Dubai Real - Episode 3: Inside The Deal | Brian Rose

Episode 3 of Dubai Real: at Atlantis The Royal, Brian Rose tours a penthouse, then pressure-tests the deal behind it with an investor who has skin in the game. 💰 Source hot AI deals in our Investment Club https://lr.academy/ai-investment-club/?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=shownotes&utm_content=43349109&utm_campaign=ic 🏦 Invest in luxury Dubai property https://lr.academy/property-investment-g/?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=shownotes&utm_content=43349109&utm_campaign=pc 🍿 Watch the full interview with chapters and transcripts for free https://londonreal.tv/dubai-real-episode-3-inside-the-deal/ Chapters 0:42 Lessons from 15 years of interviews 3:10 Why Dubai gets stronger under pressure 3:40 Arriving at Atlantis The Royal 5:01 Touring the Royal Atlantis penthouse 7:15 Great properties versus great returns 8:13 Stress testing the deal before committing capital 9:25 A late-night call with investors 10:16 Meeting investor representative Toghrul Mahmudov 11:06 Why Dubai's luxury market is booming 12:12 How the SPV structure works

• 0:00Speaker 00

  Last week on Dubai Real,

• 0:05Speaker 00

  I stepped inside an ultra-luxury mansion on Billionaires Row and got a glimpse of how the ultra-rich really live.

• 0:12Speaker 01

  Your home says everything about you. With Dubai, you need to stand out.

• 0:18Speaker 00

  Now, time is running out. Decisions have to be made.

• 0:22Speaker 01

  Without exaggerating, I think Dubai is the center of the universe right now.

• 0:27Speaker 00

  The pressure is building, and there's a lot of money on the line.

• 0:34Speaker 00

  This is Dubai Real.

• 0:42Speaker 00

  For the past 15 years at London Real, I've sat down with some of the most extraordinary people on the planet: billionaire investors, special forces operators, world champions, cultural icons. I wanted to understand what creates greatness, so I studied them: how they think, how they operate.

• 1:05Speaker 02

  Every day, suffering, being broken, duct-taping my feet up, stress fractures, shin splints. This is my new norm. So then your mind starts to get tougher and tougher. But if you get through it, on the other side of that thing, man, is a whole nother world that very few people know exists in your mind.

• 1:25Speaker 00

  And there was one trait I saw again and again: resilience.

• 1:32Speaker 00

  They never quit.

• 1:34Speaker 03

  People always ask me, "What should I concentrate on?" "What's your advice for me going to BUDs?" I'm like, "Don't quit. Don't quit. Like, train hard, don't quit."

• 1:44Speaker 00

  But that's not the whole story, because the best of them don't just survive adversity. When things get dark, when most people break, they perform even better.

• 1:58Speaker 04

  But if the worst thing that happened to you becomes the best thing that happened to you.

• 2:03Speaker 00

  They are anti-fragile. When put under stress, they get stronger. And I didn't just learn that. I lived it, against all odds, from my kitchen in East London to building a global media business, taking risks, leaning into uncertainty.

• 2:25Speaker 00

  This comfort and fear is an arrow. It's here. It's... This is where the gold is.

• 2:32Speaker 00

  Getting stronger under pressure.

• 2:36Speaker 00

  At some point, it stopped being a strategy. It became who I am. I ran the Iron Man and turned the demons from my past into the fuel of my future.

• 2:47Speaker 05

  It's not what happens

• 2:51Speaker 05

  to somebody, it's what they do as a result of it.

• 2:57Speaker 00

  I stepped into the ring, thinking I would be destroyed,

• 3:02Speaker 00

  only to learn how to face my fear. Ryan, the OG, bro!

• 3:10Speaker 00

  Because crisis leads to opportunity, and I started seeing it everywhere: in people, in systems, even in cities.

• 3:21Speaker 00

  Some break, some survive. A few get stronger.

• 3:27Speaker 00

  Dubai is one of those few: financial crises, pandemics, geopolitical shocks.

• 3:37Speaker 00

  They didn't break this city. They made it stronger, because that's where the real money is made: in what gets stronger under pressure. And today, I'm here: Atlantis the Royal.

• 3:51Speaker 00

  Bold, unapologetic, built to endure.

• 3:57Speaker 00

  And I'm here for a reason: to decide if this next opportunity is worth backing,

• 4:03Speaker 00

  to meet the people behind it, to look beyond what shines on the surface.

• 4:09Speaker 00

  Because I need to know if this is real, if it's been tested, if this opportunity, like this city, is truly anti-fragile.

• 4:34Speaker 00

  This is what I like about Dubai: everything feels effortless.

• 4:40Speaker 00

  The detail, the safety, the service.

• 4:45Speaker 00

  It all feels natural, almost invisible.

• 4:50Speaker 00

  But underneath, there's precision.

