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Transforming the Game with Kristina Katsanevas is the podcast for game-changers, risk-takers, and industry shakers. Don’t hate the player—hate the game? Not here. These leaders are rewriting the rules. From high-net-worth entrepreneurs, founders of Australia’s most iconic brands, and those disciplined enough to keep stacking those habits to success. We dive into the minds of pioneers innovating in media, business, fashion, sport and transformation.
Want to know how to break the mold and redefine success in your career, business, and life?
Tune in and start transforming the game.
Speaker 1 (00:00)
One of the largest deals I did was a two and a half billion dollar real estate M &A. Everything starts with a choice. So you can choose to either do something or become so fearful you're afraid of failing so you don't do anything. You can't do everything on your own. You need a great team and you're only going to have a great team if you're a compassionate person and are sensitive to other people's needs and desires and wants. People should have f***.
in terms of what they're doing and if they're not they need to change what they're doing and how they're doing it.
Speaker 2 (00:36)
900 million net worth, 8 billion in deals. He's the turnaround strategist billion dollar companies call when everything's on the line. And today we'll run through six simple strategies that built his empire.
Speaker 1 (00:51)
Welcome to Transforming the Game. It's such a pleasure to have you on.
Speaker 2 (00:56)
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (00:58)
So a lot of people would have heard of the name Hilton, but some might be wondering, who's this Mr. Hugh Hilton? And what am I going to get out of listening to today? So what is it that we hope people can take away
Speaker 2 (01:13)
Well, one thing they can certainly take away is that I'm not associated with the Hilton Hotel family. So that's one thing, but doesn't mean I can't be interesting and fun. I actually have run a couple of their prior, actually one of their prior hotels, which was a big, large casino that they owned up in Reno and had a chance to chat with Baron one day.
That was interesting because when I called the office, they had no idea who I was. When I said, yeah, I'd like to speak to Barron. Who is this? Hugh Hilton. They go like, I could tell they had no idea. Whoa, is this some part of the family that we never heard of? So today I think we're going to learn about how to leverage challenges and failures and to become a very successful business person.
Speaker 1 (01:50)
Long lost uncle.
I love that and that's very important. Now I have had the absolute privilege of learning from your wisdom when you do talk. As a gentleman who has done what over 8 billion in deals, your net worth is very, very, very high. You are very successful and very smart, but you're also very humble. So that's why I was very excited to be able to share you with the world today. One of the things I took away from, we had a...
coffee conversation actually at a cafe you happen to be getting coffee one morning. And you said to me, one of my takeaway was go read the four agreements, which I promptly downloaded and listened to on the plane on the way back to Australia. Oh, great. It was amazing, but I want to put that out to the world as well. So do you remember the four and how do you integrate it into your life and business?
Speaker 2 (03:01)
It was huge. One of the largest deals I did in terms of a single deal was a two and a half billion dollar real estate M &A. And one of the agreements, is don't assume things, played a critical part in the negotiation because I was worried that the person that I was negotiating with might have some ethical issues.
So instead of assuming that and being on edge the entire time, what I did is I used the first C of the six C's that we've talked about. And I said to him, I said to him, how would you like to negotiate this deal? And he goes, well, what do you mean? I said, well, we can either be ethical and transparent, or we could be deceitful and deceptive. said, I can negotiate either way equally well. You choose.
And so of course he says, well, you I want to be ethical and transparent. And I said, great. I said, now if I catch you slipping back into being a little deceitful, deceptive, I'm going to have to smack you around. He goes, no, that'll never happen. I said, great. So of course we negotiate the framework of a letter of intent. And one of the provisions is I was going to take back some paper on this transaction. And I agreed that I would give him
one three-year loan. So it comes back with two three-year loans. so I called him up and I said, remember our discussion on how we were going to negotiate this transaction? He goes, yes, of course I do. And I said, well, since we agreed that there would be one three-year extension and you put two three-year extensions in, I can only assume, since we agreed that we're going to be transparent and ethical, that your little pinky inadvertently slipped when you meant to hit one.
on the keyboard and you hit two by mistake. Is that what happened, John?" And he starts laughing. He goes, okay, you you're right. And I said, well, we're never going have to have another discussion like this, are we? And he said, no, no, never. And I said, great. So we proceeded through with the negotiation. We got down to now documenting this in a purchase and sale agreement. It was a very complicated transaction because it had a lot of different properties, loans and all sorts of things. So.
