Early Conviction: Investing in Aman and the Future of Luxury Hospitality with Jonathan Goldstein

[Music] Mark Lottonberg. Hi, how are you? It's great to have you on. Thank you for having me. I'm super excited for this conversation because we're going to be talking about the future of hospitality and AI, which is a very pertinent topic and something that I know everyone listening is going to be thinking about. Let's hope that I like what I have to say. So, I want to start off with the obvious, which is that most hospitality operators, if not everyone is thinking about AI and how to prepare. But in your opinion, just based on your insight into the restaurant world and into just experiences and the business of hospitality, what should operators actually be doing to prepare? Most hospitality companies not only aren't prepared but don't have the internal org structure and understanding around technology and compliance to actually implement it. So, I think they're going to have to find the providers that they work with, like, on the technology side to implement that for them in a way where I just look at in terms of what we're dealing with on our side of just like, there's an org structure component of, there's agents that have to get deployed and where do those sit on an org chart and their roles are responsibilities and how are they managed? Are they set alongside other humans? Our view is like, yes, every single agent that we're deploying right now has to report to an individual human and title and it's owned by the company and they're all linked together. All of our agents have to have sets of constraints. Everything from brand style, our glossary of terms, all of our design issues, all of our legalities, all of our ways that we operate, our pillars are everything and they all operate under one set of rules of engagement. Now, what happens to all that data and privacy and compliance and restaurants are dealing with financial information and customer data and GDPR and people coming from some of these restaurants are coming from London or Dubai and to New York. There's so much that goes into just putting agents in and that data starts going in all different directions. It's one is dangerous. It could mess up a lot of different technology and infrastructure things. But more importantly, it's like, how are you actually controlling those agents and if you have say, a front of house team or anything that just starts deploying agents? Now, if it's not under a company infrastructure and that person leaves, the IP rights who owns the agent and was it on their own like device and do they take the agent with them or is it the hospitality brands agent? So deploying them is like, I look at the same way as onboarding and off-boarding employees. The company has to deploy the agent. It has to have a chain of custody. It has to be linked to an individual role in the org structure. They're on the org structures. Everyone in our company has to have a set of agents. Some are going to have more than others. We're kind of like our immediate goals 10 to 1. So for every one human where we want 10 agents, that's going to, by the end of the year, be at a higher number. But right now, we're starting with a ratio of three. I think hospitality brands in general are going to absolutely have to have build their systems in a way that they can accept agents from all different ways, whether it's the consumer side or the technology platform. So the systems and whatever tools they're using has to have an on-ramp offer for these agents to communicate with. The short answer is I don't know if they can do that much because an org structure inside a restaurant or hospitality brand isn't really built for engineering and product managers and developers in the cost basis to hire these people. It's not their business. They're going to start deploying 500,000-dollar-year compactages to engineers to build this stuff. It wouldn't work. A GM or restaurant or a chef, they're going to get paid exponentially more than the other people there. So I think they're going to have to focus on the product, which is the hospitality, the art, everything that they can do and leave the technology for other people and not trying to play in that game. So many times we hear a restaurant saying, "Oh, we're going to go build this app or we're going to go build this or we're going to do that." I'm like, "So I was like a disaster." I'm like, "Okay, I can make scrambled eggs. I'm not a chef." Like, don't figure out what you're good at and stick to that part. That actually leads me to a follow-up question and someone said to me, someone who's a very prolific international restaurant tour. He mentioned that he thinks that robots will be taking over kitchens because one of his challenges is maintaining consistency. And you and I were chatting a bit about this right before this conversation. But when you go to a certain high-end, you're spending to 300 minimum, when you're just food per person. When you go to that same restaurant in London or Dubai or Miami, you want to know that you have at least a baseline quality. So he was saying to me that one of his biggest challenges is he has to spend a lot of time on the road just visiting kitchens all around the world. That is restaurants to make sure that chefs are doing what they're supposed to be doing. And actually, robots in a kitchen would solve a huge problem for him. And so I'm curious about your take on that, just given the fact that you're practically in these rooms with all these restaurant tours and chefs. Well, I think there's multiple parts of that conversation. Some of it has to do with the sourcing, the ingredients and the logistics and everything, which AI and autonomous robots and autonomous cars and trucks and everything. They're going to have the biggest impact in hospitality because the movement of goods are in, say, like the US, you have OSHA laws and how long news drivers can do. And it shouldn't take as long as it takes to get the product from farm to that kitchen and stuff like that. That's going to be cut down in massive amounts of times. Trucks are going to be operating 24/7 autonomously versus like the stops. And so I think the quality of food and the quality of the taste is going to improve big time. If you look at Dubai because that's a very example, chefs love having restaurants there. One because, you know, there's subsidized like cost from the government, but also the cost of labor is incredibly cheap there. So and the size of the restaurants and kitchens are mass expenders. Yeah, but more importantly, it's like if you go into those kitchens, there's like one person, their full-time job is just chopping the onion. Another, like so your salad dressing is made on the spot for every single thing is hand cut hand done that the flavors. Their herbs are pulled off of the material right there. They're not batched. There's no batching in Dubai. It's all done. The kitchen has 10 times the amount of staff you would in like a New York restaurant. So the sauce is tasty. Every just things taste super fresh there. One is the the ability to get the goods, but it's also like how how much you batch the product which, you know, if you cut something in the morning, it's sitting in a container and then later on that night, you're using it. No matter how good the chef is, like you're you're brought, you're like level down a bit. I think that's one part. The part that robots are coming. There's no like they're doing brain surgery in, you know, Elon's robots, you know, they're talking about like within 30 months, like will be better than the best brain surgeon in the world. You know, right now they currently have robots that can do brain surgery really well. But yeah, the raw roots will come into the kitchen, but that's not what to focus on. The focus is the the the art, the creator that's making the secret recipe that's dictating like the having robots is not the hard part, but like giving them the clear exact directors because they're super prescriptive at the point. There is no human emotions or anything like that. Like if you tell them to do XYZ, they're going to do it in that or in that fashion. So I use like such an easy example is like Mara Cobraan, right? Like how many chefs around the world try to do the spicy rig? Like everyone? Yeah. No one can get it. Like there is a magic to the recipe, right? And like the whole thing that's sourcing the truth is how it's done, like, you know, which and I've loaned that even from being, you know, investing in some of these restaurants and like, you know, you take like a law, especially then like the the learning of how precise that dough is and the yeast and the time of day they have to do it and the humidity and which thing and how long it takes to get the right oxygenation. Like, you know, a drop in one direction, like it's done. Yeah, cooking a science. Oh my god, super intense. Yeah. And then the recipe is there's also a magic to it and understanding it. And like he spends a lot of money on on those sauces like the garlics, the herbs, the the the materials they use is he it's it's not an inexpensive product. Now another another chef might say, okay, I could I could get garlic that's 90% less expensive. There's not much of a difference. But the combination of all those things do make the special sauce. So robots will be in kitchens 1000%. But that shouldn't scare anyone that's going to give a better quality product and allow allow restaurants to focus on the actual show, the experience itself. And so social media as an example democratized access to restaurants, hotels, destinations in the similar vein that social media had impact on these destinations and places. How will AI impact these places? AI is going to impact these places in a way that it's so important for the audience. That's the CRM side of stuff of like who's actually attending these places to be the main focus. 