Michał Białas, former Corporate Clients Director of the Polish Santander Bank, is Heading to Accolade to Lead its Further Expansion in Poland

The Czech investment group Accolade successfully headhunted a distinguished Polish bank manager, Michał Białas, to be in charge of Accolade’s industrial real estate investment projects in Poland. In his position as Corporate Clients Director in Bank Zachodni WBK, a Polish branch of the Santander Bank, he was responsible for relationships with clients operating in the real estate market in Poland. His new role will be focusing on Accolade’s existing projects in Poland as well as the Group’s further expansion in the country. Accolade currently owns four industrial parks in Poland with a total leasable area of more than 150,000 square metres worth 95 million euros, which is over 2.5 billion Czech crowns or 400 million Polish złotys.

Michał Białas, former Corporate Clients Director of the Polish Santander Bank, is Heading to Accolade to Lead its Further Expansion in Poland

“Michał Białas will play a major role in taking care of Accolade’s investments in Poland currently worth almost three billion Czech crowns and he will also be tasked with searching for and completing further investment opportunities in the Polish industrial real estate market,” says Milan Kratina, CEO of the Accolade Group. “Given the forthcoming expansion, we believe that Michał's extensive knowledge of the Polish real estate market will be an invaluable asset to Accolade,” adds Kratina.

“I spent nearly a decade working for Bank Zachodni WBK. My career started there, so joining Accolade is a big deal for me. I was responsible for financing corporate real estate projects in the bank. I take this experience with me to Accolade. And I expect the portfolio of Accolade’s projects to successfully grow with my help,” says Michał Białas, Accolade’s new Country Manager for Poland.

"We have worked together with Bank Zachodni WBK and with Michał on our project in Szczecin, where Accolade revived a brownfield left after a wartime Messerschmitt factory, which was later, under socialism, replaced by a cable works. He is a great professional and a great person," says Lukáš Répal, Head of Asset Management & Acquisitions, who remains generally responsible for the management of Accolade’s activities in Poland.

Michał Białas has until now been Director of Corporate Banking in Bank Zachodni WBK, focusing on financing real estate projects - office, retail, industrial and residential. Previously he led a team of several real estate specialists in the Bank, where he started his career as a junior real estate specialist seven years ago. In 2014, he won the Property Project of the Year Award for managing the financing of the Q22 office skyscraper in Warsaw, which was later chosen by Deloitte to be its Polish base.

Currently, the Accolade Group owns industrial parks in Szczecin, Bydgoszcz, Lublin and Mińsk Mazowiecki in Poland. Their tenants include Oponeo, which is a leading Polish tire and rim dealer, Pierce, the largest Swedish online seller of motorcycle parts, equipment and clothing, Svendsen Sport, a major supplier of fishing equipment based in Denmark, or DB Schenker, DPD and Rohlig-Suus, providers of logistics services.

The type of the portfolio of tenants held by Accolade in Poland is slightly different from that in the Czech Republic.  Accolade’s Czech tenant portfolio comprises companies operating in ecommerce and in the automotive and engineering industries, such as the manufacturer of warehouse logistics technology KION in Stříbro in the west of the country, or DHL, which provides logistics and aftermarket services to Sky Deutschland from Accolade’s premises in Cheb, or Tchibo, whose ecommerce business is based in Cheb right on the Czech-German border. In Poland ecommerce and suburban logistics clients prevail among Accolade’s clients, thus making the Group’s portfolio of clients more balanced in sectoral and geographical terms.