Tell us a few things about yourself and about Tenzing.
"I started Tenzing four years ago with a couple of former colleagues. I used to work for Catella in Sweden in Pan-nordic transactions and advisory and now we are some 30 people in the Stockholm office of Tenzing and we also have an office in Helsinki with five people, seeing as Finland is a much smaller market.
"We also have close cooperation with Arctic Securities, an investment bank based in Oslo and we are doing a few projects together in order to cover Norway as well in our advisory business. So we are working in the investment market, selling properties, selling companies, M&A transactions, equity raising and lately we are focused on debt products as well.
"With debt products I mean mainly asset-backed bonds; we sell Swedish assets as security and sell the product to Norwegian and Swedish institutional investors, as an alternative financing to banks."
What type of transactions are occurring currently in the Nordics?
"The Nordic markets are doing pretty well. Last year we had a turnover of roughly €12 billion in the transaction market and I think it was around the same level this year, which means it’s a liquid market. I think it is the fourth or fifth most liquid market in Europe, which is good for a small country. It’s very easy to do deals in Sweden, so we have had a lot of international interest. Of course it’s more domestic, as more Swedish institutions are buying now, as in all markets, and they are going for the core products.
"We also see a lot of retail transactions and I think there are more to come. We will have to create more of this type of products and we will see more money coming in from the bond and equity side, from institutional investors in Sweden. I think institutional investors will increase their property exposure in different ways, both through indirect vehicles and through debt products."
What differentiates you from your competitors?
"We have a pretty senior team; we have been in the business for 15-20 years, so we have a network of relations, the doors are open for us and we have very good rankings in different poles. We are a very deal-focused and hands-on company. I think we are even more focused than our competitors; most of them are active in various sectors or they are an investment bank in the broader sense, while we are more focused on real estate."