'Cause that's what people are, everyone's going to go to a BZN July and I say everyone, like it's not everyone, but it's like a certain-- - The people that are watching this interview, there's a cultural calendar that they follow and they go to these places and they know where to go because they know that the other people that they want a network or connect with or meet or whatever it is are all going to go there. And it's like birds of a feather flock together, like mine said for sure. AI is definitely going to make that a way more of a laser precision thing. And I think that's what digital was always meant to be, was like laser precision and personalization. And I remember back from promoting when I was in high school, like add my book of like the names and addresses and like phone numbers and I would like do the calls and that's how you promoted a cub, came with a call, like whoever had the best black list at that point in their black book was like the one who was the better promoter 'cause they could get the right people to come to the places. Then digital came and like email and all the stuff and was like okay, I have 100,000 person emailists, I have a million person emailists. That wasn't what digital was for. It wasn't like spam. Digital was about like taking that hyper precision and being able to scale that in a way. And I think everyone lost that with like how many followers are at, how much does, how much does that, it's like, but is it about like, it's about to who, not to how many. And I think everyone lost track of that. It's like how many people are in our reservation platform that we can market to. It's like but are they even the right people? Do you even want them in the room? And I think everyone lost track of that on like focusing on the numbers as opposed to the quality. - I think the problem nowadays, whenever you go to anywhere that, I don't want to say hype, I hate that word, but exposed or popular, it's very, very, very crowded. And oftentimes, and like this is something that a problem that Dorsey is also solving is, how do you make sure that the right people are supporting your business? And I think this is a huge thing that AI can actually solve for. So I mean, just building off of your point and to tie up within it with a nice bow. I think AI and the way that it can curate and hyper-personalize destinations and also bring the right people there is going to be a really interesting thing to watch, to play out. - So I think on one end, it's like, I don't know what's about to happen. And then there's the other people that are really getting ahead of it right now and understanding that like that personalization and the ability to use, AI is gonna really help them. You don't understand their customer and create those wild moments because it's actually not that difficult to create wild moments for a customer. Said if you're focusing on a specific audience and you know who your audience is and you could actually start really building that stuff and using AI to do research on that person and where they're going, what they're doing, what they're into, their likes, their interest in things. And I think hospitality people have to really over index in that because a lot of it's gonna get democratized at that point. So like, if all the tools that everyone's using, now it comes down to like, you know, Genesis Aquile, like that touch, that thing, the magic, where I think AI is gonna have the greatest impact is like the part about hospitality that sucks everywhere is the transactional side. There's nothing less, you know, cool or kills a vibe than transactions. So we talked about Aamon and yeah, you know, we are blessed and I'm super appreciative to be able to like, state all these different places. And Aamon Geary is like frictionless, right? You go there and you never, you never sign for anything. There's never a bill, there's never a thing, there's nothing. Now you go to another place, it's like everywhere you step, it's signing a bill, it's doing a thing, it's like, it's writing on the tip. Yeah, it's like, it's unromantic, there's no vibe, it kills the thing, it's not like, if you want people to feel like they're in your home, there's nothing worse than like, all this constant transactional elements and like what AI is gonna give operators that benefit from is a completely frictionless thing and like, obviously, that's what we're built. That's all we care about is like the frictionless experience. And like, there is, I don't see a world in the next, you know, let's call it 12 months, where there's ever a bill being put down at a restaurant. How do you just like click, play like Spotify your life and just sit back and let like technology do which thing, which the whole point of it is like, ultrapersonalization, laser precision, complete frictionless and let you go experience those moments. The benefit of AI is that we're all gonna be able to discover the world more and have more experiences. I think everything flips around because like, lunch isn't the 12 to 130 rush anymore because the whole entire workforce is gonna change. So if that changes, like, why not just have like, rolling times and you are gonna have robot, you're not gonna be thinking much about like, the shifts and labor costs and stuff. And oh, this person has their lunch break, there's gonna be way more fluidity through it and way more frictionless of everything. So that's where I think like, what are all these hospitality people need to think about is like a complete rapid disruption and reset of every single thing you're doing currently. Think about it and be like, how is it gonna change? How is it gonna be eliminated? How can I do it completely different? But every single part of your business, like everything is gonna be completely rapidly disrupted in not like years, but in weeks and months. Yeah. Well, thank you so much for sharing your insights and your experience. I'm really excited to see how Dorcia evolves. Thank you so much. And it's a very exciting period. Thank you so much, family. (upbeat music) Jonathan Goldstein, welcome. And thank you so much for coming on this show today. It's my pleasure to see you. I have to say that I want to thank you because if it weren't for the opportunities I can give me, the stunts that wouldn't exist in its current form today. So this is a very special interview. Well, I've admired and had seen what you've achieved since you left Kane and it was wonderful to work alongside you, but even better to watch you flourish. So it's really a pleasure and privilege to be here and I look forward to the conversation. Thank you. Jonathan, I look at you as someone who has created an asymmetrical outcome in life. Looking back, what about your approach to risk has served you best? Well, I think that's a very, very good question. It's a big question. I think that the most important thing in life is to have people around you and who support you, who you can trust and who can live with you through thick and thin. Because the world, you use the word asymmetric, the world is not a straight line and you are going to have times and periods when you're either gonna have to double down or retreat and therefore to have a team around you and partners behind you who support that process and who you can be totally transparent with. I think creates the environment to enable people to flourish. So I've been extremely lucky to team up with Todd Bowley, with Tony Manella, with Eldritch and to have their unstinting support for over 10 years. Because I think it's not a secret that the real estate industry through the last five, six years has been extremely challenging. The advent of the Ukraine more, inflation, interest rate hikes, a real liquidity crunch in certain aspects of the industry has made people have to retrench. So I think having really supportive partners is what I put down to the longevity that I think he has given us. And I think has really put us in a great position to capitalize in the next five to 10 years. - We're gonna come back to the subject of partners. But before Cain and Guggenheim, you were a partner at All Swing in London, the youngest partner at the time. In real estate, we spend a lot of time negotiating agreements, but beyond that, how has your time as a lawyer shape the way that you think as an investor? - I think it's again a really good question, but I think the important thing about my experience in the law was too far. One is I ran a business for 10 years. I ran the law firm from growth from 15 million to 100 million. And secondly, because I was in the MLA side of the real estate world, you learn the trends and patterns of a transaction and you learn the areas on which you need to focus and those on which ultimately resolution will happen between people. And I think that's what frame my approach to risk. That's what frame my approach to transactions. The fact that I could understand from a very early point in any transaction, the areas where the rubber might hit the road and try and deal with those upfront. And I think that experience has worked very well both for us and for