Fred Hlobil set up FH+ Real Estate a year ago following a 25-year stint at Cushman & Wakefield. He moved into the company’s new offices in central Prague right at the end of 2021, where ThePrime caught up with him for a debut interview.
What was it like to leave the company after so long, especially when your own name is associated so closely with it?
I’d been there for nearly three decades, so it was quite difficult. Mentally, psychologically, working-wise, everything was really quite difficult. But that’s natural. The company was just in that period of development. When I joined, there were 12 people and when I left there were nearly 500. I’m really grateful to have been able to be part of its successful expansion in the Czech Republic and abroad. It was a fantastic experience. But it was clear to me I would have to move on and take on a new challenge. I just felt that I needed more room for leadership and entrepreneurship.
How did you approach the question of deciding what’s next?
I wasn’t in a rush to decide immediately. To be honest, my first idea was to rest for at least six months and not do anything. But then some clients started asking whether I could help them with a few things. That sort of pushed me into the decision to set a comp set up a company during February and March. I sort of had to do it to keep my clients happy.
It’s good when you leave a sort of bigger company and are deciding about your future, you realize after a certain period that there are really lots of options. At the same time that’s dangerous, because you can spread your focus and energy between too many baskets. You need to be realistic in terms of where the market is, where your experience is and where your energy is. The market in certain segments is extremely competitive already. And when I say extremely, I mean it’s really extreme.
What services we will you be offering? There are things that produce cash flow, are you looking for investment deals for leases? What’s your plan?
Mostly I spend my time on sales and acquisitions of development land. We’re dealing with around 3 million square meters of land at the moment. But I’m also running tenant representations for specific clients who are seeking a really experienced person to help them on the tendering process. It’s not an economies of scale business, we won’t be running 20 or 30 deals per month. It’s mostly driven really by bigger deals or rather deals that where you really have to add value,
Does your smaller size allow you to be more competitive, because you don’t have a huge organization that you have to feed?
The market is not about the price of the fees. From a certain sort of level, the clients need the service or the financial advantage which you can bring them. That’s when it’s not about pricing, but service value. Also, once you reach a certain age, you’re able to offer a certain level of life experiences that you can’t just skip over. There are no shortcuts. And when you look at this market, there aren’t many senior guys on the market. Most of the senior guys have gone to a different sort of business sector. After nearly 3 decades, I feel that I have an advantage.
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