The co-founder of One United Properties was the guest of ZF Business Lessons show, where he discussed what contributed to the success of One United Properties, but also what are the most important lessons from the past that he learned from, as well as what advice he has for young entrepreneurs.
The business model of One United Properties is one based not only on the quality and uniqueness of the product offered to the final consumer, but also on safety.
“For a real estate business, cash flow is important, leverage and profit are important. But the first two must be followed day by day, because the profit will also come. We also use bank financing, but we have a debt ratio of about 28%, one of the lowest in the industry in Europe. We preferred to do capital increases to have as much equity as possible and to sell at today's price than to sell more expensive tomorrow. We are not interested in the speculative price",
underlined Victor Căpitanu.
He also mentioned during the interview that both founders of the company are involved in day-to-day operations, but there is also a well-decentralized decision-making process for efficient business management. And constant crisis preparation is essential. "Once you've been through a crisis like the one in 2008-2009, you think that a serious crisis can come at any time. In business, if you prepare daily for the crisis, when it actually comes you don't feel it so strongly. And when the crisis comes, you have to be ready to buy, not to sell." In addition, it is important to keep in mind the unwritten rules in entrepreneurship: trust and keeping your word.
Regarding mistakes, Victor Căpitanu believes that what he has learned from the past is that it is always good to invest in the fields you are good at.
"We made the best decisions when we invested in real estate, and the unprofitable ones were when we invested in other areas that we didn't know that well. It's best to invest your time and money in what you understand."
The most important advice that the co-founder of One United Properties has for young entrepreneurs is to look for a market segment where an existing problem can be solved, and for which there are also customers.
"In any business, customers are the most important, and the need that no one else addresses. One solved a very important problem: the housing stock in Bucharest is bad, degraded, very old, and we proposed new, quality apartments in very good areas. And we've always had, in reality, much higher demand than supply."
Regarding the future goals, the guest from ZF Business Lessons admitted that the most important thing is to ensure the correct implementation of the strategy at One:
"For the next 5 years we aim to deliver the projects authorized or in the process of obtaining permits, to reinvest the profit and double the intrinsic value of the company. We have quite an ambitious investment plan.”
