DAY THREE
“The toilets in the Carlton are the best on La Croisette. Central, posh, clean and always quiet – an all round good place to get your head together.”
A delegate staying in a poorly located hotel
“I worked out that I’ve spent four months of my life at MIPIM over the years. Four months. I wonder what would happen if I did all that in one go. Well, I’d be dead or arrested I suppose.”
A MIPIM veteran
“The idea that we would even have an event where there is alcohol is out of the window now. If we want to do anything as a team or go away anywhere for an offsite trip I just pay for it. Ok, it comes out of my back pocket but at least it means no one can tell us what to do.”
Investment banker
“MIPIM is not a perk, it’s work. If your diary’s not busy, you’re not coming back.”
A major private equity boss laying down the law
“I usually dread sitting on a panel next to you, being so tall and handsome, but today you look like a pile of s***.”
MIPM takes its toll on even aesthetically gifted delegates
“Let’s go to the Manchester stand. No one ever goes to Manchester.”
A delegate looking for a minute’s peace and quiet
DAY TWO
“I’m not sure we should have brought this many people at this point in the cycle. It comes out of different department heads’ budgets so on their heads be it I guess but I don’t think we should be here so en masse. I can’t see us doing the same next year.”
Senior director of law firm
“Who knows what the hell is going on out there in the UK market at the moment really. It’s not such a bad time to pretend you’re really busy by doing an internal review of your assets whereas really you’re just sitting and doing nothing waiting for things to sort themselves out.”
Giant pension fund investor
“The UK isn’t worth as much as we’d like it to be worth right now. We’ve just got to accept that.”
Investment agent
“We need to be so diplomatic around agents when talking about our tech.”
“They’re worried, aren’t they?”
An established techpreneur treating agents delicately
DAY ONE
“Paris residential – that’s the market people should be going after. All the banks are saying they don’t know what they’re going to do on Brexit but the bankers are already buying their flats, they know what’s coming.”
Fund manager on balcony overlooking La Croisette
“I brought a ridiculous amount of stuff I didn’t need. I packed two pairs of heels I knew I was never going to wear. They hurt me. I never wear them and I was certainly not going to wear them running around here all day. Why did I even bring them?”
PR for major advisory firm
“We’re just saying on some stuff, f**k it, sell it, just get out. We’ve got time-driven IRR’s to worry about. We can’t sit around hoping and waiting the market’s going to get better much longer.”
A private equity investor that went big on the UK secondary market between 2012 and 2015
“See you at Emerging Trends.”
“What?”
“Emerging Trends?”
“What, that bar in Shoreditch?”
A delegate gets confused about the launch of PwC and ULI’s weighty research report
“I reckon events with waitlists aren’t even worth it. I was on a wait list for Cirque du Lait and it was rubbish.”
Anonymous
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■ This content was originally published on 17 March 2017