I said at the beginning, I said, now, I want to agree to one more thing before we get going on this, John. And he said, what's that? I said that we agree that we're going to have fun while we're doing this. He goes, fun? I go, yeah, fun. I don't know. I've never heard that in a negotiation concept. And I said, well, know, John, what I found is the larger the number of zeros in the transaction, the larger the probability of an asshole factor occurring. And he goes, I said, so.
you know, I want to make sure that doesn't occur. So let's just agree we're going to have fun. He goes, okay, great. And so we ended up becoming good friends, went through the whole transaction. At the end of the transaction, one of his investors backed out for $7 million. And so his analyst called my analyst and told my analyst what the problem was. so I said to my analyst, said, what do think we should do?
He goes, well, I think we should just add it to the loan balance that we're gonna carry back. And I said, so that's your solution. He goes, yes. And I said, okay, we'll have a seat. So I call up John and I said, John, how you doing? He goes, great. And I said, I understand one of your investors backed out. And he goes, yeah. I said, what do you think we should do to solve that problem? John said, well, I think you should just add the 7 million to the loan balance of the note you're carrying back. I said,
That's a great idea, John. But I said, I'm not going to add seven. I'm going to add 42 million. And he goes, 42 million. said, oh, I'm sorry. I take that back. I said, I'm going to add 28 million. And he goes, 28 million? Why would I agree to that? I said, because the guy who backed out was going to make 42 million. And I'm only charging you 28. So by the fact that he backed out and I'm only charging you 28, just made
12 million dollars. That's why he goes, okay, I like that. Fine, let's do that. And so I went back to the bank and I told the bank what happened and they just couldn't comprehend it. They just couldn't. The guy was seven million dollars short and you charge him 28 million and he agreed to it. And I said, yeah. And they said, we don't understand how you did that. And I said, don't worry, we got it done. And they said, you know, we're so appreciative.
about you doing that, we're going to give you access to any of our non-performing loans that you would like to buy from us. And I said, great, I picked one, which was a big land deal down on the ocean in Southern California. And I ended up making a 3X on that over a relatively short period of time. So it just goes to show you using how it all started off with don't assume things and then using the other C's of
choice and creativity, it just ended up with a great outcome.
Speaker 1 (08:10)
That is, it's, that's such a brilliant story. And like you say, it comes from not making an assumption to start with, but also Hugh, your mind, it fascinates me. Like, as you said, most people's were watching on, well, we just need to fix the 7 million. And what you did is you saw a whole opportunity out there. You were so creative. It actually made sense to people. they're like, okay. Yeah, sure. I'll make that extra.
And that is...
Speaker 2 (08:38)
Yeah, so you're right. Nobody could comprehend it. And that's just kind of the way my brain works. It's just very, I'm like a very curious, creative little entity. So it works with things happen that I just look back on and I go like, well, okay, that's pretty cool.
Speaker 1 (08:51)
Out of the box.
Let's let's it's more than cool. But you talked of the six C's now I know of them but let's let's run through them for people so that they can write it down and make sure that they are honing in on that in their business life and personal life I actually think.
Speaker 2 (09:13)
Yeah, it works in business, your personal life, everything. So the first C is choice, because everything starts with a choice. So you can choose to either do something or become so fearful you're afraid of failing so you don't do anything, which is that's not a great choice. So the second one is curiosity. that's really important. Curiosity and creativity are really important for a lot of people, because if you're right handed,
You're not innately curious and creative. That's something you're more analytical and routine driven. because that's the way the brain works. So it's really important if you're right handed that you consciously make efforts to be curious and creative. And I, know, a lot of my successes in business and real estate initially
stemmed out of curiosity and creativity. And the most interesting thing is when I gave a speech to like 6,000 people in South Africa with JT, after I finished, wealthiest person in South Africa gave a speech. And then somebody in the audience asked him, what is the single attribute that you attribute your success to? And his answer was curiosity. So that's really, I think just amplifies how.
important it is to be curious and creative. so the first three, the fourth is commitment. So when you start something, you need to see it through, you're going to have difficulties along the way, but there are tools to address those difficulties. And so you can see something to its end. The fifth is compassion. And that's really played a key role in a lot of my successes. because you can't
do everything on your own. need a great team and you're only going to have a great team if you're a compassionate person and are sensitive to other people's needs and desires and wants. And the last is communication. And there's a great book on that to read as well. It's called The Credibility Code. And to be effective in business and in your personal life, it's really important to be an effective communicator.
