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Sheesh, just took a read. I'm not quite sure how to take it. For one, I get what he was trying to do. He was trying make it big time by breaking into the midtown office scene, but got too ambitious / over his skis. Would it be wrong to chalk it up as a mistake to ambitiousness / being green as a founder of a somewhat new company trying to build a reputation? How would people view this as a place to work? Seems like a place where you can learn a lot, team moves fast, is willing to take risks, and can end up very good or very bad.

 

Sheesh, just took a read. I'm not quite sure how to take it. For one, I get what he was trying to do. He was trying make it big time by breaking into the midtown office scene, but got too ambitious / over his skis. Would it be wrong to chalk it up as a mistake to ambitiousness / being green as a founder of a somewhat new company trying to build a reputation? How would people view this as a place to work? Seems like a place where you can learn a lot, team moves fast, is willing to take risks, and can end up very good or very bad.

Almost like having one good bet that pays off doesn't magically make you a genius at all other types of real estate...

 
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Ozy, do you not think it would be a great shop to move to considering how lean they are, experience across multiple asset classes, strong leadership (although that's questionable).

I don't know a ton about the firm, but looking at their website, I'm wondering what leads you to say they have experience across multiple asset classes or strong leadership?  

And the fact that the shop is "lean" isn't a good thing.  A guy who can't pay for support staff because he's keeping is overhead down... that's a red flag, not a positive sign.

Nonetheless, I wouldn't wash the guys whole reputation down the drain off of one misfire. Happens to the best of us.

Um, no, it doesn't.  Having a deal blow up in your face because of interest rate movements is one thing.  Everyone gets caught with their pants down sometimes, no question.  But I don't know many reputable shops that said "hey, we're going to put a huge hard money deposit down, with funds that aren't ours, without any plan to raise the additional equity - and hey, we're also going to lie to our lenders about it!"  That isn't a "one off" that's a way of doing business.  Mind you, it sounds like his business plan was of a speculative nature as well, as his capex budget was undercapitalized.

I guess let me flip this around on you.  Innovo seems to have made it's reputation on a relatively small number of industrial deals.  You're saying that we shouldn't judge a person's reputation on the one major failure (or, in this case, borderline fraud) but you seem very willing to label this guy a major success on the back of only a few good decisions.  Again, anyone can be a success when they are swimming with the tide, and maybe I'm just an asshole, but I find that Mr Chung's success in an asset class like last mile warehouse in the last decade, and with the help of one of the most generous and expansionary lending environments we've ever seen, makes less of a positive impression than the cavalier way in which he attempted to buy the HSBC building makes a negative one.

 

Went thru the interview process with them 3 years ago. Was ridiculously long and had to meet 1-on-1 with every employee.

In the final round with Chung I tried picking his brain as to opportunities outside of last mile distribution they’re looking at… he said “let me read you an excerpt from our website” then literally read the generic about us page word for word. A few minutes later we were having generic convo about market and COVID impacts and he literally said “let me read this to you again” then read the about us page again. I couldn’t believe it.

Safe to say I didn’t get an offer and probably for the best. 

 

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