Key Takeaways

  • Louis Hiemstra is the head of legal at Atterbury Property and focuses on finding solutions that benefit all parties in a deal.
  • His current focus is securing the best new development sites for the Western Cape and Gauteng teams.
  • Atterbury is also disposing of mature assets to provide capital for rolling out their development pipeline.
  • A key lesson he learned early on at Atterbury is that all partners must get enough upside for a long-term deal to succeed.

Louis Hiemstra, head of legal at Atterbury Property.  What does a typical ‘day in your life’ unfold in this position?

I am not sure the phrase “typical day” and Atterbury exist in the same context! The best part of working for a company like this is the unstructured entrepreneurial way that we do things. The legal role, within the larger corporate services team, is to find a way to make the deals work in a way that it benefits all parties involved, which isn’t always easy. We work hard and pride ourselves on finding these solutions for our business and our stakeholders.

What will be your focus for the rest of the year and going into 2023?

2023 certainly seems to be the year where the green shoots following a particularly challenging period are starting to show. We have a very healthy development pipeline which is coming out the ground and we have a number of significant new land positions that we want to lock up.

Our focus for the second half of this year is to make sure that we have secured the best new development sites for the Western Cape and Gauteng development teams to exploit. On the back end, we also have a number of mature assets that we are in the process of disposing of, which, although we will be sad to see them move to new hands, will provide us with the capital needed to roll out this pipeline.

How does your expectations compare to reality?

I obviously expected a significant change coming from a Sandton corporate law firm to Atterbury but reality has opened my eyes to what it means to truly belong to an organisation that prides itself on employee welfare and the welfare of the community which makes it successful. Atterbury’s steadfast commitment to empowering its employees to become the best versions of themselves is genuinely motivating. Our ongoing support of people less fortunate than ourselves is inspiring.

I honestly haven’t felt the Carte Blanche Sunday Blues once in the last 7 years!

In your career so far, can you share an “aha” moment, when a learning made a big impact on the next step that you took?

My “ah ha” moment came in the first transaction that I worked on at Atterbury. Having come from a far more aggressive environment, we were partnering with a landowner where I quickly saw an opportunity to get us the upper hand and I did my best to try and achieve this, thinking that this would impress my new colleagues. Louis van der Watt quickly explained to me the difference in how Atterbury does business and that no partnership can ever work over the long term if the deal doesn’t give all parties enough upside, irrespective of whether the other party doesn’t realise it up front. That moment really opened my eyes to how responsible business ought to be done.

Tell us about the professional persona Louis Hiemstra.  Where did you study, what was your first ever job, your first proper job and what path did your career take from there to where you’ve started at Atterbury?

Much to my colleagues irritation, I am a born and bred Joburg’er. I grew up outside of Fourways on a plot which is now home to Steyn City. My first job was in farming, aged 7 – not really being one to get my own hands dirty, I managed to convince my friends to grow veggies on the plot which I would then neatly package and flog to our parents, at Woolies prices.

I studied at Stellenbosch for 5 years and then took articles at a small firm in Houghton and from there made my way to one of the large corporate firms in Sandton, where I met and worked with Ansu Kretzmann (who was also working there but is now head of legal for Atterbury Europe). She somehow managed to convince Louis van der Watt to take a punt on me, and the rest is history. 

Tell us a bit about your personal life and what you are passionate about.

I am passionate about my family and my wife and my efforts to help our kids grow up and hopefully giving them the right opportunities to achieve their full potential.

I am deeply passionate about South Africa and helping make it great place to live and raise a family. Like most South Africans, I love sport probably a little too much for it to be healthy.

If you could be a professional in any industry, what would it be?

Golfer. Someone has to come 70th, right. Might as well be me.