneficiary of EU funds since 2007. Ever since, it has been a perpetual construction site. Unequivocally, the funds have had a significant impact on accelerating the pace of the country’s modernization. However, a large section of the Polish society is dissatisfied with the upcoming investments.

BY SERGIUSZ PROKURAT

P

oland’s ruling right-wing Law and Justice (PiS) party who narrowly won a second term in office has its own vision of the future of the central European nation’s infrastructure. Recently, Warsaw ratified an agreement to dig a waterway across a narrow strip of land – the Vistula Spit – that separates the country’s coastline in its north-east from the Baltic Sea. The sand pit stretches

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from the northern Polish city of Gdańsk to Baltiysk in the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad. A Polish-Belgian consortium that is in charge of implementing the project will develop the maritime port in Elbląg, northeastern Poland. The canal intends to enable Polish sailors to go to the sea from the port without having to request access to pass through Russian territory. Moscow demands that the passage of each vessel must be reported a week in advance.

WITAMY W POLSCE! The Vistula Spit is not the only major infrastructural conundrum the government has entangled itself in. Its first term was also marred by a controversy over a much larger and costlier project PiS decided to implement, despite popular dissent. The proposal for a central airport in Poland was put forward in the 1970s. It got shelved in the 1980s and 1990s. However, the idea gained momentum under PiS’s nationalistic regime with the government approving the plan in November 2017. The Central Communication Port (CPK) project involves building a new 3000-hectare gigantic airport

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Economic prowess or investing dissent?

RESIDENTS, ENVIRONMENTALISTS PROTEST Meanwhile, residents of Polish towns located on the Spit have protested against the construction of the port because in their opinion the investment will destroy the beaches located east of the planned channel due to interruption of the natural sand deposition process. Ecologists have protested as well, pointing at the irreparable damage caused to nature.

in Baranów, located 50km (31 miles) southwest of the capital Warsaw. Once built, it is expected to be the third largest airport in Europe and the seventh in the world. Warsaw believes that once completed in 2027, the transport hub will initially serve 45 million passengers a year (Poland’s number 1 airport currently serves 17 million annually) and eventually 100 million travelers per year. Along with the airport, the plan involves building a network of railways and roads around the airport connecting nearby towns and cities, including a Hyperloop vacuum railway. The whole project will cost the exchequer an approximate PLN 80 billion (€18.6 billion). Currently, the majority of air traffic in Poland is served by regional airports. The largest share in the aviation market in Poland is held by low-cost airlines, such as Ryanair and Wizz Air, which offer competitively-priced tickets.

PLAN(E) B It is necessary to determine what the future of other airports could be, including those in and around Warsaw – Chopin and Modlin. PiS initially favored closing down the airports before surreptitiously withdrawing their suggestion. Undoubtedly, a country the size of Poland needs a major airport. However, the project is based on the assumption that the Polish flag carrier LOT will become a leading power in the aviation market if it has a sufficiently large airport. But if we analyze the last decade of the state-owned LOT’s operations, we can conclude that it is closer to bankruptcy than to being an aviation heavyweight. Currently, the market shows that the company is growing. But it is worth pointing out that in 2014, it received a capital injection from the state budget, without which it would have collapsed.

LUKEWARM RESPONSE The residents of Warsaw have acknowledged the construction of an airport almost 50km (31 miles) from the city center without enthusiasm. The average distance to European hubs from the metropolitan centers that they serve is 22km (13 miles).

However, the proposal to shut down local well-communicated airports in Warsaw has made its residents angry. In June 2018, in

SPLIT ON SPIT: An aerial view of the peninsular stretch of land, which separates Vistula Lagoon from Gdańsk Bay in the Baltic Sea (above) and a close-up map of the region (below).

Gdynia

Gdańsk

current route

Elbląg

a resounding majority, Baranów residents voted down the proposal to build CPK. Through a non-binding referendum they said they did not want to give up their land for the new airport. Despite the deputy infrastructure minister promising that the voice of the public would be taken into consideration, the company to build CPK has already been established. Initial work is underway.

IS IT JUST GEOPOLITICS OR GOOD ECONOMICS? These projects result from the way reality

projected route

is perceived by the ruling party politicians. It is geopolitics. It puts forward recipes for making Poland great. It argues that Poland should pursue an offensive policy for its own security. Elbląg port and CPK are examples of PiS flexing their economic muscles. Whether the Polish GDP will grow at the promised 0.5 percent per year due to CPK, whether the Polish airline hub will manage to attract enough passengers from neighboring countries and whether the Elbląg port will prove to be a valid economic decision, remains to be seen.

