Press
“Welcome to what is the third annual iteration of this publication, although those of you with a careful eye for typography and design may have spotted some changes from last year. Like the welcome current trend in property development in Budapest for taking a classical listed building, renovating and restoring the interior and giving it added value, we have updated this title. The new look and name bring it in line with its stablemates. But the content at its core has not changed.
So, while the publication is hardly old enough to be listed, it does still contain useful listings to help you navigate around the premier real estate companies in Hungary and their leaders. Our real estate editor Gary J. Morrell has also produced six pieces of specially commissioned editorial to give an authoritative overview of the office, industrial and logistics, and hotel sectors, the Hungarian property investment market, the impact of ESG on the industry, and architecture and the evolving look ot the city.
But beating at the heart ot Top50 Real Estate Executives are the biographies thai separate those two elements. When we launched the “Top” branded series, the aim was to continue to provide valuable business information, the bread and butter ot the Budapest Business Journal since it was founded 31 years ago, but also to add a more persona!, human touch.
We wanted to give readers an opportunity to get to know the personalities behind the company names just a little better. After all, the men and women featured on these pages go a long way to shape the cityscape (metaphorically, but in some cases also literally) ot this place where we work, rest and play. They give us their thoughts on what their companies are doing to reduce their carbon footprint, the real estate technologies that will be most significant in fighting climate change, the most challenging aspects of the market right now, and how crucial transparent benchmarking is for ESG in real estate. But they also share more persona! details, such as their hobbies and career pathways.”
Robin Marshall MBE, Editor-in-chief
Budapest Business Journal
VALTER KALAUS (3rd time on the list)
Newmark VLK Hungary
BACKGROUND INFO
Valter Kalaus is a significant player in the Hungarian real estate market. In the daytime, he’s the managing director of Newmark VLK Hungary, a significant leader in the Hungarian commercial real estate advisory market; at dawn, he’s training for his next race as a professional swimmer. Without sport, he says he would not be where he is today; thus, Newmark VLK Hungary (previously VLK Cresa) successfully represents a winning business approach on the Hungarian market. Kalaus has been swimming since the age of five. He was a member of Hungary’s Seoul Olympic swimming team and still competes in the masters’ category, having several World and European championship titles. He is a board member of the Hungarian Swimming Federation, bringing a wide range of international business and athletic experience to the governing body. After receiving his diploma from the University of Wisconsin at Madison in 1996, he began his career as a commercial real estate advisor in the United States. Based in Chicago, he assisted many Fortune 500 and Fortune 1000 companies across America. In 2001, he moved back to Budapest; since then, he has been advising corporate real estate users, mainly in the Central European real estate markets. The predecessor of Newmark VLK Hungary was established in 2008 by Kalaus as VLK Real Estate Consulting. In 2022, VLK entered into a partnership with Newmark Global. Combining 27 years of comprehensive international experience in corporate real estate advisory and tenant representation with a powerful global partner seems to be an exceptional combination.
To buy the magazine click on the link below:
https://bbj.hu/shop/top-50-real-estate-businesses-executives-2023