Mensch & Schlemiel: Lou Conforti & Chinese Developers
Mensch
Noun, informal. A decent, upright, mature and responsible person.
Schlemiel
Noun, slang. An awkward, clumsy, or unlucky person whose endeavors tend to fail; a loser.
Mensch of the week:
Lou Conforti, CEO of Washington Prime Group Inc.
Washington Prime Group Inc., a real estate investment trust headquartered in Columbus, Ohio, has recently announced that they will be appointing Lou Conforti as their new CEO. Conforti had been director of the company, but had been serving as interim CEO since June 2016. Along with the new position, Conforti will also remain on the company’s board of directors.
Conforti has plenty of experience in the field. He was the director and global head of strategy at leading global real estate and investment management firm Colony Capital, global head of real estate for UBS O’Connor, and director and head of real estate investments at Stark Investments. Clearly, Conforti knows what he’s doing.
When asked to comment on his newly awarded position, Conforti said, “My message remains the same: Lease space through traditional and innovative tenancy, improve operating efficacy and negotiate from a position of strength as it relates to strategic alternatives. Every day my team and I are committed to discovering innovative ways to improve the retail experience for our guests while building shareholder value”.
So far, Conforti has been doing a great job in his new position. According to Robert Laikin, chairman of the Board at WPG, “Lou has significantly improved the operating efficiency of the organization and through his leadership has demonstrated the capacity to realize new opportunities that are intended to drive long-term shareholder value.”
Congratulations Lou Conforti, and keep up the good work!
Schlemiel of the Week:
Chinese Developers
This past weekend wasn’t a good weekend for Chinese property shareholders. Property shares took big hits after authorities in over a dozen cities forced restrictions to restrain rising prices during a weeklong holiday for financial markets.
Many large companies such as Poly Real Estate Group Co., and Beijing Capital Development Co. lost more than 3 percent, which in turn brings down a gauge of developers in Shanghai by nearly 2 percent at close. In an attempt to keep the real estate market stable, Shanghai’s housing commission sent out steps to increase land supply and forbid price increases in new home pre-sales without approval. This adds Shanghai to a list of Chinese cities trying to conserve their real estate markets.
Before these restrictions had been made, Deutsche Bank Group AG tried to warn that China’s housing market is in a bubble. Goldman Sachs Group AG has also warned that it sees growing risks across the real estate industry. Some of the newer restrictions, such as higher deposits to limits on the number of homes people can buy, do not seem to be working because of the easy access home buyers have to leverage, according to investment manager at Henderson Global Investors Ltd. Wee May Ling.
If China is not able to keep its real estate market stable, the government may lose its ability to channel funds trapped by capital controls into investments that can boost the economy without creating asset bubbles. In Shanghai, new home sales have dropped 44.5 percent since September, unlike how prices rose 5.1 percent in August.
Hopefully Chinese developers will be able to find a way to get past this obstacle but until then, they’ll be seen as our schlemiels.