me and for Cain. And going back to Todd Bolley, who's incredibly sharp. What's the story behind meeting him and the relationship with him? And how did that involve into starting Cain together? - I actually first met him in a social context in about 2008, at a wedding in Los Angeles of a mutual friend of ours, a guy called Nick Sanlo, who's now who's with Eldridge and formed his own company called Stonebrice, a top guy. But around 2010, 11th, Todd was present at Guggenheim and started to meet in London and spend time together. And we developed a great rapport with both big sports fans and that's what was a great bonding element. And then when I decided I wanted to do my own thing, he said to me, look, why don't we try and do something together initially within Guggenheim and then it broke into Cain. But Todd is one of the broadest and sharpest thinkers that you could ever meet in your life. has an ability to analyse at the heart of a transaction very, very quickly. His range of topics from across the financial spectrum obviously insurance and real estate and media and mining now and technology, he has an extraordinary breadth and so it's been very fortunate for me to team up with him and to be able to call him my partner and my friend. And when you guys started Kane, what was your original investment he says? Because you didn't start with lifestyle real estate. No, what we talked about was Gateway Cities, which morphed into the luxury world. We really believed that you should centre your investment around the Gateway Cities, so London, New York, LA of course. And then we added Miami. We decided back in 2016-17 before Miami was this glitzy hot thing that Miami was undervalued and that's how we entered the Miami world because we wanted to be in Gateway Cities because we believe as a thesis that those Gateway Cities give you a greater degree of resilience over a period of time. But what exactly or what asset classes were you investing in before? Initially, when it started, we looked across the residential and the hotel and the office world as where we started. So we've done a couple of very premium office block developments, one in Miami and one in New York. We've been strong on residential and branded residential from the very beginning. We did the Raffles in Boston, which started back in 2018. So before the strong fad in branded residential. So it's always been something that we believed in and obviously we invested in Los Angeles in 2017-18, which you were involved in. And we've understood that the way to develop and really to fulfil the site's potential was to twin up with one of the world's leading brands, which we will come back to in depth during this interview. But that was a great segue to my next question. So you've been investing in lifestyle and experiential real estate long before the pandemic made the experiences over possessions thesis really obvious. What signals or patterns were you seeing that others weren't at the time? When people are living in major cities, the thing that the brand gives them is that confidence and the comfort of knowing the quality they're going to deliver. When you speak today to the people who are buying it in a man Beverly Hills, they know what they're going to get. They've seen it in New York. They've seen it around the world. And that has been the same for various of the brands. It's really important, of course, that you deliver against that expectation. And that's where the brand keeps you honest. Make sure that you deliver the quality that they expect. So I think as people have developed and people, you know, many people have multiple homes around the world today in way in maybe ways of which they didn't even 10, 15 years ago. They want to know they're going to get the service and the quality and the luxury and the privacy and the security that a brand can give them. And that's why we focused on a very few brands that we have the confidence in that will ensure that they have that quality and continuity around the world because there are some brands that you could argue that quality in hotel and residential delivery has slipped a little and I think holding me that's not good for the brands. But do you think that brand is also maybe about status signaling or aspiration or validation? I think that there is an aspect to that, no doubt, in the individual psyche. But from a developer perspective, you're really looking for the comfort and the quality that that brand will give you. Since a man have been involved in Beverly Hills, since Vlad Dorenan, we brought Vlad and Fran into the into the into the investment. They brought in Kerry Hill from Singapore, their architects and Fosters did a great job for us in scoping out the site in helping us get the entitlements. But I think Fosters would be the first to acknowledge that Kerry Hill have brought a different aspect, a different spin, a different twist to the development. And I think that is really where the combination of all of that is going to bring it in a show real quality as we deliver it and really underpin high sales. And I think what you've seen over the last 10, 15 years is that the right brand will generate a 30 to 40% premium on the local market. Now you'll say, but why are people prepared to pay that? If they can buy a similar product down the road because they've got the confidence in the brand that the quality will come through and that's really where you need to ensure as a developer that you're allowing the brand to do that. And so right now we're in the midst of the Great Wealth Transfer which I'm sure you're aware of. It's a big theme, especially for luxury hospitality brands. What do you think newly wealthy millennials and Gens head or Gen Z are prioritising when it comes to travel and lifestyle and I mean I'm a bit old now to be to be putting my head in the head of a millennial or a Gen Z. But I think what people are really focusing on is experiences over products. And what you've seen since the pandemic is a real desire for people to enjoy life and experience life. Totally. And the demand for the products has therefore escalated quite materially over that period of time. And I think that we're seeing that all around the world. If you look at the amenity packages that one has to provide now within a hotel or within an apartment block, you know, they're going up and up and up and up and up and obviously to be able to achieve that as a developer, your pricing has to reflect that because your construction costs are also only going one way. So for me, I think the thing that we've really seen and we've seen this at a man, obviously, we know we're investors, I sit on the board. So you know, it's really important eye to our world to understand what's going on. You're seeing significant demand for the experiential offerings that the top quality brands look at the number of boats that are coming out, which are branded, you know, Rich's Cardinals doing one for seasons, just doing one already expressed as doing one. And obviously, we've been involved in the funding and the development of the Imam boat, which we're very excited to see in 2027. So I think that, you know, you're seeing all these experiences and people want that feeling that they're being treated properly, that they're being recognized and they're being recognized as an individual as part of that process. And that's one of the challenges that I think a lot of the brands have because they're too homogenized in their product that they're not able to reflect the desires of the individual. I'm going to come back to that. I have some follow-up questions on that, but I want to just touch very briefly on how you structured Cain to be able to invest in these types of projects and these types of brands. So Cain now manages over 14 billion AUM, not only in real estate, but also in operating companies across hospitality sports and entertainment, which is quite unusual for a real estate investment manager. What is your philosophy behind portfolio construction? And can you just share with the audience how Cain is structured to be able to support that type of mandate? Well, the business was started up as a partnership between myself and El Drucherman, you know, and we predominantly invested throughout balance sheet to start off with. And that's been a model that's worked very well for both of us. Over time, we've done other transactions with other partners. We brought partners into transactions. And you know, last year we announced a partnership with Mubadrila Capital out of Abu Dhabi, which were very proud to, you know, have been recognized by them as people who they wanted to support in this area because obviously, you know, being one of the world's great sovereign wealth funds and the offshoots of real funds, they have the choice of everybody they want in the world. So we're very proud of that. So it's a combination of balance sheet and partnership investing, which is enabling us to grow to the size that we have. And obviously, you know, support from Lenders as well because there's no real estate developer in the world that takes on debt. Right. And the difference between us and many others, I believe, is that we have approached it from both the asset and the operational levels. So obviously where a shareholder is in a mom, we own one third of the Delano brand in partnership with Anna Smorther, subsidiary of our core. And that's an area that we'd like to go further down because I think that you really begin to understand the asset by also understanding it