The book covers all aspects of communication from written communication to verbal communication to nonverbal communication. And then then you're once you have that and the last is listening because that's part of communication too. So you have to become an effective listener. So that's a great book to help everyone that's podcast.
Speaker 1 (11:42)
I've definitely written that one down because I'm big on communications. My thing is people are your superpowers. So I'm about empowering teams because you go to work every day and you spend so much of your life, 70 % of your life at work. So it's so important that you enjoy what you're doing. Now with all of these ventures and deals and things that you've done, you've done a lot of big turnarounds too, which means you probably come into companies that have maybe had their culture a bit ripped apart and everything like that.
Do you have any advice because I've had quite a few entrepreneurs lately coming and I'm doing some on it, but how do you get a disengaged team to buy into say your new vision? Cause you're coming along and going, right, I need to turn you around. I need to get you from here to somewhere where you've never seen.
Speaker 2 (12:29)
Right. I think a lot of it goes back to, again, the six C's. You have to have compassion. For example, when I took over a large restaurant conglomerate, one of my restaurant chains was Chi Chi that you know all about Chi Chi's. And so what was fascinating about Chi Chi's is that corporate never reached out to get any input
from any of employees. So the first thing I did is I called everybody back to corporate to get their input because they were the closest to the customer. And once they felt important and that management cared about their opinions and ideas, then everybody became engaged. And that was a really important aspect of doing it. So you need to be compassionate and you need to
listen and encourage people to be the best version possible of who they are. And you'd be surprised by just being nice and engaging and non-judgmental. That's a huge one. Non-judgmental. Because people can sense that really quickly if they're being judged. And then when they do something great, you need to compliment them on it. I mean, it just happened today where
One of my employees were working on one of our real estate projects and we had to do something regarding an access issue and we agreed to it. And then he went home and finished doing it last night and send it to the owner of the adjacent property. And so this morning I came in and I complimented him. said, hey, I was over and above. I really appreciate the fact that you did it last night because it was after hours. And I want you to understand that.
I appreciate that and it's worthy in terms of complimenting you on it. it's being an effective communicator, think, Kristina
Speaker 1 (14:23)
And also acknowledging, I love that. Effective community and just acknowledging and you need to feed the ego a little bit so people feel like they've got a purpose and that they're not coming in and just feeding the pockets of the owners. So there have been a lot of gold nuggets in here, Hugh Hilton. I really do appreciate it. I love speaking to you every time your stories just light me up and just your energy is electric. So what's a parting word?
from you to everyone of what they should do right now, once they get off their podcast listening and we can leave them with that.
Speaker 2 (14:57)
I think people should have fun in terms of what they're doing. And if they're not having fun, they need to change what they're doing and how they're doing it. always tell people, remember when we were little kids and we were playing with other little kids? If we weren't having fun, we didn't continue doing it. We just got up and walked over and started doing something else. And when I talk to people, it's so interesting.
I talked about their jobs and they're really not having fun. I'm going like, well, you need to do something different then to create some fun in your life because we're only here for a certain amount of time. And it isn't all about the money because it was all about the money. You'd be able to take it with you when you leave and you're not taking any of that stuff with you. So, you know, look to a bigger reason for enjoying your life.
Speaker 1 (15:47)
That is great. I love ending on fun because I am wholeheartedly with you. If you're not enjoying it and having fun along the way, what is the point? Thank you so much. You are so valuable. I've had such a great conversation and thank you for being on Transforming the Game.
Speaker 2 (16:04)
My pleasure. Thank you so much for having me.