Interview with: Petros Machas, Founding Partner, Chairman

1) What do you see as the main points that differentiate Machas & Partners law firm from your competitors?

At Machas & Partners we are rewriting the model for a full-service law firm in Greece, serving our clients locally according to international standards and in compliance to the sector’s globally acknowledged best-practices.

Our practice is focused on serving both corporate and private clients in the broad spectrum of their legal affairs.

Our core purpose is to become an accelerator for change in the Greek legal community, providing our clients with the service they deserve, in terms of quality and timing, and creating true and measurable value for them by our legal advice and insight. We strive to grow, together with our clients, and the best way to achieve this is by creating value and enhancing the prospects and the impact of the matters we handle for our clients.

We believe that the roots of a company are its culture. As a law firm, we have developed at the opposite of the “family business” model. With all that entails. Our recruitment is done through open, transparent procedures, and this is a principle, a characteristic of our law firm that represents where we stand. It is our stable goal to invest and attract excellent partners and associates – qualified lawyers; you need their many years of experience and deep knowledge of legal matters and law, but at the same time you also need new, fresh minds, lawyers who have the drive and willingness to work in the legal field, to learn and at the same time to forge new paths.

Uncompromising ethical decision making, integrity, diversity, respect for our clients, colleagues, communities and profession and always putting the client’s best interests first are not only distinguishing characteristics; they are the core values of our firm.

We are deal-makers, not deal-breakers. Machas & Partners’ cohesive core team has experience of working together and a proven track record of delivering successful and efficient results for clients. We use this experience and approach to find new and better ways of solving challenges and moving past transaction impasses. Our attentive promptness ensures clients’ transactions move forward; our industry knowledge of deal structures and region-wide market expertise in cross-border transactions keeps them from leaving money on the table or exposing them to unnecessary risk. Anyone can assess risk or state a position; we find solutions for our clients and get deals done.

On the other hand, let’s not forget that our clients are people who trust us with their real estate, their shares, their business, their savings, their future, important parts of their lives. For this reason, if the mission of a law firm – which for us is to successfully respond to the needs of our clients – is not translated into specific measurable results, then our mission is as if it does not exist. This is the reason why we like to say that we are a unique business, based on law, in order to make a living but we also need effective management to succeed and grow. That’s why we have invested in tools and infrastructure to not only ensure sustainability, but above all, to achieve prudent management and profitability, which will reflect not only the company as an organization but also each individual partner as an active participant in corporate success.

And as a business, we equally need strategy and measurable goals to be able to first, record and evaluate what we have achieved, and second, to redefine and set the next tangible goals that will get us where we see ourselves in the future.

 

2) Which practices do you see growing in the next 12 months? What are the drivers behind that?

Greece’s geographical and geopolitical position has always attracted international investors for business ventures, as well as high-income private investors to invest in Greece. However, in recent years, the Greek market has been a pole of attraction for investors with an emphasis on the hospitality sector and the real estate market, but also in the energy and infrastructure sectors, as well as for start-ups and innovative entrepreneurship.

It is a fact that investment from foreign buyers has increased in recent years, allowing many to realize their dream of owning a summer holiday resort in Greece. The five-year residence permit through the ‘Golden Visa’ program adopted by Greece helped in this direction and accelerated the procedures and continues to attract interest despite the increase in the minimum amount of investment. It is estimated that 1 billion euros have been invested in the overall real estate market in Greece since the start of the program in 2013. In the same environment, there is a significant interest for luxurious residential properties in unique locations in Greek mainland and the islands from national and foreign high net worth individuals.

In the midst of this investment wave, we would say that our company has “ride the wave” as the surfers say in their language. And it is important at the given time, to be on the cutting edge of this wave.

Our company with our dynamic Real Estate team has contributed to the development and successful completion projects of national importance, most notably the project development of the Elliniko project, which the largest urban development project in the modern history of Greece. Upon the completion of the privatization, our firm with the deep experience in the area is successfully representing a significant number of purchasers of residential properties in the landmark Marina Tower and the prestigious Cove Residences. At the same time, we have a long history of cooperation with Israeli real estate companies or individual investors, playing a catalytic role in the development and exploitation of business opportunities in Greece for the benefit of our clients mainly in the sectors of hospitality and other commercial real estate.