• 4:54Speaker 00

  Everything is engineered. Everything is intentional.

• 5:02Speaker 06

  How are you?

• 5:02Speaker 00

  Good, how are you, man?

• 5:03Speaker 06

  A pleasure. Welcome.

• 5:05Speaker 00

  Dude, this is a serious place here.

• 5:07Speaker 06

  I know we came to do business, but we need to take in this view, right?

• 5:12Speaker 06

  We're in the penthouse of Royal Atlantis, designed by Eli Gamberg.

• 5:19Speaker 00

  I heard the ruler paid attention to, like, every single detail, because this is like the marquee showpiece for Dubai.

• 5:26Speaker 06

  This is his baby. Everything is here.

• 5:28Speaker 00

  Didn't they have Beyonce perform at this place when they opened it up and they paid her like 25 million bucks or something crazy? She splashed out of a fountain.

• 5:35Speaker 06

  The opening ceremony was from Beyonce, exactly.

• 5:38Speaker 00

  Damn. This is ultra-luxury.

• 5:40Speaker 06

  This is.

• 5:40Speaker 00

  This is the best of the best at the top of the top.

• 5:43Speaker 06

  I'm gonna show you around.

• 5:44Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 5:44Speaker 06

  Okay.

• 5:44Speaker 00

  Cool, man.

• 5:46Speaker 06

  I want you to look at all the details that have been put into this property, fully customized, all the furniture. I think you have about a million dollars with the art pieces, statues, art on the wall. On that side here, you have the full open ocean view.

• 6:04Speaker 00

  So you got these double water views,

• 6:07Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 6:07Speaker 00

  which is kind of unheard of in any other place, right? It's really a Dubai.

• 6:10Speaker 06

  They get one or the other.

• 6:12Speaker 00

  So when you tell your friends, "I live at the Royal Atlantis",

• 6:18Speaker 06

  I mean...

• 6:18Speaker 00

  it means a lot.

• 6:19Speaker 06

  It means a lot.

• 6:21Speaker 06

  Luxury comes from the location. It's not just about the finishing details or the art or the furniture. It is where are you in the city that makes it luxurious?

• 6:31Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 6:32Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 6:33Speaker 00

  All right.

• 6:35Speaker 06

  Now let's go to the master bedroom.

• 6:40Speaker 00

  Like, what makes the ultra-luxury master bedroom? What does it have to have?

• 6:44Speaker 06

  You need to have a large wardrobe. You need to have a large bathroom space. And you just need to have like a small seating area. You need to have, and of course, like, you need to have this beautiful, like, feature wall behind the bed with a custom bed. You know, this is the art and finesse of building a luxury property, actually.

• 7:02Speaker 00

  So it has to feel ultra-luxury and nice, but also feel like it's home?

• 7:06Speaker 06

  Of course, because nobody wants to live in a resort. You know, it doesn't make sense.

• 7:15Speaker 00

  So, look, this place is gorgeous. And the place you showed me on Billionaires Row, I mean, that's gotta be one of the most stunning super villas I've ever seen. But I think it's time that we slow things down a little bit, because, you know, great properties don't necessarily make great returns. What I've found through 15, 20 years of investing, it's the structure that actually makes sure you get those incredible, incredible results for your investors.

• 7:43Speaker 06

  No, you're right. I mean, look, that's the reason why when we started Highgate, the first thing that we did was sit down with the top private equities and also the lawyers that are working within DIFC to create the perfect balance of structure to ensure that we give direct ownership to the investors to protect them. And the de-risking mechanism besides the financial structure is ensuring that we target projects that are in that 50, 60, 70% range.

• 8:11Speaker 00

  Yeah, because what I've found is that, look, in all these perfect scenarios, you know, we can think about making 50, 60, 70, 80% returns. And you never know what's gonna happen until you can really stress and stress-test an investment. And that means you've gotta have the structure. You've gotta understand what happens when the market goes down.

• 8:28Speaker 06

  Yep.

• 8:28Speaker 00

  When schedules get delayed, when materials prices go up. And that's what I need to know before we commit capital. We've been doing this for five years now. Deployed over 25 million dollars in capital for our investors.

• 8:40Speaker 06

  That's great.

• 8:41Speaker 00

  And the reason they trust us is because we go deep into the detail, deep into the bottom line. Look, I love flash, of course I do, and I love a beautiful property, but if it can't make it to the bottom line, then obviously, we can't touch it. I wanna see what you guys have done. I wanna see that this structure is bulletproof. And if you can show us that it is, I think we can keep talking.

• 9:07Speaker 00

  Time was running out. I had to make a decision before the opportunity slipped away. But something didn't sit right. I couldn't move forward with only the developer's vision.

• 9:20Speaker 00

  I needed another perspective.