from the operational perspective. And you know, I think that we have a very hands on approach. Yes, I remember that very well. And you know, we believe that we can make a difference in helping the product for the consumer. I've always judged assets or destinations or opportunities sort of through the eye of myself, my family, my kids, my friends. Would they want to be there? Would they want to go there? Would they like this? Would they like that? One of our very, very close friends at the moment is currently staying in the Delano into buy and giving a minute by minute sort of report through my wife, which ends up on the WhatsApp of this, you know, managed director of the brand. It's important. It's important to understand that you're in the service business. That you're looking to fulfill the desires of people when they when they visit your hotels. That they're spending a lot of money. They are not a commodity. They are an individual. And you have to really make sure that you're satisfying that desire. So that portfolio construction, you know, is really designed to reflect that trying to reflect destinations and opportunities that you know, one would enjoy. That op-code prop-code model is very trendy now. I don't know if I'm going to have been trendy, but it's kind of you to say so. I think, you know, we invest in our mind and, you know, in the middle of the pandemic, Todd and I went to meet with Vlad and we agreed to transaction and we were then followed by PIF and various groups from Abu Dhabi. And we had a transaction with a discussion with Sebastian Bazzan at a call about the Delano when we had acquired the assets and that they weren't sure whether they, you know, how they were going to deal with their brand, et cetera, et cetera. And I always felt that Delano was an undervalued brand, underloved. So I went to Sebastian and said, "Come on now, let's do a deal. You can have a very long management agreement, but I think because we own the real estate, I think that we should have one-third of the brand and that was a trade off of key money that he agreed to. And I think that's been a wonderful relationship for us, taken on now, obviously by Gorov Boushian, who's just been announced as a new CEO of Elf and this more so congrats to him, but also Shoram Pazrichi, who Master Co CEO and founder of the Hawksdon and Maison Estelle, et cetera. Great guys, great people. Because ultimately we're all in people businesses. Speaking of people businesses, Vlad Daronin, how did you guys meet? So I was first introduced to Vlad and he helped us get into Miami. He had some opportunities in Miami that he wanted a partner with and Vlad and I met in about 2016. And Vlad is an amazing visionary. Great guy, tough, very sure of his own opinions, which is what's led among to be what it is over the last 12, 13 years. But he has a big heart, big, big heart. And so I think Todd and I spent time with him when we recognized that and we went into business together in Miami and then he bought the crown building on 57th and 5th and we had a discussion about how we could get involved with that and we ended up being the lender. So we lent money for that development and that was a really good eye for us because it's been a very, very interesting strategy for us to approach partnerships often through the debt first, understand the way that people work, see how they operate. And we watched Vlad from through the pandemic supporting his development and really getting it into an absolutely amazing product, which I think is probably regards to the number one hotel today in New York in New York. And then we opened up a conversation and said, look, you know, we've got a lot of confidence in what we see and we think you've got a lot of a lot of opportunity here with a man that, you know, is there an ability for us to invest and that's how that conversation occurred. So you were mentioning earlier the concept of investing in a brand that's undervalued or, you know, expanding it or growing better than investing in a brand that's overvalued. That's also true. But did you think that a man was undervalued at the time? Because a man, we paid a full value. Yeah. I think that we paid an appropriate value. But I think if you look at equivalent, such as like four seasons, so it's, you know, was allegedly trading it eight to ten billion dollars, I think that we believe that you, a man occupies a unique place in the marketplace. I think it is regarded as the premier luxury brand. It has irreplaceable real estate, has irreplaceable venues from which it trades. Because you wouldn't build them today. And they were built in a different environment, maybe often with different business model. And I think Vlad turning a man into an urban brand is huge. And the creation of Janu is beyond exciting. So, you know, we've, if you've been to Tokyo and the Janu in Tokyo, it's just a fantastic product. And that's a great opportunity to grow that secondary brand through the world. So I think that, you know, we see a lot of opportunity and a lot of our upside in the brand over the course of the next three to five years. And, you know, the business is well-led. And, you know, the work that we've done together with a man in Beverly Hills has reinforced that because Vlad has a certain eye, which I could never have. He has a certain style. Right. And he has, you know, he has improved what we're doing there. And he improves it in every asset that he gets involved in around the world. Speaking of Beverly Hills, the One Beverly Hills site, which I will refer to as OBEH for the listers that aren't familiar with the story behind putting that assemblage together. Can you just share a recount? Sure. So One Beverly Hills is the flagship product in a flagship opportunity in our portfolio. We got involved with a great guy called Benny Alligham back in the early teens, really, as he was developing the world off a story. We then converted that into a, into a, a deck arrangement, which mirrors in previous conversation about a man, which, which, which twinned both the Beverly Hilton and the world off a story. Subsequently, we then had the opportunity. There was a piece of land between the Beverly Hills and the Los Angeles Country Club, the golf course, which was owned by the Wander Group from China. And they had gone in for their own planning application. But then problems within one, the problems within the Chinese world in terms of investing into the US meant that that land became available. And in 2018, we bought that piece of land. And we had something unique that others couldn't do because we had 250,000 square feet of entitlements on it. There's the Hilton site that you recall that we were able to transfer onto the Wander site, which meant that we could really develop it properly and appropriately. So we went into entitlements right to the beginning of COVID in June 2020. And the Beverly Hills Council, which has been extremely supportive throughout the whole period, helped us through that process. And, you know, they've been amazing partners, subsequent mayors, the current mayor Sharon and the Zarian is, is a wonderful leader. She, you know, she's down to a corner for her city, as you would expect. But she's also understanding them, facilitating in relation to partnerships where she sees people investing in the fabric of her city. So then we decided, you know, okay, we've got on a hotel, we've got two residential towers. And what should we do? Well, what we did was we built a big development team under Cain, led by a guy called Larry Green, who had built the Century City in Westfield. And brought in a man. A man became equity partners of ours in the transaction. And so we have worked through over the last, you know, five years to ensure that we can now start construction. We've started construction. There's the biggest hole in the West side of the States, currently in Los Angeles. We're selling units at great prices. And predominantly to locals initially, which is really quite interesting. People either downsizing or wanting the luxury of the security and safety of an apartment block. And we spend a huge amount of time talking about the community we're creating. We have eight to nine acres of public. Parkland, we now have 200,000 square feet of retail dotted around the place, which is getting huge, huge, huge demand. Our first three tenants were Dolce and Cabana, Cazatua, Cuccina, and those moshes for London. We've got other mainline brands that over the next 120 days will be signing leases. So it's a project of a lifetime. You don't often get the chance. Certainly it's a Londoner to reimagine, to re-envisage Beverly Hills, one of the great cities. And I know there's a lot of narrative about California, but Beverly Hills is Beverly Hills. And it's a IASIS for everybody. It's a magnet for people. And we're really, really excited. I'm very proud to be doing it. I'm very proud to be associated with it. And hopefully by the Olympics, the hotel will be open. And people will enjoy Los Angeles in its glory in 2028. How many units have you sold so far? I'm not giving that number away. One I'll tell you is that both in terms of level and number, they have surpassed our expectation. To be fair to people, they're looking at a big hole in the ground. So we're very excited by the demand we've seen, by the number of contracts that have been signed. We have a way to go, still of course. But we're in a really good spot. I think what's really interesting about that particular site and that whole project, and what differentiates it from another branded, Rezzi project out the road is that you have all of that amenity space and that incredible green space. And it's just surreal watching that happen in real time. I think the other thing I think you're 100% right. The other thing, of course, you've got views that can't, they can't ever be changed. Because on the one side, you've got the golf course, which obviously is never going to get built on. On the other side, you've got the Bebley Hills flats, which is across the road of Walshia. And then you've got your own area with the parkled. So you've got 360 views that will never be changed. And that's something. And when you stand there and you look over the Hollywood hills and you look across the towards the ocean, it's just, it's an extraordinary opportunity. Currently the highest piece in Bebley Hills, effectively, is the water for story of which is one of the most popular places in Bebley Hills for people to enjoy themselves. Well, that's 13 stories up. We're going up to 30. 