In addition, our company’s specialized corporate transaction teams (Corporate and M&A, Banking & Finance and Capital Markets, Start-up & Investment Funds, Energy & Project Development) manage domestic and complex cross-border transactions of acquisitions, corporate transformations, banking transactions and regulatory issues concerning financial institutions, private and bank financings, development of renewable energy projects and other infrastructures, but also in general, investments in start-ups or innovative businesses, with a high degree of specialization and a “business oriented” approach to create goodwill and generate compounding effects in every transaction. We anticipate that M&A market will be shaped by notable private acquisitions or divestments involving reputable private equity firms in various industries and sectors proving the capabilities of Greek market for selective growth, while leveraged acquisitions are expected to mark a rise especially through the deployment of RRF funds. At the same time, venture capital investments in innovative start-ups will reach their peak and alternative investment structures will increase their penetration across all sectors of the real estate market with particular focus on logistics and sustainable commercial buildings.

Looking ahead to market trends as they take shape and the opportunities they create, one of our strongest points has been and is the strong, strategic alliances we have built over the years. By winning and deepening trusting relationships with our customers, we aspire to be by their side as valuable and reliable business partners. To identify on their behalf the best possible opportunities in the market and guide them reliably and safely in their investments, giving added value to their cases.

 

3) What’s the main change you’ve made in the firm that will benefit clients?

Our firm strengthened its administrative structure with specialized and highly experienced professionals from the market in the fields of Planning/Financial/Performance management, HR, Communications and Marketing.

So now, we are in the position of assessing the performance of each department and attorney vis-à-vis each client including in particular assessing the aggregate time for the completion of the engagement and the efficiency of our services. In the context of the application of this process, we have increased our response times by addressing any delays in the engagement processes in respect to our clients’ time and investment. In that respect, our firm has introduced various flexible remuneration schemes proving our confidence to our work’s results as well as our dedication and trust to the success of our clients’ ventures through the alignment of our interest for a smooth, efficient, responsive and effective collaboration. That’s why Machas & Partners appropriately staffs matters and guarantees meaningful Partner involvement and personal attention to transactions at cost-efficient rates.

Recognizing that effective lines in communication are essential for establishing a clear understanding of expectations, we have established direct communication channels with our clients. To that effect we ensure that all clients have direct line access to the Partner responsible for their case as well as any Associate lawyer actively involved in the various assignments. In this way we ensure that the supply of legal services to the client is partner-led both at client service level and day-to-day management as well as that any urgent matter will be addressed in a timely manner.

 

4) Is technology changing the way you interact with your clients, and the services you can provide them?

Digitalization and technological innovations are changing the way businesses communicate with our clients, making the relation faster and highly customized. A decade ago, communication with customers was limited to phone calls, letters, and emails. Today, with the rise of AI, IM tools, and social networks, interactions with customers have become faster, data-backed, and highly personalized. We are facing a digitalization process that is evolving faster and faster, caused by the rise of technologies ever more refined and, at the same time, by a change in the behavior of clients.

One thing is certain, there will always be a need for legal services. Less certain, however, is the way these services will be bought and sold moving into the future. Much like every other service provider, law firms are at the behest of the client.  At Machas & Partners it’s crucial that as a firm we put all our efforts into differentiating ourselves in the legal market and from our competition by carving out a niche. To that effect, we have been one of the first Greek law firms to integrate AI-powered software solutions in our transactional practices that have already proven to accelerate our legal research and enhance the analysis and depth of complex contractual documentation leveraging on the intuitive access to a vast volume of precedents and data and allowing for better contextual understanding and reasoning achieved with its machine-learning functions and predictive capabilities.

The pandemic has assisted us demonstrate that our business model and firm offers efficiency and production of world-class work product that ultimately results in significantly greater value, benefit and satisfaction for our clients when compared to our competitors. These conditions have reshaped the traditional operational approach of the law firms, but have not retracted us from the personalised approach in which address every single client and case. That being said, technology has made our operation more robust allowing the instant and collaborative interaction with the client from any place at any time and have allowed us to expand our cross-border practice and close several transactions without in-person meetings.