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77

Life + Style

A shoal of mermaids

Maciej Stompรณr, a co-owner of Dobre Jachty, shares his thoughts on his fleet of sailing beauties.

INTERVIEW BY SANKHYAYAN DATTA

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Life+Style

Dobre Jachty’s offer includes many sailing yachts. They are eco-friendly

WBJ:

Sunreef Yachts before.

Dobre Jachty now. How far does your association with yachts go back?

Maciej Stompór: Sails and boats have been present in my life since early childhood.

My first sailing attempts took place in the Kashubian Lake District [northern Poland] during a family vacation when I was maybe just 8 years old.

Later, I started going to the Masurian Lake District [north-east Poland], where I obtained a sailing license, then I spent every summer on the water – first as a camp participant and later as an instructor. Finally, it was the turn of the sea escapades – at first on the Bay of Gdańsk, then on the Baltic, North Sea, Atlantic, and then on one of the most beautiful reservoirs in the world – in Greece, where during university years I organized semi-commercial sailing trips.

So when the opportunity to work at Sunreef Yachts appeared, I knew that the broadly understood yachting industry is something that I would like to tie my career with.

What inspired you to be a yachtsman?

From the very beginning, my parents supported my interest in sailing and helped me to experience new things as much as possible. My first job related to yachts was run-

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ning cruises and working as an instructor.

During this period, I met many people who addressed sailing professionally, including professional skippers and regatta sailors, and their work seemed extremely attractive to me.

Then for the first time, I thought that this could be a way of life for me too. Later, by organizing my own partly commercial cruises, I gained even more appetite for this form of professional life, and the next fascinating characters only confirmed my belief that this is an industry full of extremely interesting and inspiring people. It still stands today.

Tell us more about all your vessels.

Dobre Jachty is the sole representative of the top French shipyards Jeanneau, Lagoon, Prestige, CNB and the Italian Cranchi shipyard. We sell sailing and motor yachts, having a very wide range of boats from 6-24 meters long. These are units for long-distance oceanic cruises, as well as smaller boats for lakes, that, like Jeanneau Merry Fisher, can be transported on a trailer.

How are they different and better than those of your competitors?

Our French yachts Jeanneau, Lagoon, Prestige and CNB belong to the Beneteau group which is the largest yacht producer in the

world. All of these yachts and the Italian boats from the Cranchi shipyard, which by the way celebrates its 150th anniversary this year, can boast of excellent workmanship and excellent nautical properties. The best industry specialists work on yacht projects, eg VPLP design office, involved in many racing projects and many years of experience in yacht construction is a guarantee of high quality.

Your most prized possessions? Why are they so significant?

One of the yachts from our offer is the magnificent 24-meter Lagoon 77 catamaran. It is a unique boat for me because it is a really large and luxurious catamaran, sailing perfectly with a great design. This unit offers an unusual level of comfort on-board and the possibility of autonomous navigation in distant waters.

And I have the biggest fondness for such yachts since my Sunreef Yachts stint.

It has been widely reported that Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates ordered a hydrogen-powered yacht - a relatively green alternative. How environmentfriendly are your vessels?

Recent press reports about the likely order of the yacht by Bill Gates are for the time being an extremely ambitious pro-

ject, which, hitting the hands of such a shipowner certainly has a chance to arise.

However, this type of vessel is completely unachievable for most yachting enthusiasts.

A great plus is that when creating unique designs, technology may arise or develop that will eventually become everyday use.

Dobre Jachty’s offer includes many sailing yachts, ie driven by wind. You cannot deny them the title of relatively ecological constructions. The life span of the size of currently built units is quite large.

Yacht manufacturers have a lot of challenges, not only for yacht propulsion – especially motor yachts – but also for the materials from which they are made. And more precisely – how to re-use the so-called parts.

What are the business plans for 2020?

2020 is a special year for us. After a very successful period for the company in 2018 and 2019, maintaining growth will be a big challenge.

For the second time, we were on Forbes’ Diamonds list (2020, previously 2017), which we treat as a big distinction, given the niche nature of our business. We have a lot of work ahead of us, not only related to the promotion of specific models of yachts from our offer but the promotion of yachting as a way of spending free time, a prestig-

ious hobby. gain momentum, implementing ambitious We want more and more Poles to try the projects, expanding the offer of yachts and adventure of yachting and join the exclusive reaching new customers. community of private shipowners.

