In March 2012, Darren Steinberg joined DEXUS Property Group as CEO. With 25 years experience in the property and funds management industry, Darren was the natural choice to head up one of Australia’s leading real estate groups as it underwent a dramatic transformation.
“When I joined, I sat down with the board and we asked ourselves, What should DEXUS stand for?” explains Darren. ”They’d embarked on this global strategy and theyd gone into the United States and Europe, so we asked, What can DEXUS be known for? When we looked at the strengths and weaknesses in the company, history has shown me that a strong focus can deliver the best outcomes.”
”We went out with the support of the board and we exited from those offshore marketswhere, if wed executed our strategies well, we might have been a top-10 player at bestand focused our efforts back in our home market where we know the tenants, rents, political situation, and laws, and were able to extract the most value from real estate.”
“We brought the capital back to Australia and redeployed it into the markets and assets that we know very well. Its all about good timing, and weve been very fortunate in that we exited at a good price. Then we went about systemically redistributing that capital. We were very focused in the way that we did it.”