• 9:25Speaker 00

  That night, I got on a call with all my investors. They were ready to move, now. But this couldn't be rushed. We had to step back and think carefully about how to allocate capital. What we needed was another perspective. So I asked Chris to set up a meeting the next day with an investor representative, someone with real skin in the game on the other side of the deal. He agreed to introduce me to one of his key players: Togruel Mediev, a seasoned real estate player with a powerful global network operating across multiple markets, connecting investors with real opportunities.

• 10:04Speaker 00

  But he wasn't just another operator. He had built his reputation by consistently delivering at a high level. And in this business, you're only as good as your last deal. So, first of all, thanks for the time. Really appreciate it. My pleasure, my pleasure. You know, it's it's interesting when you invest in a lot of projects like we have over the years, you find out over time that kind of the founder or the manager, the person involved is really important. Because I think sometimes you don't even invest in projects, you invest in people. And so, I wanted to ask you, what's it like when you try to explain this to your investors, the people that you know to put money into these projects?

• 10:49Speaker 00

  How long have you known about this niche? And, you know, how does it compare to, you know, luxury off-plan property? Because that's something that we all hear about. But as Chris said, that's something that's maybe a little less predictable. So, kind of curious, you know, your thoughts on this market as a whole? Luxury market, I would say, post-COVID, for the past four years, is really booming. And the reason for that is the wealth and the millionaires and multimillionaires and billionaires are moving to Dubai. But we had an issue in Dubai.

• 11:21Speaker 06

  Didn't have quality finishing. The idea of transformation like luxury houses, it's not something new, but in this level what Chris does, and I haven't seen this like anywhere, to be honest with you, because he pays attentions into details. He literally like transforms them and make them like trophy asset. And this is what these people need. So I've seen that and I saw the value in it and I said, and it caught me in.

• 11:53Speaker 00

  Can you tell me something about the investors that trust you with their money, that trust your advice, you know, what's their appetite for risk? You know, that kind of thing. I'm curious.

• 12:03Speaker 06

  They wanna enter the market and they wanna make the most profit at the least amount of time. You can make it in all flat.

• 12:12Speaker 00

  But what really caught my attention was the structure behind the deal. It was set up as an SPV, a special purpose vehicle. In simple terms, a separate company created for a single investment. Everything sits inside of it, the asset, the risk. If something goes wrong, it stays contained. It doesn't spill over to the other investors. At the same time, everyone owns a share of that structure, which means they directly own the deal. Cleaner, safer, more transparent, simple to set up, made to scale. The perfect structure for this type of deal. Intentionally designed, built to perform.

• 12:55Speaker 00

  How long do you think we have, how many years until, you know, this kind of gets arbitrage out to where more people see what's going on? You know, what do you think that window is? Is it one year, two year, three year, five year?

• 13:08Speaker 06

  Cannot predict the future, but I always look at data, right? So if you look at data now, ultra luxury segment, like mansions, like huge villas, they are probably 3% of the supply of the wise market. So looking at that number, I think that says a lot of things. So it might take quite a lot of time. So we're still early.

• 13:31Speaker 00

  Let's talk worst case scenario.

• 13:33Speaker 06

  Okay.

• 13:33Speaker 00

  You know, people in the West and in America, you know, they think this is a dangerous place. They say, okay, the market can't go up forever, you know. I don't know. How do you feel about the risks? And how do you quantify those, you know, to your clients?

• 13:47Speaker 06

  The only risk here is it might take a little bit longer to sell the house if the market shifts and that can happen. The real estate market, especially ultra luxury segment, it doesn't drop like, I mean, it's affected the last when the crisis hits. It's not like stock market, it's not crypto market. And again, the target audience is completely different segment of people, right? So it's ultra wealthy people. We both know like when the crisis happens, like which, which people they get richer, right? So.

• 14:20Speaker 00

  Yeah, and they keep standing too.

• 14:22Speaker 06

  Yeah, exactly.

• 14:23Speaker 00

  Especially on things that they need, like a home. I went through the entire deal, point by point with him. And I had to admit, the structure was designed not just to withstand volatility, but to benefit from it. It was anti-fragile. And this is exactly what we do at London Real Ventures. We go deeper, we ask harder questions, we test every assumption before we allocate capital. Because access alone is not enough. You have to understand exactly what you're investing in. So was everything ready to sign? Well, that's what we're about to find out. Next week on Dubai Real.

• 15:06Speaker 00

  Time is running out. We have capital ready to deploy.

• 15:11Speaker 06

  When we do business, we like to keep everything discreet.

• 15:16Speaker 00

  Now we have to decide if this is the right deal. What we've seen here is some incredible, incredible growth in the luxury and ultra luxury area of Dubai real estate.

• 15:29Speaker 00

  Do we move forward or walk away? Because once we commit, there is no turning back. So I had a long call with my investors last night and there were a lot of questions and there were a lot of concerns.