News
Dealing with Foreign Investors
April 13, 2010
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| Last Friday, TREC hosted a "how-to" on offshore investment, a real life Dummy's Guide to Foreign Investors. The panel (Hunt Realty Investments' Gene Sanger, Dallas Regional Chamber of Commerce prez James Oberwetter—a former ambassador to Saudi Arabia, Hillwood Development Corp CEO Todd Platt, and Eastdil Secured senior managing director Joshua Brown) advises taking plenty of time to develop relationships and research the culture and business practices before launching that international effort. James says it's definitely not a day trip in and out with a signed deal in hand. | |
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| Todd says real estate is always about the local market. Hillwood's business strategy consists of laying a foundation with a carefully selected local market partner while bringing something to the country that may not be easy for them to grow or purchase internally. “We're trying to add value that is not easy to replace. Once we establish relationships, we actually want to stay there and take advantage of what we've created … and it takes about 5 to 10 times as much time as you'd expect it should,†he says. |
