Few South Africans have lived the commercial real estate business like Marc Wainer. Wainer founded and built JSE-listed Redefine Properties into one of South Africa’s most respected real estate companies.
Now, his new book, Making My Marc, Lessons from Life in Property, lifts the veil on the inner workings of South Africa’s property sector and shares insights into how to survive and succeed in this dynamic and highly competitive market.
The book paints a portrait of a man driven by his passion and aptitude for business and the love of his family. It shares Wainer’s successes, and his mistakes and setbacks too, taking you through his ups and downs, revealing how he turned challenges to his advantage and, through valuable partnerships, transformed his weaknesses into strengths.
This memoir of Wainer’s business life, told through career milestones, takes a candid look at the events that shaped him from his childhood as the son of grocers to the present day as Executive Chairman of Redefine Properties.
With mentors playing an invaluable role in Wainer’s outlook, approach and achievements, Wainer pays this mentorship forward and shares the important lessons he’s learned along the way - lessons that can be applied not only to real estate, but business in general.
The result is a revealing glimpse behind the scenes of some of the biggest deals in South African commercial property, and insight into the man who sealed them.
From Hyprop Investments’ acquisition of Canal Walk to Redefine’s monumental battle with Growthpoint Properties over Fountainhead Property Trust, Marc reveals an insider’s perspective on the motivations, strategies and tactics that have made South African business history.
Based on hours of interviews with Wainer, as well as interviews with his business partners, colleagues, friends and family members, Tudor Caradoc-Davies has written an account of the risks and rewards that define the life of an entrepreneur, his roller-coaster rise to the top of South Africa’s property industry, and how he has taken this sector forward into fresh, unchartered territory with his common-sense approach to deal-making.
A must-read for any aspiring property mogul, business leader and proud South African, the book isn’t only an engaging look inside one of South Africa’s largest, most successful property companies, but also a roadmap to business success and personal fulfilment.
Wainer’s story is instructive and filled with lessons about people, deal making, character, leadership and values.
In presenting his memoir, Wainer shares this wish and gives you valuable tools to see you along the road to achieving your ambitions.
