Q: What market segment do you expect will see the most growth during the next year?

IM: Residential housing for the middle class lagged behind for several years, so it will continue to grow in the near future. We have acquired the land necessary to develop residential projects up to 2020. PPP hospitals are a potentially profitable segment in the near future. We hope to develop another hospital by next year but generally, growth highly depends on the particular conditions of each state. The projects we have developed allow us to reach a certain level of stability, which in turn enables us to explore upcoming opportunities without risking the company. Also, we have developed a comprehensive process for selecting the projects we want to invest in, which involves a multidisciplinary team that evaluates the viability of every opportunity.

Q: What are the advantages and disadvantages of PPP hospitals and how can this scheme be improved to incentivize investment?

IM: I believe the main advantage of this model is that from the design process onward, the goal is efficiency. Given that the design firm is also the operator, it has an interest in making the project efficient and sustainable. High-quality infrastructure goes hand in hand with optimal operations and effective tariffs, which benefit the government. Also, customer service improves because processes are supervised and errors are penalized, which incentivizes the hospital’s operative capacity to always be 100 percent. We believe the health industry is a big area of opportunity for future development in Mexico, so our goal is to participate in more PPP hospitals.

NM: Our company creates wellbeing and this is the main goal in all our projects. We focus on fostering the owner’s vision, because we believe that this incentivizes developers to constantly improve and, in this case, to have a more efficient service that is permanently available for the hospital’s customers. At the moment, we are operating two hospitals that have proven to be huge successes. The one in Tlalnepantla has provided a high- quality service since the day it was inaugured. Also, we are bidding for ISSSTE and IMSS tenders.

Q: What are your strategies and requirements for making your future projects successful?

IM: First, the top priority is to have a pipeline of new projects, which is why we have a strong focus on developing new initiatives and fostering market competition, as more supply implies more market growth. Regarding the CKD market, we believe it has matured. We are raising our second CKD and plan to co-invest with other institutions. The co-investment model has many benefits, given that both parties assume the risk together and put the same effort into making the project successful.

Our vision focuses on finding the best options available in the market. For example, we have just been recognized by the Real Estate Developers Association with an award for the best housing project in 2017. This award evaluates a project’s architectural design, execution, social impact and commercial success. This sort of recognition reaffirms our belief that it is beneficial to invest in quality, and also that we are successful in capitalizing on our past experiences and improving our processes.

NM: When Marhnos wins a tender, Mexico also wins. We are interested in housing projects, especially in areas that are well-interconnected, and create possibilities for people to live in central developments that are easily accessible and close to their workplace. Also, we put a lot of focus on the architectural design of all our projects. It is paramount for us to understand our clients’ use of environment, so we can incorporate this knowledge into the design and the materials used. We are focusing our attention on vertical developments, especially in Mexico City and Guadalajara.