♪ haslinda: hello. i am haslinda amin in singapore. his love of modern art has made him one of the most prolific collectors in the world, and with his passion for design is hoping to create a real estate revolution. jose roberto is today's high flyer. his fortune was built on properties that has given him access to celebrities.

antonio has their own trump tower in downtown manila. antonio's father founded sentry properties, but it is robbie hoping to take the industry to a whole new level. ♪ haslinda: roberto antonio, welcome to "high flyers." what is the inspiration behind the revolution? jose: i have been doing real estate for a long time. haslinda: because dad was a real estate developer. jose: yes, i grew up in that environment. i really wanted to disrupt the space. i understand the obstacles,

issues, pain points of the industry. a traditional real estate developer, a high capital expenditure game. i owned land, inventory, getting construction, getting massive amounts of people to sell your product. i wanted to be no inventory, built on demand. it is very site-specific. to have global ambition, ubiquitous, and present everywhere, i needed an idea of transportability, so i started to investigate this notion of prefabricated products, and i saw it was a fragmented industry. haslinda: when was the eureka moment, the lightbulb moment? jose: the eureka moment was trying to disrupt that space and make it more interesting and

sexy. prefab existed. it is a banal topic, not so pleasant looking homes not so desirable. the challenge was how do you make it interesting and get the level of desirability that people love it. haslinda: prefab and luxury don't go hand-in-hand at all. jose: in fact it is an oxymoron. haslinda: what were the initial challenges you faced? jose: the position is different. to do that, who designs? an architect. if i can convince the world's best architects and designers to do this for a wider array of people, then i am doing something good and the company is doing something good because it is about end-users, how you

feel about your home. haslinda: what was your pitch and how did you convince the first to come on board? jose: i started with the most difficult ones. it is easier to convince others when you go for the most well-known ones, right? so i had to aim really high to begin with. haslinda: that was? jose: we feel blessed to have her design this. for the other homes, other pritzkers. one is doing spaces, prefabricated museums. it is this race to convince people and try to produce this expeditiously.

haslinda: why aren't they convince this can work and take off and be a billion dollar company? jose: it's more the naysayers saying, will this work? i think people see the potential, and those are the people backing us right now. haslinda: unlike entrepreneurs and startups, you come from money. your dad is one of the biggest developers in the philippines. when you started out, you refuse to get funding from dad. why is that? jose: i wasn't trying to make a statement. i was not trying to force a business on other people. haslinda: did he buy into the idea? jose: very much so. it is a different shade of product.

if we can fill a point in a market and there is demand for something desirable at the right price, i think we are hitting something close to someone's heart, right? haslinda: do you see the risk in this business? what risk do you see? are you comforted by the fact there is a safety net? jose: i have to succeed. there is no other option. it is not just the optics. it is about trying to disrupt a space. i am inspired by other people. i am inspired by airbnb, who has done it for the hospitality space. to truly disrupt an industry is a task or ambition, and to do this globally is even bigger,

but i realized very quickly that you need to think large, as much as we like to serve southeast asia, we would like to serve the world, but very strategic. i call it three phases of geographical expansion. southeast asia, asia in general , middle east and europe, and america as well. ♪ haslinda: you come across as really ambitious. why are you in such a hurry? jose: that is my personality to begin with. ♪

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haslinda: robbie, revolution precrafted was born in the philippines, but you want to take it global. where are you in the journey? jose: we launched 2015, it really in the design fair, really wanted to show the art and creative aspect and reposition the homes and the company as an object of art. the most expensive purchase a human being has ever is the house, so we wanted to make it desirable. it has been close to two years since then, and we have closed 11 developmental deals, central america, throughout asia. we are an almost two years start up, but we have had fortunately some good success. haslinda: financing always the big issue for startups,

including four revolution. who else are you looking in terms of investing and how much are you looking to raise? jose: 500 startups, about 1700 companies. haslinda: they came to you. jose: other sovereign funds, family offices, even real estate entrepreneurs see the vision and what they could achieve in terms of cost savings and really positioning their land bank and their master plan differently given the products we have, which is beyond homes right now. haslinda: you come across as really ambitious. why are you in such a hurry? jose: that is sort of my personality to begin with. i'm always thinking how to become -- it is, i am it forward thinking individual, personally and

professionally -- you have to have a clear roadmap to achieving it because you can't just take it one day at a time. haslinda: all entrepreneurs go through -- what would you say are the biggest challenges you had to overcome to get to where you are today and what you perceive to be the challenges of the future? jose: the challenges, and it is still challenging, it gets easier with two things, right? we are almost an i.t. company. we have 61 of the best architects, designers, product designers, celebrities relevant creating spaces. we have global exclusivity with all of them in over 100 types of products. one individual can do 2-3 types of products for us, so getting the first two, first three, the most difficult. after you have major names, you are able to do that, and

obviously it is a roadmap. so financing in general, look, you have a company like grab, amazing company. my friend just closed a round of $6 billion. he is super focused. you see the same dna and entrepreneurs that you talk to here as well, that forward thinking nature, extreme focus and ambition to try to achieve everything, try to remove all obstacles. haslinda: you have worked with the architectural world and the designer world, yet some people are still not convinced that they should be on board. who are these people, and why not? truth be told. jose: truth be told, i would love to work with frank --

geary. he is busy doing the louis vuitton museum in paris. i have written to him and reached out to his team. that is still a journey for me. we are working with six pritzker prize architects, just one per year since 1977. the first one was philip johnson, who has passed away years ago and the but we are working with his firm philip johnson alan ritchie. it has been really inspiring, and for me it's not working, it is sharing that expense with the end-user. i love collaborating. i collaborate with the end-user in mind.