31 and 28 in our two in our two towers. That's just extraordinary views that people are going to get. What have you learned about the type of buyer that wants to buy a Naman branded resident? So you mean you talked a bit about the safety aspect, the positioning of the real estate. That's, you know, has a defensible mode. But what else about the virus psychology? The combination of luxury, safety, security, community, and amenities. It's a whole package that we're offering them that no one else can replicate. I mean, I give an example of that. For every square foot internal that people are buying, they're basically getting half a square foot of terrace. So if you've got a 3000 square foot apartment, you're basically getting a 12 to 1500 square foot terrace. Why is that important? Because in LA, people are into outdoor living. The weather is extraordinary 10 months or 11 months a year. So now we're offering something which other people just cannot offer. None of the competition are able to offer that because of the scale and the opportunity that we've created within Beverly Hills. And you know, so when people look at averages, you know, the, the, the industry benchmarks, as you know, is to look at averages on internal space. If you actually look to averages by reference to internal plus external space, which most people don't have, most people have a little Juliet balcony. It's a very, very reasonable offering. And that's why we're getting the values that we, that we think we, that we're seeing and that we think is appropriate for the product. Well, I think that the timing is super interesting too because the pandemic and the LA fires, I would say, well, I would think would intensify that demand because you have security in those buildings and you have this indoor outdoor space without the headache of living in the hills, which is what people do. I think LA last January, January 25th, when the fire started and number of people who worked for me had, you know, suffered serious damage. One, two were quite lucky in terms of the houses around the burning down, but not theirs. And so it was a really, really tragic situation for a lot of people. But what we've seen and actually what we predicted at the time was that it would take years and years and years for this to be remedied. And you're hearing now the political narrative, the two in throwing between the federal and the state, whose responsibility is, whose fault it is that things are not moving quickly. I heard the president talking about it just the other day about the palisades and how nothing had got moving in the palisades. And I think that does make, you know, lead to a significant opportunity for us because we are delivering, we are performing. And the more that we do that, the more that people want to see it, want to come and live with us. We've built a mock-up of a hotel room in the valley, actually, in a lock-up. And it's, I have to say, it's, and Vlad would reinforce, it's probably the best hotel room you've ever seen. Why? Just the tension to detail the scale, the opportunity, you know, just the design is gorgeous. Okay. I'm, I'm very excited by it. So you led the $900 million investment into a mon group alongside Saudi Piff. And you, as you mentioned earlier, you've partnered with Mubadala to finance the expansion of the Amon brand. How are you balancing the preservation of this scarcity aspect of Amon's brand, which is arguably why people love it so much or why people aspire or crave it so much. But then also you have to grow the platform. Some curious how you're balancing the two. And I think that's why Vlad is so good because he's good at doing that. He understands where a man should be and where a man shouldn't be. He isn't a man junkie himself, which is how he got involved in the first place. So he instinctively understands what the Amon customer wants and what they're looking for. So, you know, we all have a voice. But ultimately he is the protector and the preserver of the brand. And I don't think you'll see the brand get polluted in the way that I think others have done. So I'm sure that he only has special properties within his environment. And there have been one or two opportunities where he has turned round and said, I don't think that's for a man. It might be for Janu. And they're talking about a third brand as well within their portfolio. So I think there are other opportunities and you can ensure that the discipline and the rigor and the uniqueness of the Amon hotels carries on and helps ensure that the Amon customer feels that that uniqueness continues. And what have you learned from raising capital from Saudi investors? Well, I think, you know, I would regard all investors in the same bucket in a way. I wouldn't say that Saudi or Abu Dhabi is different to any others. I think that you first have to respect and look it through other people's eyes. What do people want? How do people feel they're being treated? How do people feel their money is being protected and respected? You know, as I said before, you know, the sovereign wealth funds, they have the choice of the world. They can invest with whoever they want and however they want because in the asset management world, it's a fight to be able to get the eyeballs and to ensure that you're selling the right product. I think that in our world, we have begun to be seen as one of the leaders in the luxury investment world. We've understood it early. We've got it early. We've built. We've sold. We've made some mistakes. Live through those mistakes, predominantly in construction. Plushatosh there's a hard business. And you know, so I think that in terms of convincing people to support you and partner with you, I think that we've got the scars and we've got the successes for people to back accustomed and support us to do that. But I think it's really important to understand, I think I may have said this already, but the world is all businesses, people businesses. So you have to be able to treat people with respect, with dignity and treat people the way that you would want to be treated. And you know, you remember from your days at Cain, that's a mantra that I talk about all the time, it doesn't just apply to people within my own business, it applies to people with whom we are doing business. And I get frustrated when I see us falling off a pedestal, which I like us to be on in treating people properly and with respect. Now, I think if you treat people with respect over time, people will recognise that. People will support you. But you know, it's a long game. It's a long game. Did you ever think that you would be in your position today? Like I've said before, I've been extremely fortunate to have the support of my partners, supportive and amazing family. So yeah, I mean, it's been a journey. But I don't think the journey is over. So I think I've got more to do. I've clearly got projects on the go that need to be fulfilled and maximised. But it's exciting. And for as long as I enjoy it, then I think that I've got something to add. But yeah, I've been privileged, you know, as some would say, the good Lord has been kind to me. I mean, I think you have to be, you know, you have to recognise that life is full of serendipitous occasions. And you know, there's an element of luck in there. But I think more importantly for me as a human being, the most important thing is reputation. You know, I always get this phrase wrong, but you know, or on Buffett said, you know, you can make money and lose money. And if you lose money, you can make it back again. But if you lose your reputation, you won't get it back again. And there's something that I've prided myself on through my elite, my law years, then working with, you know, when I entered the real estate industry and, you know, during my time with Cain and with Eldrigeon, you know, that I'd like to think that my reputation is as a straightforward transparent human being who's honest. It doesn't mean that everybody likes you because you're always going to have, you know, some disagreements in life. But you try to live your life to a certain moral standard. And in my mind, that's more important than money. I want to switch gears a little bit to some of the other brands that you've worked with. Sixth Sense is being one of them. In 2019, a four bedroom apartment at the sixth sense is a Korscheval, the branded residence component rented for 29,000 euros per week. And today it rents for 30,000 euros per night, that same four bedroom