Why I would have dreamed of having SONEKA in 2008

I worked at GE Real Estate Europe from 2004 to 2016. I held various management positions at the European headquarters and then in the French subsidiary, where I managed the Property Management and Asset Management teams.

In particular, I was the Portfolio Manager of GE Real Estate Europe from 2006 to 2011. At that time, we managed €20 billion: 80% owned assets and 20% real estate loans.

Until 2007, GE was very focused on growth, making several billion euros of acquisitions per year, both in the historic countries of Europe and in new geographies.

From the summer of 2007 and even more in 2008, the focus completely shifted: acquisitions stopped altogether. The management of existing assets became the core of the business. Values across Europe plummeted, particularly in Spain, Italy, and the UK, with falls of up to 50% in regards to the acquisition price of the portfolios.

In addition to operational management aimed at optimizing each property and location, a very strong emphasis was placed on a detailed understanding of the portfolio.

Not a day went by without being asked for a new analysis on a wide variety of subjects. This could be requests from the US headquarters, the US regulator, or requests from each subsidiary for portfolio decision-making. A large number of stress tests were carried out in the context of declining ERVs.

At the time, GE Real Estate was considered to be very well equipped with its 3 Asset Management softwares:

• An in-house tool structuring all the data on properties and loans;
• A standard valuation tool;
• A data visualization tool enabling reporting on all this data.

Despite these tools, we could not do what we were expected to do in a fluid way: to understand, in order to anticipate and make the right decision

The different analyses proved to be very time-consuming for the following reasons:

• The user interface of the valuation tool made it very complicated for Asset Managers to use it. This generated long update cycles and was not very agile. Analysts were transformed into data entry operators.
• The absence of gateways between the tools meant that multiple data entry was required. Our valuation tool worked in stand-alone mode, whereas it was the source of all the advanced financial analysis.
• The reporting tool was not very flexible and only allowed to make simple exposure graphs, while the requests were much more elaborate.
• The need to use SQL queries directly in the database to respond to certain requests.
• The stress test processes, which were very heavy, required the ability to manipulate expert functionalities of the valuation tool. Only one person had these skills in Europe.

Despite a rich team of very talented analysts at headquarters and in each European subsidiary, a lot of time was wasted and we could not go as far as we would have liked because of the limitations of the systems.

It is by relying on this very intense experience that we designed SONEKA at the beginning of 2017. SONEKA has since become the first integrated Asset Management solution.

The current situation shows that we have succeeded in creating the tool that every asset manager dreams of using on a daily basis:

• An integrated solution that allows you to do everything from the same system and above all with the same data: cash flow forecast, scenario comparison, operational management of sales/marketing, decision monitoring, etc.
• A valuation tool designed by and for asset managers, and therefore usable by anyone who knows real estate without being a professional of any system.
• An integrated reporting tool that allows to produce standard and customized reports instantaneously.
• A very advanced integration with the 2 preferred tools of Asset Managers: Excel and PowerPoint, so as to save time and reliability.
• Various and complete modules covering all aspects of the Asset Manager’s job.
• Very fine-tuning possibilities: each client has the impression of using his own SONEKA.
• A solution to carry out a stress test on an entire portfolio in a few clicks.

3 years after the launch of SONEKA, I am proud to see that we have succeeded in our mission while bringing many additional features.

More than 200 professionals use SONEKA daily to make their business plans, model several scenarios and compare their returns, manage their activity, follow a sale …

We work every day with our customers eto meet their needs while ensuring consistency and simplicity of use.

The coming months will obviously be different from 2008: they will nevertheless be turbulent in terms of real estate.

SONEKA accompanies its customers through this period to better understand their portfolios, to anticipate the impacts and help them take the best decisions.

In retrospect, I say to myself that if we had already had SONEKA in 2008, we would have gone through the crisis in a much more efficient and serene way.