Many successful entrepreneurs, including those who specialise in property investing and development, come from a diverse range of careers and some have little or no professional qualifications. This month’s interviewee does not fall into that category as Tatiana Preobrazenskaya and her husband Sebastian are both actuaries by profession.  

“Our (professional career) backgrounds are in capital management and risk management,” was Tatiana’s response to my initial question about their careers, and these are not professions that I hear often being quoted when I talk with SME property developers about themselves and their projects.

“We are not big fans of stocks and shares for our own investments due to a lack of having direct control but with property development we felt we could invest in something that creates and adds value. The other important factor for us is that property investments can be easily leveraged and as such returns can be greater, when the projects are successful.

“However, once we started with our own investments we realised just how ‘cash intensive’ property projects are and also the need for having cash when we wanted diversification. When applying a planning uplift strategy, you are very much at the mercy of the local council and the planning department which can be an unpredictable and slow process.

“That led us to conversations with friends and work colleagues about the process and that resulted in a group of five individuals who invest with us in our development projects. They are all very experienced professional people that we know well and have worked together with over many years. They understand risk and that property development is not always a completely predictable process. For us this is very important, that our co-investors or partners understand the risks that they are undertaking with each project and also that what is being invested is ‘not their last piece of bread’.”