Being a managing director of construction and development for a company as big as Brookfield Multiplex doesn’t sound good enough when Dubai calls.
Greek Australian developer George Kostas has left his job as Brookfield’s head of Australian construction, to run one of the largest shopping centre developers in Dubai.
After being involved with Brookfield Multiplex and Multiplex Limited for over 13 years, Mr Kostas will run what is a subsidiary of Majid Al-Futtaim Group, one of the largest privately owned companies in Dubai. The company’s three separate operations cover the Middle East and North Africa.
One of Al-Futtaim’s subsidiaries runs about 80 hypermarkets, growing at a rate of about 20 a year, while MAF Property, which Mr Kostas will run, owns and manages about $US8 billion ($8.2bn) of real estate.
The iconic Mall of the Emirates that incorporates a ski-field resort is one of its 12 large shopping centres. According to George Kostas, the company booked about $600m of net profit annually.
Despite recent events that put Dubai and two Australian real estate executives under the spotlight due to bribery and corruption scandal, the appointment of George Kostas as the chief executive of MAF Property demonstrates Australians are still prepared to take real estate jobs in Middle East.
In Mr Kostas opinion, the Gulf hub, that has strong economic growth, is no more risky than other destinations and was a safe haven in a troubled region.
“We saw the highs of Dubai pre-GFC (global financial crisis), and like everywhere else, they got hit hard by the GFC,” Mr Kostas said.
“Their property market has rebounded very, very strongly – I think they are benefiting from being a bit of a Switzerland in the Middle East.”
The fundamentals of Dubai’s property market are much stronger than in Europe or the US, according to Mr Kostas, but Western companies had avoided the city, given it was not easy for international developers to buy and own land. Australian groups operating in Dubai include Leighton Holdings; while Sunland retreated from the market amid the global financial crisis.
Developer Emaar Properties recently released a tower of about 500 mid to high-end apartments, creating a flood of work for subcontractors from Australia, including engineers.
George Kostas is confident that the amount of money coming into the region and confidence building will lead to a strong couple of years for the Middle Eastern city.
“Hotel occupancy is sitting at around 90 per cent and so there’s capacity to double the number of hotel rooms in the region.”
Mr Kostas, a chartered accountant, began his career with Bob Ell’s Leda Holdings before spending over a decade at the residential development arm of Brookfield Multiplex. In 2009, he became Brookfield’s construction and development managing director.
Source: The Australian