the true value is when someone lives in that house done by a pritzker prize architects for such an accessible price, no one has had that goal and been able to do that. haslinda: has there been concerned that such projects worth $300,000 may cheapen the value of the product? jose: it started with the average of $300,000, thinking my reference was america, looking for less expensive on a per square foot or per meter basis, these of the the high end designer prefab companies. when you are doing things in asia, i had to go lower. i'm trying to average $70,000 now and cater to the mid-markets or mass market, and to do that you have to be cost-effective and budget conscious. i don't think it is dilution. if people thought that was the case, they would not have signed up for it.

i think it is a good thing, not a bad thing. think about it. if you are able to live in the designer home -- listen to the music of lenny kravitz and love his style, now you can live in a home he designed. ♪ haslinda: i want to take you to project obsession. jose: which part? haslinda: you have commissioned artist to draw portraits of you which are now hanging in your home. ♪

♪ haslinda: robbie, four boys in the family. you are one of the four. how was it like growing up with the three brothers? jose: four is a big number, and make it four boys. haslinda: was it a rowdy household? jose: at one point there was

three of us in one room, and that was fun. i miss those days. we are now in a different setting, much older people, and we worked together in the family business as well, so that is an interesting evolution of relationships, but we remain a close-knit family. haslinda:, pride to say that the you found a sense of freedom and independence. jose: yes, that is a very fair statement. i would say being emancipated and having freedom is one of the best feelings. i wasn't interested in the best consulting firms. i wanted to be an entrepreneur, and i grew up in real estate. i wanted to do something, but do it my way in terms of different shading.

i think my journey and my challenge is something not so easy. that is my impetus. that is what drives me. it is trying to prove it to myself because it is so difficult to achieve. i would like to take that journey, that first step, and let me figure this out and if i fail, i in the only one to blame. i did a great project in new york, five years, moved back to the philippines because of the high gdp growth rate, because it is an emerging country. it used to be a sick dog of asia, labeled as such, but now fastest and southeast asia in terms of gdp growth. haslinda: it is no secret that you love art. you are obsessed with art. you are self-taught when it comes to art. jose: yes. haslinda: how did that come about? jose: first i am interested in -- firstly, i am am interested in reading and learning. i am an inquisitive individual.

it is not about collecting for me. it is about learning art history. haslinda: you are a huge collector and go to every high-profile auction, as far as i am told. jose: ok. it is also work for me, right? i work with artists. i guess i love doing creative projects, and for me to inject creativity or whatever i have and to absorb that from other people makes the entire process action exhilarating. haslinda: what is it about art that inspires you and got you hooked? jose: seeing the journey is interesting, and it is interesting who will make art history, right? what will shape artist x from y?

i like to take mental notes for myself, and it is really learning who made the impact in history, because whether design, fashion, it is how you take creativity or even the business and take it to a whole different level. i would love to see that journey and support them. haslinda: it is also an investment? jose: yes, it has to be a calculated investment. that is why there is so much research. we do research on pricing, on provenance, who owns this, we where they are exhibited. the same philosophy has led me to do this in business as well, right? it is really taking an artist out of his realm of taint and sculpting and taking it to design a house, and taking a fashion designer who is used to doing a great shoe or

gray clothing for men and women, to make him or her interior design something. that taking out of the comfort zone, i want to be part of the journey of creativity. haslinda: i want to take you to project obsession. jose: what part of that? haslinda: every aspect of obsession. you have commissioned artist to draw portraits of you which are now i guess hanging in your home. what is the thinking behind that? why did you commission artists to do that? jose: first of all, i love collaborating with artists and creative people. haslinda: we are talking about dozens of portraits. jose: it could have been a different subject. it could be a topic on you or a watch, but to be as subject of an artist is the most creative part about it because you have to act and react and there is this dialogue that inspires me for creating things, so that was

something i was thinking as a factor for deciding that. haslinda: where you curious about the interpretation of robbie antonio? jose: i was intrigued how x or y would portray you. that was interesting to me because i had to pick one subject, so it had to be something i was knowledgeable about. if you don't know yourself, that is a problem, and help people perceive that because they do have to paint. haslinda: do you see yourself as a role model or inspiration for others? jose: i don't see myself as a role model, but i would love to inspire people. the concept of entrepreneurship, i would love to elevate the philippines to be a more tech-savvy and really try to bolster culture, right? why do more pritzker museums.

there is a dearth of that, right ? why all these designer homes? because nobody is doing that. if you can do that in the philippines in southeast asia will try to do that for the rest of the world. if that inspires people, that is the sharing part. ♪ haslinda: roberto antonio, thank you for being on "high flyers." it has been a pleasure. jose: thank you. ♪ retail.

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