Our turnover, both taking into account the number of yachts sold and their value, What have been the biggest challenges are incomparable with those in the past. your company has faced since its incepHowever, we do not settle on our laurels tion?

– in my opinion, it is an excellent basis for Challenges in the Polish market are not further development, further bold business lacking especially those in a relativelysteps. niche and slowly-growing industry. Adapting to economic realities and fiscal reguAny failures? lations, acquiring good funding for our Mistakes and problems are, I think, inevitacustomers, as well as promoting yachting ble. But we try to learn from all the difficult among our target audience and acquirsituations and avoid them in the future. I ing new customers are key challenges. Of consider our biggest mistake was to focus course, we have had difficult technical or on effectively solving technical problems logistical problems, but over the years of and neglecting a somewhat direct relationour activities, we have learned to limit ship with the customer. them and solve them effectively. The most important thing, however, is to gather a Where does the room for improvement good team. And although we are not a lie? big company, I very much appreciate our In customer service. Most often we sell employees and colleagues, their energy, yachts, which for our customers are purprofessionalism and readiness to overchases related solely for pleasure, for the come new challenges. realization of their dreams.

It’s a great feeling to be part of such a proHow has your company grown since it cess but creating a long-term, sincere relawas founded? tionship requires hard work.

Since its inception, Dobre Jachty has develSometimes the true value is not to make oped consistently from year to year, but a transaction but just an interesting friendover the last 6-7 years, we have managed to ship with extraordinary people.

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Life+Style | Restaurant Review

A

TALK OF THE TOWN

Nestled between modern glass office buildings in Warsaw’s south, Bocca Bistro & Bar is a hidden gem

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swipe of the curtain draped over the entrance takes you to a world far removed from the office blocks outside – a relaxed sanctuary of sorts, the lounge-like vibe is emphasized through the generous use of comfortable armchairs, warm lighting, plush fabrics and so forth.

And with a fireplace and pool table also present, everything about this place screams, “leave work outside!”

Devised by the owners Dagna PreisPrzepiórska and Robert Przepiórski along with Studio 370 – who have become one of the most influential forces in domestic restaurant design – it’s a space that takes people away from everyday life and transports them somewhere special.

Cooking for you is Kamil Kędzierski, a face you’ll already be familiar with on the off-chance you follow the bundle of food shows on Polish

TV. Appearing on Top Chef last year, Kędzierski was one of the more controversial characters to appear on the program. Having since joined Bocca Bistro & Bar, craft beer fiends are also likely to know him as the chap who once fronted the kitchen at the Old Town’s highly-rated Maryensztadt bar.

There are those who use Bocca Bistro & Bar as… a bar. And there’s nothing wrong in doing so yourself.

The drinks here won’t let you down, whether it’s a craft beer you’re after or something more elegant – house cocktails, for instance, like Tommy’s Margarita or Hemingway’s Daquiri.

But overlooking the food when there’s someone of the caliber of Kamil Kędzierski prowling the kitchen is an offense that should be made punishable by death – or, at the very least, a good strong word.

Demonstrating a palette that’s as adventurous as it is sophisticated, this is cooking that screams of talent: respectful of a product yet also with enough dash and daring to make it stand out. It would be no exaggeration to say that the WBJ ordered up around fifteen dishes, and each stood proud as something to remember – thymus with caviar, a pickled-cabbage soup with horseradish mash and chunks of beef shank that melt in the mouth, and a tomato consommé sprinkled with flakes of Bursztyn cheese.

And that’s just the starters. Moving on, duck breast and duck leg win praise for the different ways they are treated, whilst guineafowl is made all the better for a side of rich blackberry chutney. Polished in presentation and big in its tastes, its food that is ambitious, bold and keen to impress – and this it goes.

That Kędzierski is a clever cook is, at this stage, abundantly apparent, but were there any doubt then it was instantly dispelled with the arrival of dessert. Loosening the belts, we tucked into a brownie whose decadent flavors are offset by the welcome neutrality of a beer ice cream, before cracking into a goat’s cheesecake and raspberry mousse. Immensely satisfying.

Bocca Bistro & Bar ulica Postępu 14, boccabar.pl

Plac Piłsudskiego 3 – Warsaw Metropolitan Office Building 22 628 00 23 www.thealchemist.pl

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EVENTS

Warsaw Business Journal relives the most important recent business and industry events

‘YOU CANNOT NOT DESIGN’ – YOU COULDN’T HAVE MISSED IT! A conference on design in business took place at Concordia Design – a creativity and business center in Poznań, western Poland. “You cannot not design” was the first cross-disciplinary event of this kind in Poland, combining innovative design with business.

