HIGHLIGHTS OF 2017: Andrew Peirson

(Andrew Peirson) Andrew has been with the international company JLL since 2001.

He joined the firm in the UK in his first graduate position. Since then he has worked in Prague and Bratislava and led the offices in Sofia, Zagreb, Bucharest and Belgrade. Today he oversees the firms activities across South Eastern Europe.

JLL is the only international real estate firm in the region and is an NYSE-listed Fortune 500 company with over 80,000 employees worldwide. In the last two years alone they have transacted over EUR 900 million of commercial real estate assets across the SEE region, making them by far market leaders.

Andrew is a native of north-east England and splits his time between homes in Belgrade and Prague.

We asked him what the highlights of 2017 were according to him.

MOST IMPORTANT EVENT OF THE YEAR

– The year 2017 was a year of elections, with Germany, UK, France and China all going to the polls. Don’t forget that Trump was also only inaugurated in January, so we still have a long time left to see where that goes.

I think what surprised me most was the French election, and the scale of divide that was apparent. Le Pen won 35% in the Presidential run-off, which for a far-right party in Europe in 2017 is simply scary. All focus went on Macron winning, and this clearly over-shadowed a huge issue in one of the world’s major markets. To put that in perspective, in the UK we had Brexit, and a great deal of the fall-out of that was a perceived right wing agenda by the British public, but in the UK general election of 2017 our own dreaded right-wing party, UKIP, won less than 2% of the vote. To me that makes the election in France particularly important when looking at the general mood today of the European public.

MOST UNFAVOURABLE EVENT OF THE YEAR

– Being British I can’t look too far from the disastrous consequences of the vote to leave the EU, and 2017 has been the year that things got even harder. The scale of the problems that this has caused cannot yet be quantified, and who knows the effect it will have on generations to come. Quite simply, there is more uncertainty today than there was waking up to the news back in June 2016, and Theresa May’s ‘to fix’ list grows higher by the day.

PUBLIC PERSONALITY OF THE YEAR

– Sometimes it’s best to look away from business and politics and actually look at the personalities that have caused the most discussions. For instance we had Conor McGregor on the front and back pages of newspapers all over the world back in August, and then for all the wrong reasons the world was engrossed by Harvey Weinstein from September onwards. But at the end of the day it is the politicians that are talked about, and influence the world day after day, and Xi Jinping seemingly setting out a clear path as China’s leader for years to come must put him up there with good old ‘POTUS’ as the world’s most influential man. At the very least he can try and control Kim Jong-un!

BEST MOVE OF THE GOVERNMENT

– From a real estate perspective I would have to say the introduction of electronic construction permits. That has sped up the entire permit issuing process and made it much more transparent. Through time we are expecting the positive effects of this are going to be even more visible, and in the very least it will help to avoid corruption around permitting and planning.

WORST MOVE OF THE GOVERNMENT

– Again from a real estate side it is without doubt the continued implementation of the harmful and non – conductive law on legalization. This law on legalization fosters the continuation of the practice of illegal construction, creates unfair competition and generates a grey economy and corruption. At the same time it does not appear to solve any problems, only creating them.

YOUR EXPECTATIONS FOR THE YEAR 2018

– Who knows? I don’t think anyone expected the things we have seen in the last 12-18 months and I’m in the wrong job if I could predict even the next 3 months! Sadly the only thing I can say with any certainty is that England will be knocked out of the World Cup on penalties in the 2nd round after unconvincing wins over Tunisia and Panama!

JLL Beograd

Andrew Peirson

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