We have also commenced with some long-lasting clients the trial operation of a smartphone application which provides a useful interface for the continuous progress update of on-going projects and the notification of pending actions.

 

5) Can you give us a practical example of how you have helped a client to add value to their business?

There are various ways to generate value for a client that commence from the legal reassurance of their legal interests from adverse implications of an investment, which we concern the minimum value of our services. Far beyond that, we approach our role as intermediates with an innovative and entrepreneurial mindset of fairly aligning interests with a view to assisting in the creation of new opportunities or additional value to existing ventures. In that respect, there were several occasions that we have identified the possibility of commercial transactions between sophisticated counterparties contributing in the serendipity factor of business opportunities which would otherwise have not been brought into the purview of neither of the involved parties.

A practical value enhancing mechanism with remarkable success for significant clients has achieved in several occasions by way of the legal and operational restructuring of their enterprises with the use of holding structures and intra-group commercial agreements upon the identification and segregation of different lines of business or flows of revenue. These restructurings intrinsically enhance the overall return of the investment and simultaneously provide opportunities for transactions concerning a district segment of the overall business which generate an overall value greater than the sum of its segregated components.

Another way of adding value to our clients is our constant involvement in transaction origination processes through opportunity identification in various sectors. This has become available through the expanding network of esteemed clients that has allowed us to confidentially identify potential synergies and facilitate unique and disruptive transactions that leverage the market impact that can be generated from such operational, financial, strategic, technologic or other market synergies. This process enables serendipitous encounters that not just add value, but unlock hidden potential or latent value amplifying the impact of value creation efforts by catalyzing positive feedback loops and ripple effects.

 

6) Are clients looking for stability and strategic direction from their law firms – where do you see the firm in three years’ time?

Definitely. There is no substitute for comprehensively understanding clients’ businesses, industries and the markets in which they operate.

Machas & Partners, having a proven track record of successfully guiding clients through different business cycles, and expansion into new business lines and markets gives them the confidence that a lawyer is an advisor that can be trusted with their core business. Clients know that our experience in representing many industry leaders throughout Greece in their particular sector enables us to provide advice and offer innovative solutions to solve business challenges that result in successful outcomes for strategic decisions, especially in unchartered waters or frontier markets. In many instances, the need for strategic direction and the clients’ confidence and trust that we can deliver with the proper guidance is the very reason they engage our firm.

Most of our client relationships are long standing and have been in place for over a decade; they have been nurtured over the years by a meticulous level of personal attention and detail born out of a sincere desire for the clients to succeed personally and professionally. The ongoing and increasing strength of these interpersonal relationships is evidence that we value our clients and always put their best interests first, which is a core value of our firm.

Regarding Machas & Partner’s position in 3 years’ time and potential expansion, our carefully vetted network of trusted colleagues has been selected and integrated into our firm; we will continue to refine this network as necessary, as we mandate working with like-minded individuals who share our commitment to ethical decision making, diversity and respect for our clients, colleagues and profession. Sacrificing adherence to these principles for expansion is not an option; we are extremely selective in both our internal hires and external clients with integrity, energy, intelligence, and lateral thinking mindset being of primary importance. We will continue to be guided by these principles in the future to concentrate on our growing clientele and industry sectors with a particular focus on banking and financial services, energy, infrastructure, technology, and hospitality sectors as well as on the innovative and disruptive ecosystem of start-ups and venture capital investments.

In the forthcoming three years, we see Machas & Partners Law Firm as maintaining and further expanding an exceptional track record of successful outcomes for our clients in the corporate and M&A, banking & finance, high-net worth individuals, energy, project development and real estate practices, as well as in litigation and white-collar defense, built by an unwavering focus on the firm’s distinguishing characteristics and values mentioned above. Our law firm’s integrity, flexible remuneration structures and innovative attitude will provide tremendous and exponential value making it a marketplace model for client satisfaction and establishing its prominent position as a market-leading firm in unprecedented, impactful, market-making and disruptive transactions concerning all major industries and sectors as well as in dispute resolution.