The conference program was divided into two parts: Design MIX (mainly lectures) and Design JAM (workshops and lectures). The participants had the opportunity to get a practical insight into the process of designing products and services – from team building through trend analysis, research and ideation, to prototyping, testing and implementation.

Patrick van der Pijl, CEO of Business Models Inc and author of the best-selling “Design a Better Business”, was a keynote speaker. In addition to him, participants could hear among others Thomas Diaz from FabLab Barcelona, Martine Nicole Rojina from Mpathy Studio, Zuzanna Skalska from 360 Inspiration and Alain Heureux, an innovation expert and entrepreneur.

The conference was a great success and the next edition has been planned already.

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‘AUTOMATIZATION OF AUDIT PROCESSES’ Risk mitigation and effective organization of meetings of management boards and supervisory boards are important issues that have a real impact on the functioning of any organization, especially in regulated institutions, such as financial.

In recent years, the number of tools to analyze structured and unstructured data being the basis of reports has increased significantly. How to choose the best in practice? And why an internal audit is crucial for the organization's further activities?

During C&F’s conference “Automatization of audit processes” on November 25, 2019, seven speakers in five panels presented a modern approach to auditing, involving the use of the latest technologies and tools that largely facilitate the work of auditors, allow automation and more efficient workflow related to audit processes. And as a result, they provide management and supervisory boards with the assurance so that a company is aware of the challenges and threats in the implementation of the strategy and processes within the company.

The conference focused on digital transformation in enterprises, flexible data discovery and data security. Digital transformation in enterprises introduces a multi-level process. The narrow scope of data analysis, manually selected data and reports prepared in paper form – are long behind us. A durable medium is a medium that makes it impossible to change the content of documents in a technological way. It is a crucial issue concerning data security. This provides protection for consumers against entrepreneurs who implement unfair practices.

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EVENTS

Warsaw Business Journal relives the most important recent business and industry events

FRENCH-POLISH CHAMBER OF COMMERCE GALA Polish Climate Minister Michał Kurtyka, representatives of the lower and upper houses of the Polish parliament (Sejm and Senat) as well as presidents of the largest French and Polish companies honoured with their presence this year’s gala of the French-Polish Chamber of Commerce (CCIFP). The main theme of the event – that took place on January 31 at the Sofitel Warsaw Victoria hotel – was the Nice Carnival, the largest event of its kind in France.

As every year, the gala enjoyed great interest from the French-Polish business community. This year, the gala was attended by businesses including Michelin, BNP Paribas, Auchan, Canal+, Carrefour, Pierre Fabre Dermo-Cosmetique, Sodexo, Sofitel Warsaw Victoria, Wyborowa Pernod Ricard, Orange Polska or Publicis Groupe.

The guests had the opportunity to taste an excellent menu prepared especially for this occasion by Maciej Majewski, Chef of La Brasserie Moderne, and Jakub Kasprzak, Chef of Sezony restaurant and winner of the Polish edition of Bocuse d'Or, one of the most prestigious culinary competitions in the world. The dishes served were inspired by flavours

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from the Côte d'Azur, as the theme of this year’s gala was the Nice Carnival. It is an annual feast which gathers numerous guests from France and abroad. During the festival, famous parades, street dances and “flower battles” are held.

Similar attractions awaited the participants of this year’s gala. There were energetic carnival dance shows, colourful scenery, masks, glitter, balloons and confetti. The gala also featured a show of exclusive women’s fashion by the designer Ewa Ciepielewska. In the end, guests were invited to dance and have informal conversations over wine and cocktails served by bartenders provided by Wyborowa Pernod Ricard.

Every year, the CCIFP Gala is one of the most important events organized by the FrenchPolish Chamber of Commerce - an organization associating over 450 Polish and French companies.

Currently, France is the third-largest foreign investor in Poland. The value of the investment exceeds PLN 81 billion and the number of direct jobs created is over 200,000.

AND THE LOAN MAGAZINE AWARDS 2019 GO TO …

Hosted at the ibis Styles hotel in Wrocław, south-west Poland, in the presence of over 250 guests, one of the biggest events in the Polish non-banking sector, recently acknowledged winners representing 21 companies, products and services, with crystal statuettes. As many as four statuettes went to different loan companies.

