Esquire Philippines interviews David Leechiu.
David Leechiu is a prominent figure in the Philippine real estate industry. He is the CEO and founder of Leechiu Property Consultants (LPC), one of the leading real estate brokerage firms in the Philippines. With decades of experience, Leechiu is well-known for his expertise in commercial real estate, particularly in office space leasing, and has been involved in some of the largest real estate transactions in the country.
David Leechiu is a prominent figure in the Philippine real estate industry. He is the CEO and founder of Leechiu Property Consultants (LPC), one of the leading real estate brokerage firms in the Philippines. With decades of experience, Leechiu is well-known for his expertise in commercial real estate, particularly in office space leasing, and has been involved in some of the largest real estate transactions in the country.
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00:00So, what did I learn in those years?
00:02If you don't have the right people, the organization is just a plaster in a door or in a logo in
00:10stickers and brands, but it doesn't mean anything.
00:14It's the people that make the business.
00:17And as leaders in organizations, we have to constantly remember that it's the people that
00:24make the business.
00:30We have to stay real, and money always Fs with your brain, and it makes you think of
00:57things that many times are not necessary.
01:02Think from the people that I've met and talked to who are very successful in life, I've realized
01:10that they are successful because they are not owned by the money that they have.
01:16They're not possessed by their wealth, and they can think normally, and they can treat
01:24people normally.
01:28I realized that people are just people.
01:30When you strip them of all the trappings of what they're wearing, or what they have, or
01:35what car they drive, ultimately, people are just people.
01:39And all the more now, and into the future, the most important thing will be about what
01:45is real, because there's so much fake stuff.
01:48You have all these employees, you don't know how much of the interview will lead to a successful
01:55hire.
01:56When you hire someone, you don't know how they're going to perform.
01:59When you have kids, you don't know how they're going to grow up.
02:03When you're a parent, you don't know how you're going to be as a parent.
02:06When you are a lover, you don't know how you're going to be as a lover.
02:10You don't know how that lover's going to be with you.
02:13So there's so much pretense, second-guessing, overthinking.
02:18At the end of the day, people just have to learn how to be real, vulnerable, genuine,
02:26sincere, honest, and we get so caught up in so much of the pretensions that we just end
02:37up in disaster.
02:42What I've learned is, you can learn so many things from people.
02:46I have met good people, I have met bad people.
02:49I have met monsters and I have met angels, and there's always something you have to learn
02:54from them, from their encounter.
02:55I've met people and I've walked away thinking, I understand now why the family failed.
03:02I understand now why the business failed.
03:05I realize now why he's a drunkard, why he's a wife-beater, why he's an abuser.
03:11I understand now why people devote so much to charity, why people donate so much of their
03:20life to help other people.
03:23And I've also met people who will not bother to help anyone.
03:27One of the most interesting things about my job is, it gives me a look into the lives
03:33of so many people, a very diverse collection of characters that is really a study in human nature.
03:43I think that's the most interesting thing about what I do, what we do.
03:52So early in my life, I watched a video of a guy named Jim Rogers.
03:58Jim Rogers is the third biggest investor in the world after Warren Buffett and George Soros.
04:06It was after those two guys, it's Jim Rogers.
04:11He's not so prominent now, maybe because he's much, much, much older.
04:16One of the things he said is that if you think you know everything you need to know, then
04:21that is the beginning of your disaster.
04:24You think that you can predict the trend, and then you take positions.
04:29And sometimes even though you know where the trend is going, you either bet too early or
04:34you're betting too late.
04:35And then you need to bet on the right horse.
04:39And sometimes you think it's the right horse, yun pala, yun pala sabit.
04:44And you need to be courageous.
04:49Every so often, I think there are big disasters in the economy and then big booms.
04:56So you want to be able to buy assets when it's a disaster, and you want to be able to
05:01sell when it's a boom.
05:03So for five years of my life, I was preparing myself for this disaster that was going to
05:07happen, and that was the global financial crisis.
05:11I felt in 2007 that things were not right.
05:15So I sold a lot of my assets in 2007, preparing for what could be a crisis fairly soon.
05:25I didn't know what was going on.
05:27All I knew is that things were not right in the world, and that might produce a crisis
05:34of some kind.
05:35So I don't know what was going to happen, but I knew that I have to prepare for that
05:43eventuality.
05:44So I was able to raise a lot of cash at that time in 2007 to prepare myself for investing
05:51that money, a lot of money at that time, for me.
05:56I mean, it's not a lot of money for a lot of people, but it is a lot of money for me.
05:59It was everything that I had at that time.
06:02And when that moment came, global financial crisis, stocks fell 50%, 60%, 70%, 80%, very
06:10big, solid companies.
06:14And I had that opportunity to deploy all of it at the very bottom of the market.
06:22If you look in hindsight, that was that one moment when I could have bought a particular
06:26stock that I wanted to buy for many, many years, and I waited for this moment.
06:32The moment arrived, and I let it pass.
06:37And why?
06:37Because I was so smart.
06:38I was thinking, oh, it hit this pencil, and I think it's going to keep falling.
06:45But it stopped falling because I was so smart, I missed it.
06:49I should have said it could fall further, but this is a good time.
06:56You can never catch the market bottom.
07:00People always say that, you can never catch the market bottom.
07:03But I was there at the bottom, and I didn't even know.
07:07And I missed it.
07:09And from that point, it never went back.
07:11It just grew 11 times.