apartment. Well, back then, some investors may have said that Korscheval has already reached stabilization and that there's less room for growth compared to other Europeans he resorts. How do you build conviction for a market that is already upscale and is also a seasonal resort market? It's really interesting. So Korscheval during our time of being involved, and it was a bit of a journey, we actually again entered through the debt. We partnered with someone. A good guy called Cyril Dennis who tragically died during the development, had a heart attack. And I got a phone call and I was like, "Oh, I'm going to have a phone call." very fond of him, it was very sad and I had to step in and finish the development myself. So, Kurshavals was held a certain very important place in my heart because it's really the first development that I finished in the luxury world myself. And Kurshaval in Kurshaval 1850, which is the highest spot in the area, was very Russian dominated up until 2020-21 and then Ukraine and that it nopped off, you know, a lot of where the Russian demand was coming from. But that's been replaced, it's been replaced by Brazil, it's been replaced by the Middle East, very, very big contingent coming now. So, when you look at these areas, I look at their uniqueness. When you aggregate the number of luxury rooms, because most of the properties around that I'm on, man has one called the mellazan on the Bella Klotzlope, you know, they're actually quite small hotels, they're 30, 40, 50 keys. So, if your Akshaval Blanc is there, the K2 is there. If you aggregate all those together, you probably don't get a thousand rooms per night. So, we saw an opportunity, because we first started developing the six senses as a pure residential product. But halfway through selling, I sort of said to some of this is crazy, why are we selling them? We should be running a proper hotel here, which is what we've done and it's been extraordinarily successful. We've done really, really well, we're very, very happy with it, we're very proud of it. And we also brought Sumo San over as the restaurant there, and that continues to do great trade. It also in liveans the development. It makes the place feel alive. So, I think K2 is one of the most special places on earth. Aspen is, you know, from an North American perspective, people love Aspen. I've been to Aspen. It's great. It's got everything you need there. K2 is truly extraordinary as well. There's very few like it. And since we've become involved in the last couple of years, you see four seasons coming in there now, you see Rosewood coming in now to K2. Because they understand the market opportunity. So, for me, it's a combination again of quality and service and having the right operator. And six cents has been a great partner. Great partner. Obviously, under its former CEO, Neil Jacobs, who's now a consultant to Kane and a very good friend of mine. Now, he's succeeded by another Neil, Neil Palmer, who's equally as talented. And what they've done is they've educated me. They've educated us as a business. Because they've said to us in certain years, you know what, guys, take a breather on occupancy and let's focus on rate a little bit. Let's make sure, and you know, what they then say to me, look, we need more services. We need more offerings. And they've educated us about what to do with the building. And in three weeks time, I'll be there with Neil Palmer, walking the building again, because we're looking to convert some spaces into some more amenities for families, particularly, because we feel we need to continually push the offering on. And that's one thing that's important to understand that when you're investing in these assets, they require continual love and investment. They really, really do. It's interesting because actually Corsical 1850, I think in the next 10 to 20 years, is going to be one of the maybe handful of ski resorts in Europe that can get real snow. Also, it's nice because you have a variety of slopes, and it's not, you know, some ski resorts are, you know, some where it's, for example, is a harder ski resort. I remember your skiing was okay. No, it's terrible. But I love that Corsical has a variety of slopes and let's do it. Do the annual cane ski trip. I'm so in mind. This is that. Well, you're welcome in the year. We still do that. And yeah, your quiet ride has a huge, it's the Twavalle, obviously. So it has Corsival, Mary Bell and Buck or End. So it has a huge area for skiing. Look, the big game changer for our investment in Corsival would be if the Marie lead and a bigger opening in the summer. Because, and I think hopefully that will happen over the course of an extra five years, because what you're seeing, you know, you see in North America, people enjoy being in the mountains and the ski resort as much in the summer as they do in the winter. I was just about to talk about that. Yeah, the beauty of it. You know, we had a cane development retreat in Idaho in June. It was absolutely glorious. Absolutely glorious. You know, I've been an husband, both in the summer and the winter. It's glorious. Europe has been a bit limited in that respect. The more that opens up, the more the opportunity opens up. Well, I think it's also a result of the Mediterranean destinations becoming way too crowded. Well, you're quite right. Getting rooms in these places is hard. I mean, my favorite place probably in the world is their mouth he coast in Italy. Okay. It's absolutely gorgeous. The hotels are amazing, but just the whole vistua is gorgeous. But you know, it's it's it's hard to get the right place in them. It's why boats are so popular around the Mediterranean, the summer. I want to go back to branded residences. And I want to just touch on another brand that you've worked with. So you've collaborated with Raffles in Boston and also Misoni on a condo project in Miami. How do you choose the right flag for a market? I think the Misoni trade is that the deal was a different one. It really was to put a bit of Misoni style within the residences and the lobby, which was it was proved to be very successful. Obviously, when you're dealing with Raffles in Boston, that's a continuing process of ensuring that the right levels of service are given to your customer base. And you know, Raffles led by Omar Akhav which you'll obviously is another Akhav brand, Sebastian and Bazan and the like. You know, it doesn't have done a great job in delivering a unique product in Raffles in Boston for Raffles and for us. I think it's fair to say that the Boston market is a bit quirky and it's quite seasonal. But we're really beginning to see year-on-year significant growth when people are realizing that this product is here and that it's the best in the marketplace. Again, what you learn and it's the same in every walk of life. People's habits don't change overnight. If you go into a city and you're used to staying in a hotel, your comfort factor takes you back to that hotel because you feel comfort and everything is, you know, you know, you know how it operates. So a new entry into a marketplace often does take that two, three years to get stabilized. Right. So why people in the industry talk about a stabilized period? Because it takes time and we're finding the significant year-on-year growth in Boston because of the power of the Raffles brand. One of the things I think that people sort of debate when they have a hotel opportunity is should they create their own brand? Should they just do it themselves? Do it as an independent? And I think that's all well and good, but I love the safety and security that the international brands give you from their distribution because I think that when you're buying that, you know, if you go on the six senses website today, you know you're going to get good quality wherever you go. The same with a man, the same with Raffles. If you start building your independent brands, I think that journey is longer, harder. A lot of people have done it very, very successfully. But I think it's a harder journey. But with these brands that we're talking about in the ultra luxury segment, they typically have very long-term HMAs. We're talking, I mean, minimum 40 years, 80 years. How do you mitigate the risk that one of these brands, A, becomes irrelevant in that period and it's expensive to terminate them? But then also, like as they grow in scale with owners, not you, how do you protect against, you know, let's say, certain owners skimp on quality or they have a different view on real estate. So I'm curious to hear your thoughts on that. No, I think that is the ultimate challenge, I mean, I house are not necessarily 40 years, but they would be 25, right? Let them up. Right? So that's a fair point. And I think it is so important to keep close to your operator for exactly that reason. If you're the asset owner, you really need to make sure that your operator is on its toes. His key in them and is really engaged because really the opportunity of termination by performance benchmarks by comparative sets is a recipe for disaster. Right. I mean, I've really seen a deflagging work with a new flag coming in. You've got to make sure that you've got that local operator in terms of your representative, the owner's representative, who is ensuring that the brand is delivering and you've got to have those relationships at the top of the house to ensure those brand develops. I'm very proud of our relationships at Cain. So, you know, obviously we've got the Beverly Hilton in as