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“Every country I have ever worked in has had its unique circumstances and challenges. He goes on to add some insight into the pros and cons of working in Malta. He provides a simple example: “If you are in the main square of a European city and within a five minutes walking proximity you have a totally abandoned, neglected area – as lower Valletta was in our case – that is the definition of a goldmine.”Īs a UNESCO-protected heritage site, Valletta is a “very business-friendly environment”, and a “remarkably exciting” place to invest in real estate, says Mr Tzvetkov. “What we have achieved in regenerating some of the lower parts of Valletta in the last 10 years, is what we have done for the last 20 years or so in other countries abroad highly successfully I might add.”

#Dr valletta professional#

It’s a book and you just need to read it and apply it – we don’t try to re-invent the wheel, we only implement the best international practices, at the highest professional level. There’s absolutely no genius, and no magic in it.

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There lies the potential for the investors we have a clear vision of how to untap that potential.”Īsked whether his long experience in the sector helps in the identification of market gaps, Dr Szephalmi replies, “Real estate development, urban re-development… This is not an art, it’s a profession. Compared to the likes of other historic walled cities, Valletta is still underserved and undervalued. “As a foreigner, however, I also see the enormous gap between Valletta and its Euro-Mediterranean peers. We like to believe that we had quite a significant part in this adjustment. Mr Tzvetkov adds: “A recent study done by EY, quite rightly, placed Valletta as the most valuable real estate per square metre on the island. It was unique, and Malta’s capital city, but yet it sat at the bottom of the Maltese property market – it didn’t take much to realise this made no sense, and it was this investment opportunity which brought me back out of an early retirement.” “When I first arrived to Malta,” says Dr Szephalmi, “I visited Valletta it was different to the rest of the island. Large scale property development projects within culturally and historically sensitive locations is a trend which is clearly important to the two seasoned real estate professionals.

VBL Group executive director and CEO Geza Szephalmi (left) and CFO Julian Tzvetkov (right)

We spoke to two of the key figures behind VBL to learn more about their experience of investing in Malta and their vision for the future of Valletta.īoth Julian Tzvetkov and Geza Szephalmi, the group’s CFO and CEO, effortlessly convey their long professional backgrounds in finance and real estate, which seem to have touched most corners of Europe and beyond. He joined IZA as a Research Fellow in February 2007.VBL Group, the owner of Valletta’s largest private portfolio of real estate, is offering the Maltese public the opportunity to be a part of its journey in what it envisions to be an exciting “true equity success story” with its plans for expansion. journals in labor economics (e.g., Journal of Labor Economics, Industrial and Labor Relations Review), and in European journals including Economica and the Review of Income and Wealth. His published work has appeared in general interest journals such as The Review of Economics and Statistics, leading U.S. His core research agenda has focused on topics such as job mobility and job security, unemployment, income inequality and poverty (including cross-national comparisons), and the effects of employer-provided health insurance on labor market outcomes. Valletta’s research is in the areas of labor economics and applied econometrics. degree (1982) from the University of California, Berkeley, and a Ph.D (1987) from Harvard University, both in economics.ĭr. In addition, he spent a year (2000-2001) as a consultant at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) in Paris, France. Prior to that, he was an Assistant Professor of Economics at the University of California, Irvine. Rob Valletta is a Research Advisor at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, where he began working in 1995.