I’ve spent my whole career challenging conventional wisdom and creating my own playbook. You can’t do that unless you understand the rules of the gam… - Sam Zell

I’ve always valued long-term relationships, but John Hsieh, the former head of Itel’s container leasing business, taught me that you simply cannot succeed in-country without them. Hsieh had extensive international experience and contacts. He took me under his wing, and we traveled the world meeting Itel’s customers and suppliers — from a cocktail party in Rotterdam with British and German customers to a dinner in Hong Kong with a Chinese shipping company. The deep relationships he had with his customers enlightened me. I learned that the extreme degree to which you rely on strong personal relationships is perhaps the single biggest difference between doing business in the emerging markets and the U.S.

In other words, the UPREIT established a methodology for large holders of real estate to create liquidity without triggering a taxable event, as long as the holders didn’t sell their shares.

There’s a line from an old movie, Wheeler Dealers: “You don’t go wheeling and dealing for the money, you do it for fun. Money’s just a way of keeping score.