“Do you have an interesting deal?” he asked as we were warming up at the start of training.
“Define interesting,” I replied.
“Until now I've worked on value-add projects in one country. You say you work in another, so if there's an interesting value-add deal there, I'd be glad to hear the details.”
“I understand,” I replied, thinking to myself that the man wasn't serious. One country is not the same as another. He doesn't know the culture, the customs and practices, the market and its needs, and he already wants to jump in and do a value-add project.
The following week he asked the same question again at the start of training, and so at every running session, until at one of them I told him I'd be happy to sit down with him over coffee and present a deal that had landed on my desk.
He came to my office and described in more detail the deals he had done so far. I asked whether he was serious, because from my experience one country is simply not like another. Jumping straight into the water like that...
“You probably didn't understand me. I'm going into a deal like this with you. I checked you out - you know the local market, you're serious, and there are only good references about you. I'm not making a move there without you.”
I thanked him for the vote of confidence and the compliments.
I presented the offer, which had come from a local friend: a building in the center of the capital that was in the middle of a value-add process. The works had stopped because of a dispute between the owners, and as a result it was up for sale.
We agreed on the fee for accompanying the deal and began to go deep into the data. Unfortunately, on the first trip to see the site and meet the professionals who would accompany the project, the deeper we went into the data, the clearer it became that the sellers were not disclosing all the real figures. Even though we had signed a memorandum of understanding and a confidentiality agreement, we couldn't get from them the work logs that would detail what had already been carried out. The project manager who was supposed to run the project was frustrated, but recommended not to proceed. We returned to Israel empty-handed. No deal.
On the plane back he told me to go out and find him the next deal...
Stories are based on real situations, with identifying details changed. Not legal advice.
Translated from the Hebrew original. עברית