07:15So from whatever that price of that stock of that company is, it grew 11 times in 10
07:20years.
07:21So I missed a very critical, life-changing moment.
07:26You think you know the trend.
07:30You're making the right bets with the right horse.
07:32If you don't have the cycle, if you don't have the courage to do it, then you will miss
07:36it.
07:37I've learned that that was one of the most amazing times of my life, but it's not the
07:44best.
07:46So I think I'm living at, I'm trying to make that best moment happen.
07:52So what did I learn in those years?
07:54I think, again, companies are made out of people.
08:00It's the people that make the company.
08:02It doesn't matter what brand.
08:04But if the wrong people are there, if you don't have the right people, the organization
08:09is just a plaster in a door or in a logo in stickers and brands.
08:17But it doesn't mean anything.
08:19It's the people that make the business.
08:22And as leaders in organizations, we have to constantly remember that it's the people that
08:29make the business.
08:33There's just risk.
08:34It's good risk when your risk pays off.
08:37It's bad when it doesn't.
08:40In 2003, when I was the GM of Savills and they said, we're going to close the business
08:45because this country was such a mess, I joined them in 1998 at the height of the Asian financial
08:52crisis.
08:53It started in 97, 98, 99, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, eight-year crisis.
09:01In those eight years, every day we had rallies on Real Avenue, Corner Paseo de Rojas.
09:07And the peso went from 25 pesos to the dollar to 50 in a span of, what, 12, 18 months?
09:16And that wasn't just Philippines.
09:17It was all over Asia.
09:18And that destroyed so many companies, lost so many jobs.
09:22Companies were wiped out all over Asia.
09:25And things were very hard.
09:27And all those things led to a political crisis, which is why we elected President Estrada.
09:33And in 18 months, we kicked him out.
09:36And we installed JMA, rightly or wrongly.
09:39And as soon as she sat there, we wanted her out.
09:42All these economic hardships led to political uncertainty that led to risk.
09:50And Salvo said, OK, we're pulling out of this.
09:52Even though you were growing the business revenue peso-wise, the moment you convert
09:57that to dollars, it meant nothing because your pesos are worth half the dollars now.
10:07So they said, the easiest way to do this, just run a franchise.
10:10Pay us every year, run a franchise.
10:13But that would have been seen as a moment of hardship, yes.
10:19But also, it was a great opportunity.
10:21Back then, my father-in-law said, David, this is a great opportunity.
10:25Let's go do it.
10:27So I put all my savings in that company.
10:31He borrowed money against his house to put it in this company.
10:35And my other partner, Angela Padilla, also took her share and invested in the company.
10:41These are the three people that founded Leachian Associates in 2003.
10:47That became the business we sold to Jones Lang five years after.
10:51What I learned from many clients at that time is that you have to be brave to be able to
10:56invest meaningfully.
10:58But in order for you to do that, you need years of preparation.
11:04You need to build assets in anticipation that one day, a crisis will happen.
11:11And that when that crisis is there, you have to have resources during that crisis, deploy
11:15that capital, and buy when nobody wants to buy.
11:19When companies are falling left and right and failing, you don't know which company
11:23to buy.
11:24But maybe you'll take a risk, and maybe that risk will pay off.
11:28So many people in the 80s left the Philippines.
11:31And the ones who stayed said, OK, Forbes Park at 1,800 pesos per square meter, Ayala Avenue
11:38property at 2,000 pesos per square meter, let's go do it.
11:43Did they know that things will go from 2,000 pesos to 250,000 pesos in less than 10 years?
11:51They didn't know that.
11:52But they were prepared, and they were brave enough.
11:55And then they sat it out.
11:58And I think that is the biggest lesson.
12:07Love and kindness will overcome anything.
12:14Your self-esteem is not based on what you have, what you're wearing, or what you don't
12:21have and what you're not wearing.
12:23It's about what's inside.
12:27I had many friends who didn't care that I didn't have anything at that time.
12:31And sometimes today, what's very hard is that now that I have some things, sometimes it's
12:38very hard to discern who are your real friends and who are friends that are there because
12:44they're opportunistic about the relationship they have with you.
12:48And when I look at my clients, if people think that I have a lot, these people have a lot
12:55times to the power of 100 to the power of 2,000.
12:59And it's a very different equation.
13:03But they're also asking the same thing.
13:06When they were younger, things were less murky.
13:09They knew who their friends were, and they knew who were not their friends.
13:16And at the scale of X to the power of 2,000, at that level, they're still asking the same
13:22questions.
13:23Are these people real friends?
13:25Are these people just here for the ride?
13:28And again, it just goes back to people are just people.
13:32There's one time I was in a very fancy, I won't name the name, I won't name the, but
13:39this is this family and they built one of the most beautiful office buildings in the
13:44Philippines.
13:45It's still one of the most beautiful buildings today.
13:48But I was 24, 25 years old then, and I was taking a leak in the bathroom of this very
13:57nice office building.
13:58And the owner of the building comes in.
14:01It's one of the most prominent families here, if not the most prominent family.
14:06And the guy who owns the freaking company walks in the same bathroom and takes a piss
14:10right beside me in the urinal.
14:12And I go, you know, and I was 25, I was very, very, very young and it's like, fuck, this
14:19guy is peeing also.
14:21You know, this is just regular dude, doesn't know me, so do my thing, he does this thing,
14:30you know, wash hands, go out, walk out, it's just, fuck, this guy is like so normal.
14:35He pees just like me.
14:37So it's, people are just people.