we've discussed, you know, my ability to phone up Christmas setter or Danny Hughes is important if we're not happy with something. And vice versa, if they're not happy with something, if they're not seeing that we're doing the right thing, I would expect and I do get phone calls. So, I think it's really, really important because I think you make a really, really important point, which is that if you're when you're choosing a flag, you are making a long term bet on that brand. Right. And that brand that have been brand brands that are in the marketplace who I would say are not as good today as they were 10 years ago. Don't expect me to name them because I'm not going to do that. Therefore you've got to be choosing those with whom you have confidence that they're going to go on the journey with you because otherwise you have a depreciating asset into your collection. Is there a brand that you think should be attached to a residential project that isn't yet? Well, I think most of the brands are attached to residential projects. One way or another around the world, but clearly there are so up and coming brands that are doing very well. I mean, Shavile Blunt, when we obviously has great heritage with LVMH, et cetera, et cetera, is beginning to grow around the world and produces a great product. There are many others who are doing very well in this marketplace. I think it's important that you control the number and the quality. The man has so far had a very important principle that it only does a residential product when it's twin with a hotel. You will see other brands just doing branded residences. Right. That makes me a little bit more nervous. It defeats the point of having the residential company. You can provide the service unless you've got that hotel component. The flag bearer, the first one really was the one manager, it was the manager in the London with one night's bridge, which obviously probably just paved the way for this industry and the way that it did. It had the ability to call on the manager and the central services next door. Just to have these brands on a apartment block without that backup and out that service, which is totally reliant upon the service charge of the residential to fund it, I think that's not a great model. Yes. I want to go back to something you said. You said that these brands can command a 30, 40% premium based on your experience selling this type of product. Obviously, timing has a lot to do with the success of a sale process. What have you learned about how to price the right premium? It's demand supply ultimately. Right. Look at Boston, we initially thought that our pricing would be between 2,200 and 2,200 and we ended up achieving 2,800 as an average. If I look at Beverly Hills today, we have no marketing suite. We are really relying upon the demand sales team to explain to the clients, the proposition. I'm not a big believer in these big, harsh marketing suites. I think you need to be able to show people real product with the CGI's today and with quality of the materials that ones able to produce. I don't think you need that in the same way as you used to in the past. I think it is an issue of trying to ensure that you are getting the appropriate value and making people feel that they're buying value. We sold a floor in one of the residential towers in Beverly Hills. I think that I don't have light more. I think it's a fair price. I know that the buyer thinks that he got a fair price. They got a fair price that's husband and wife. I think it's an issue of supply and demand, fairness, growing, getting confidence in the product like any other sales process and ensuring through that iteration that you maximise the return for you and your investors whilst ensuring that people are coming in and feeling comfortable, also believing that they have growth in their opportunity. Once you switch gears to lifestyle hotels, you acquired the Delano in Miami and the Hudson in New York during the pandemic. That could be described as a contrarian move because hospitality was severely impacted at that time. Can you just share with the audience listening how the opportunity came out? Actually it was an unusual process because we entered it through the debt and ended up over in the hotels through the pandemic. I always loved the Delano. I'm hugely excited about bringing it back in the next three months in its new form. I always think that Miami Beach spot is the swimming pool. It's hugely exciting. But at the same time when we had the Hudson under our ownership, with my team spent a lot of time debating about what we could do with it. It didn't feel comfortable that we could make a material difference to the real estate. We sold it. That was the right thing for us to do at that time. The Delano has taken us in an entirely different direction into the brand, as I've already talked about. We're very excited to bring it back. We launched a club which has got really exciting new, exciting reaction from people locally. We've taken a whole floor out of commission as hotel rooms and turned it into a guest and member floor. We have its own sushi restaurant, Mimikakushi out of Dubai, a restaurant run by Paris Society. We're bringing Gigi from Paris and Dubai into Miami Beach. We're hugely excited about that. We're going to create an icon of Miami Beach. To be part of that process takes a few years. It's never a day. But I'm very excited about what we're doing. I think the market is really going to welcome what I think will be one of the products in Miami Beach. It's interesting because in the mid-2010s you bought and sold a steak in S.B. to a core. Part of that portfolio included the Delano brand and then obviously a core integrated that into what is now called Ennismore. If I remember at the time correctly, that Miami asset wasn't flagged by Delano or by Ennis more. Is that correct? It was the Delano at the time. A.D. flag did at the point in time. It was my discussion with Sebastian Bazan that reflagged it as the Delano. When I said, "Come on, it's written at the top of the building." It was historically bought, historical board protected in the local area. It was really the sensible thing to do and since prevailed between both of us. I'm curious how you looked out the choice to partner with Ennismore. Basically, I want to understand how you as a developer/investor look at these hotel management businesses. I think that again, I always come back to same principles about things. I've probably sounded a bit boring, but it's all about people. You mentioned S.B. Fools Rean, who's denounced the deputy CEO of Ennismore just last week. We've had a relationship with him S.B. because he was the CFO there. Now he's the deputy CEO of Ennismore. I've known these people 10, 12 years now. Gora Bouchana and Sharan Pazrichia are very, very good personal friends of mine. When I was in Dubai over Christmas, our family went out for dinner together. I think it's about relationships. Life is about relationships. I've been prepared and they've been prepared to double down on each other because of those relationships. There is a level of trust with each other in working together because you're always going to have disagreements because that's human beings. Say you want to do it with people you trust. This is quite different from your other projects. Your other projects have typically been in the ultra luxury segments, the Amon's, the big senses of the world. Have you learned or what do you like about lifestyle hotel brands that's different from the ultra luxury brands? I think that you need to experience the deli and when it reopens to understand what I'm saying. But I think there's going to be a level of energy and vitality and wellness which I think a lot of the other brands are not delivering. One of the things we're working on at the moment is the ability to automate that process. What do you mean by that? What I mean is I get frustrated when I turn up at a hotel around the world and it already cares about my enjoyment of the hotel. All they want is to check me in, put me in my room, take my fee and let me leave. I look at it the other way around. I want people to enjoy the experiences that the hotel has to offer. In order for that to happen, there has to be systemised. I'm the person that I may not look like it but I like personal training. Around the world by now most of the hotels I go into should have picked that up. Should have picked up the fact that I like certain brands to drink or certain things to eat or make sure that actually I'm treated like an individual and I'm not treated like a commodity. So what we are trying to do is to create a product that will help us do that. Help us ensure that you as an adeem get treated properly and rightly or recognised. How often does it take to get the job done? Does it annoy you when you turn up somewhere and no one recognizes you? No one knows who you are. You might, but I hotel there every day for six days and you know, I'm sorry, are you allowed in here? You know, Resur. That the people need to enjoy the experience. And we think there's a ways of enhancing that experience through AI, through software, through the development of products that we're working with with one of our partners, which we think will be game-changing for the industry. I think that, you know, we're ahead of the curve on this one, I think, I think that we've understood it and why have we understood that? Because we understand what we want when we go to these hotels. We understand the experience