How you can create problems, where they don’t exist…

Yesterday I held a press conference to Romanian media, presenting the results of my company for 2009, the targets for 2010, what we have succeeded so far and also my approach for Romanian Economy and the Real Estate market in general. Except all these, I was also happy to announce the collaboration of my company, MORE Real Estate Services, with ATE Bank Romania. ATE Bank does not have a big size here, but its mother bank, ATE Bank in Greece is one of the biggest banks of the Balkans, with an impressive history and stability even through the toughest times. Unfortunately I discovered afterwards that some of the journalists misunderstood what I said (for which I have the video that proves the accuracy of my words). I read that I took over the whole portfolio of the bank, that the bank has many problems etc. But I did not say any of all these…

My exact words

“MORE Real Estate Services signed yesterday an agreement with ATE Bank Romania, in order to provide to the Bank consulting services”. Throughout the discussion and after the questions of the journalists, I specified the

following:

• ATE Bank has a small size in Romanian market, with a portfolio of some tens of millions of Euro.
• This portfolio is well structured and it does not have any kind of serious problems, as far as I know.
• My company will collaborate and consult the Bank, in order to prevent problems to appear in the future, also to offer other kind of services. But as they don’t have non performing loans, we will not offer to them services which they don’t need!
• Preventing means: If there is anyone who borrowed money and looks like “in danger to have problems in the near future”, we get involved and find solutions, so as not to let things lead to a big problem, for the Bank and also for the person or company who borrowed the amount.
• Yes, I also explained that my company has a variety of other services, suitable for banks with bigger portfolios and more problems than ATE Bank. But where is the connection of this reality (us having variety of services) with our collaboration with ATE Bank?
• Yes, I explained that there are many banks with serious problems in their portfolio and a high level of non performing loans. But I made myself clear many times that this is not the case for ATE Bank Romania.
• I stated many times that this will not become a trend throughout the year, because not all banks need these services, some of them have their own departments to deal with the problems.

I consider the mistake of the journalists as MY mistake. I opened too many subjects during our discussion and probably some of them were confused. I will be more careful in the future, so as to protect them from any mistake, but also to protect the truth as well.

We are here to solve problems and not to create. Indeed many banks need solutions during this turbulent year, but ATE Bank is not one of them, it just happened to be the first one we signed with, mainly for preventing problems to appear in the future. I hope that now everything is clear and we can focus on our core business: To work hard, solve problems, provide solutions and unblock amounts of money, so as to be injected to the market, through new, healthy loans.

PS.1. Imagine that during this press conference I mentioned twice that we don’t offer services just by ourselves, but we present to the banks a complete project. MORE Real Estate Services deals with the Real Estate part, top lawyers deal with the legal issues that might exist, top accountants handle accounting issues, top business consultants help for restructuring, if this is necessary too. So, depending on each case, we will try to solve any kind of problem.

PS.2. I was always stressed by journalists to mention names of clients, specific deals and generally to disclose all possible details regarding our activity, as the majority of other companies do. I was always against this, because I have a different approach about business and media (I am an ex journalist myself too). Yesterday I gave one name and said “5 white things” about it. Today I saw in some texts “3 black things” following this name. I apologize for any trouble I may have caused and I hope that everyone understands that I will be even more careful in the future…