VIVUS Finance, following the decision of the jury, was the big winner. They bagged the “Digital Loan Of The Year 2019” award. Moments later, the company also received the “Brand of the Year 2019”, which they then gave to the audience.

Piotr Przedlacki, head of the management board of Fines, a Poland-based financial consultant, won the “Man of the Year 2019” title. Wonga, an online financial services firm, got the “Advertising of the Year 2019” prize. Piotr Fronczewski, a Polish actor and singer, stars in their advert. The “Business Product of the Year 2019” title went to Aasa, an international financial technology company, for the fourth time in a row. Mintos, an online marketplace for loans, got the “Technological Solution of the Year 2019” award.

The ceremony for the winners from each category was graced by a musical performance. An indispensable element of this special evening was the annual charity auction, from which all proceeds support the treatment of sick children. This time, the collected money will be allocated for the construction of the first sensory garden in Lower Silesia in southern Poland for blind and deaf children. The generosity of guests gathered at the Loan Magazine Awards gala held on January 30, allowed to raise almost PLN 40,000 in a 39-minute auction.

CONTENT FROM AUTO FUS GROUP

There is no such thing as a ‘good enough car’

As much as PLN 16.3 billion was the estimated value of the premium and luxury car segment in 2019, reveals a KPMG report titled “The Luxury Goods Market in Poland”.

This proves that most affluent Poles are passionate about mobility at its best, while for years family-run Auto Fus Group has been helping them realize their most original dreams.

“The number of people with the highest income is going up, which is certainly good news for us. We have created a unique brand portfolio in Poland for this target group. It features uber-luxury saloons with a myriad of customization options or high-performance cars with DNA of Formula 1,” argues Piotr Fus, a co-owner of Auto Fus Group.

It’s the only company in Poland to operate the showroom of the legendary Rolls-Royce brand that was launched five years ago.

In 2019, it officially launched the showroom of British McLaren. In addition, it is the Polish retailer of BMW ALPINA, a Bavarian manufacturer based in Buchloe, southern Germany.

“We have the privilege to represent the best producers and cater to the needs of the most discerning customers who are not familiar with the term “a good enough car.”

They seek luxury, comfort, performance and customization,” says Tomasz Fus. “And we meet these expectations” he adds.

Auto Fus Group has its showrooms in Warsaw, including Rolls-Royce Motor Cars Warszawa, McLaren Warszawa, ALPINA Warszawa, BMW Auto Fus and MINI Auto Fus, and Białystok BMW Auto Fus Group and Jeep Auto Fus Group.

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A new beginning

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TAKING CUE from the ex-managing editor who cited Churchill and Dostoyevsky regarding change, I chose to go further. Or rather, go back. I decided to quote Heraclitus – a pre-Socratic Greek philosopher. He has been quoted as saying that “change is the only constant in life.”

The words of wisdom voiced by the savant active in the late 6th century BCE constitute one of the few fundamental principles I believe in. Despite that I do not think all transitions are for the better (climate change being one), after a slew of changes – that include working in the newspaper and television industries – I took up the reins of WBJ’s editorial desk at the break of dawn, quite literally, in the new decade.

I have already spent a month working for the magazine at the time of writing. Having worked for regimented companies in the past means that the informal and cheerful atmosphere in my office feels like a much needed and much welcome respite.

In my first week, I heard that I could shower at the cubicles on a floor above mine, in addition to an anecdote about how an employee dried their wet clothes on a radiator. In my second week, I discovered that the free vending machine in the kitchen dispensed hot chocolate. Yes. Unlimited piping hot decadence. By the end of the third week, I had stroked two dogs as we are allowed to bring in our pets.

By the end of the fourth, I had pledged to stop binging on hot chocolate. And by the end of the month, I had worked one day from home – my first ever. Topping it all off, for the first time in ages, the journalist in me feels free. Unfettered. Able to call a spade a spade. No heavy-handed intransigence forcing me to sweep an elephant in the room under the rug. Once again I got reminded that it is the seemingly “little things” at my workplace that make being inundated with tasks look fun. So far so good. So much for the starry-eyed teenager in me (sigh). Now for the future.

In the months ahead, in the thick of print deadlines, my team and I intend to uphold the verve that was shared by the past editorial teams and look forward to your readership and comments. Only constructive criticism is welcome. Here’s to a great 2020s! (clink clink) - SD

PHOTOGRAPH BY KEVIN DEMARIA

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