that we want to enjoy. And I think it's going to be the next level of luxury and wellness and lifestyle businesses that people who can, you know, deliver that relationship to the individual as opposed to treating the individual like commodity. Because if you treat the individual like a commodity, they'll go somewhere else. True. We often learn from our failures more than our successes. Can you tell me about a time when something didn't work out and what you learned from that experience? Yeah, I think that early on in, in Cain, we did a development actually in London where I recognized that front that the partner was a challenge, but I thought, you know, well, I've dealt with difficult people before, I thought it was fine. And sometimes you just have to recognize that, you know, we're not omnipotent and it can go wrong. You can make mistakes. And, you know, the first loss is the best loss, even though you might find it personally very hard to do that. And I think that's one change in me, I would say, over the last 10 years that, you know, you have to recognize. I've got quite a long fuse in terms of, you know, people irritating me and upsetting me and because I understand that people are people and I know that I do it into people in reverse. But I have to also recognize in my stomach when that's gone beyond the pale and then I have to prepare to do with it. And I think that's the biggest change in me over the course of my life at Cain that I am now prepared to sort of lack risk hostility. When I was a kid, I was 17 years old. I was lucky enough to be sent to, I was chosen by a youth group to go to an American camp, a leadership camp, spent the summer in Philadelphia in Pennsylvania in about five hours from Philly and a summer camp and then one lesson I've always learnt from that camp was you have to be prepared to risk hostility. You have to be prepared to take leadership decisions that sometimes might burn a relationship. But if you're doing it honestly transparently from the right place and if you're convinced and you've spoken to your colleagues and you're all in the same space, you have to be prepared to act. Now what I learnt is on a couple of times early on I probably fudge that a little because I always wanted to be the nice guy. You may, that may surprise you. But I try to recognize that now earlier. Final question before we do our learning round. In the next 10 years, what will define the winners in luxury hospitality? Well for Cain, what's going to define the next 10 years will be the development of Beverly Hills. If we deliver what I think we are delivering, which is an absolutely world class development that will define Cain. For me, when I answer the question, what would define luxury and lifestyle in the next 10 years, it will be this issue of creating products and opportunities and experiences that are tailored for the individual, which makes the individual feel special, makes the individual feel valued and makes the individual feel that the price they are paying is appropriate for what they're receiving. And I think if you've really got to keep sight of as that as your North Star, we have customers, we have clients, we have partners, we have to deliver for them. And for me, that is a continuing process of ensuring that we achieve that. And that means you have to be hands on, you have to be receptive to criticism, to comments about your delivery, about your service, about your product, and you have to have different eyes. You have to have people looking at things from a different perspective. Group think is terrible. From both agenda or a race or a nationality perspective. You need a breadth of opinions. Why I like doors when you are with us, right? You would always, as is now, never sure of an opinion quite rightly so, and they're always valuable. And I think that's what we need in our business system, make sure that we satisfy the demands of our clients and customers. The customization part will be a lot, it'll be more difficult to deliver on than is said. Or I mean, I think everyone talks about customization as important. That's why I say, I think that's why I believe that the industry needs help doing that. Definitely. And that's where I think we're going. That's a new avenue that we've opened up in our world, which I'm hugely excited about, because I think that, you know, invariably, a lot of the staff in hospitality businesses are either seasonally transient. Right. They are always quite rightly for them looking for the next opportunity to upgrade themselves from one role to the other, which means you need to be able to systemise that knowledge, because the concierge who you meet in a hotel in six months time may not be the same as the concierge who was there last summer. Right. And you need date and yet when you turn up at your hotel, wherever that may be in the world, you expect them to know who you are and what you like. I think that the industry has been very short-sighted in not focusing on that. I have a lot more thoughts to that, but let's do our lightning round. What's the first job you've ever had before law? Really, the first job or work idea was with my dad. My father used to sell dresses, outsized dresses. And every Sunday he would go and work on a market stall and work on a market and different ones around the east of England. And so, you know, with three brothers, we would take our turn to go with our father and help him on a Sunday selling dresses at £6.99 and £9.99 to normal market stalls. I didn't know that, but that makes sense because you're a very good salesperson. I thought I didn't know about that. What's your favourite among hotel in the world? I'm a Gary. Okay. I love I'm a Gary. I know you do. We had an amazing experience there. I just, I love the sense of serenity that you get when you're there. It's spectacular. What's the most underrated city in the world for luxury hospitality? That's such a tough question. What's the most underrated city? I was really out, give this answer. I was recently in Sydney. I stood like a copella in Sydney. I was blown away by how good it was. Okay. I was really impressed by the copella in Sydney. So as someone who hadn't been to Australia for 20 odd years, I was really, I loved, you know, for me, the most beautiful cities in the world, you know, if you're geographically beautiful, naturally beautiful, probably Rio and Cape Town, right? Because of the mountains and the combination and I've been to anyway. And I love being in Sydney and getting up in the morning and it was sunshineing in my wife and I would walk around in it, round the opera house, around the bridge and all around the garden. So I'm going to say Sydney. Good answer. What's one trend in luxury hospitality that's inevitable over the next decade? Well, I think there's trend that I'm talking about, which is ensuring that the individual feel special is absolutely paramount and it has to be at the top. And I think that some of the brands have become too much commoditized to be able to achieve that and they're not focused on it. And I think that's the opportunity. What's the most challenging market you've ever invested in? Well, different depends upon the time, doesn't it? I mean, I think at this moment in time, London is as bad as challenging an environment as you could get. It lacks energy. It's obviously had a big migration of people who have gone to Milan or the UAE or the US. And there's no growth in the environment at this point in time. And the Prime Minister, Kierstammer, who I like, has, you know, come in with the man who's going to be in the country that we're going to create growth. And I think he still has to deliver on that. And I think he has the opportunity to do so. But he really has to ensure that the company has some energy points to it. So I'm going to say London at this point in time. Okay. I think a lot of people would agree with you. If you weren't running Kane, what would you be doing? My wife, you asked my wife that question. She said, you know, he would be in politics. He always thought he'd be Prime Minister. Right. I actually think that, you know, if I wasn't doing what I was doing, I would have entered public life. in one form or other. And you know, still not impossible. Yeah, I would do that. But I'm likely now. But I've always wanted to give back to my country. I've been very fortunate in England. The society has been very good for me from my family. And I'd love the opportunity to give back in one form or other. So I'm going to say public life. Makes sense. And lastly, favorite hotel brand that you have been partnered with yet. One need to think about that one. Oh, okay. Chances are they're listening so better be good. Okay, I'm going to say Shavar Blanc. Okay. I'm going to say that I think they have an opportunity to, you know, create a great product. But I would also say, and that question, I'm very happy with the brands that we've invested with. I think our relationship with our mom, with Janu, with the Dalala, with Raffles, with six senses, with the Bev, with the Hilton, the Bev, the Hilton have been amazing experiences for us. And I'm very proud of the relationships we have in those brands. So as much as anything, I would probably double down on the brands that we've invested with as well as saying that I admire other brands. I see around. Mm-hmm. I've chosen well. Thank you so much for taking the time. Jonathan, I appreciate it. It's lovely to see you and great to have the conversation and keep up your great work. Thank you.