Michael Vozianov: "Our purpose is not one-time events, but day-to-day work"

Traditionally, the Russian Guild of Managers and Developers (RGMD) forms a delegation for participation in MIPIM. Michael Vozianov, president of RGMD, told our publication about the scope of the Guild's participation in the biggest investment exhibition and the most interesting events of the business program.

– Michael Vladimirovich, what does the Russian delegation plan to astonish Cannes with this year?
– The Russian delegation to MIPIM-2016 was formed by the united team of NPO Russian Guild of Managers and Developers, the Academy of Real Estate training center and PROEstate Events. I'd like to note that this time the participation of Russia (and St. Peters­burg in particular) will be more large-scale in comparison with the exhibitions of previous years. It is expressed both in quantitative (larger exhibition areas), and in qualitative (the scope of the exhibited projects) indicators.
As always, the Guild members take the most active participation in the exhibition. Our partners are involved in the official events which will be held on the stands of Moscow government, St. Petersburg government and, of course, the Russian Guild of Managers and Developers.  It is planned to hold a number of business meetings, discussions and round-table discussions, the moderators and experts of which will be the RGMD members.
Within the business program of the exhibition, one of the key events will be held on March 16 – The Russian Breakfast in the Barrière Le Majestic hotel will take place for the 24th time. Its topic will be "Decoding-2016: the 2015 data as a key to understand the current situation", and the program itself will include not only the official part, but informal socializing as well.
Besides, a number of joint sessions are planned together with Kommersant publishing house and Vedomosti business newspaper, at which the participants will discuss the last tendencies in the development market.
The program includes a good few of informal events, as well. For example, the S.A. Ricci company will organize a jog for the participants of the MIPIM exhibition on Promenade de la Croisette in Cannes in the morning on March 15. The sportsmen are to cover the 5 km distance through the most beautiful places of one of the best-known health resorts of Cote d'Azur. The participants will run along the embankment from the Palace of Festivals to the Baoli club and back under the slogan "Let's change the image of Russian business".

– What will be the main topic of the traditional Cannes session of Investors Club?
– This time the subject of the discussion will be modern tendencies of attracting investments into historical cities. Today this topic is important as never before, so the time for such a discussion was chosen very well. Investors maintain interest to historical sites at a high level and the possibility to finance them from the budget is very limited. When it is not easy to attract mass investments into this area, it's high time to discuss and form the rules for the development of such projects, work in details the legal and infrastructural issues, and take into account the world experience and the experience of Russian developers. Thus, Alexander Olkhovsky, vice-president of RGMD and vice-president of VTB Bank PJSC, will share his experience of fitting projects into historical environment (the company's portfolio includes the multi-functional complex "Neva City Hall"), Fort Group will present the concept of the development of Bolshoi Gostiny Dvor, the representatives of St. Petersburg administration will tell about the concept of the Apraksin Dvor development. These are real projects which permit to formulate practical tasks and not to discuss "cloud built" theories. At the same time the implementation of these concepts will probably change in future the image of St. Petersburg city center for the better.

– What tasks do you put before you today as Head of the Guild?
– First of all, we should enhance our work in Moscow Region. RGMD has been always represented in Moscow and Moscow Region rather well, but the work on organization of events and attraction of new members had not been conducted there actively until quite recently. And though PROEstate has long ago acquired Moscow registration, we need routine day-to-day work rather than one-time events, even successful ones, in the capital region.
Besides, this year the list of Guild's regional representative offices will be enlarged by several new cities. The active work is carried out to determine which cities will be added – we will inform about it later in the year. Also we are now paying close attention to the work of RGMD's "profile" committees. Many of them have renewed their membership, changed their managers, and we are already witnessing the results of these transformations.

– The YIT concern, the Petersburg branch of which you head, is a big European company that has been working in the Russian market for many years. What is, in your opinion, the principal difference of the current situation forming in the market from the "crises" of previous years?
– It is already clear now that the current crisis is more lengthy, but at the same time it is going on without total freeze of projects. The market is alive, new projects are being launched. First of all, I mean the segment of housing real estate. The total volume of sales of the previous year fell against 2014 by 30-35%, and we expect stabilization of this level.  There are industries which are in a more tight situation than the construction industry. For example, car industry where demand fell by times. In the construction industry, a considerable role was played by state support expressed both in direct financial aid (through subsidized mortgages), and in support of further investment plans of developers for whom it is very important to know that the government considers their industry deserving development.

–To what degree did the YIT Saint Petersburg company optimize its strategy of work in the Petersburg market?
– Last year, we finished the optimization program. Indeed, we reduced our staff and cut the number of launched projects. But we regard these measures adequate for the ongoing situation. If the market goes down, the company is forced to reduce the volumes of its activity so as not to increase financial risks. 

By the way:

The most effective state initiative right now is the continuation of the mortgages subsidization program. For the time being it is not yet well articulated, we are anxiously waiting for clear decisions in this respect. It would be good to expand this program onto the secondary market, as it is one of the key sources of financing the acquisition of housing in the "primary" market.