(upbeat music plays)
- [John Portman] Portman Holdings is a development,
investment and management firm that focuses on large scale,
complex urban projects.
My name is John C Portman IV, President of Portman Holdings.
My grandfather, our founder, our late chairman,
John C. Portman Jr., founded the company
as an architectural firm in 1953.
I wasn't sure that I wanted to join the family business.
My father, my grandfather, Ambrish,
They were kind enough to say, well,
why are you looking elsewhere?
You know, why don't you consider coming here?
- [Ambrish Baisiwala] John was an invaluable partner
to have in the company.
That's why I was very keen that he come back
and join the business.
My name is Ambrish Baisiwala,
which is a real mouthful,
and so most people just call me A.B.
And I'm the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
of Portland Holdings.
We've spend a lot of time trying to build an organization
that's a very flat organization,
and so it's a very small team.
Everybody is empowered and very encouraged to kind of
speak their views and thoughts
and if they have a point of view
then to kind of debate that.
So ultimately my role really is to first of all make sure
that we have the best team possible.
So Portman, basically in partnership with Georgia Tech
developed an office building called Coda,
and because of Coda, Anthem basically approached us,
and they said that they wanted to be inside that building,
but we did not have enough space inside the building
for them.
(upbeat music plays)
- [John Portman] Phase two has been under construction
for several months now.
It's now starting to go vertical
and come out of the ground.
It will also be a modern looking tower
in the heart of Midtown.
And they've been great in the sense of underwriting
the entire construction loan,
which is not a small loan,
syndicating whatever they needed to syndicate and freeing
up additional capacity and room for Portman
for other projects.
- [Ambrish Baisiwala] If they commit to something
they've always delivered and if something changes,
they've always managed to figure out a solution
that is satisfactory to them
and it solves our issues as well.