Welcome. Today we have a somewhat unusual guest, not a crypto founder, but a hotel and restaurant owner from Munich who has been in the industry for over 25 years and now wants to finance part of his expansion via a security token. Christian Lehmann leads a group of companies with hotels, canteens, hospital catering and Korean barbecue in the Munich area. He started out as a hotel manager , completed a chef apprenticeship at Feincostkäfer, and over the years built up a diversified holding company. And now Tacobell is joining the fray with a license for Bavaria. What interests me about its story is not the issuance alone, but the path of a classic medium-sized company that consciously chose tokenization as a financing method, because this story is not really told in Germany so far. Mr. Lehmann, you are a pioneer and a warm welcome to our small format. So, who exactly is Christian Lehmann ? Hello, I am very happy to be with you. Um, who I am, well , I'm basically, whether I'm a visionary or not, I can't really judge. I always try to keep up with the times and look at every detail from all sides. I decided very early on to go into this industry. I was already fascinated by it as a child and used to play with my mother and grandmother in the hotel. I was often with my grandparents, uh, in various hotels, and when we were there for longer periods, uh, during the holidays at Lake Constance, I was allowed to help prepare breakfast, put out the plates in the evening, and things like that. That was the biggest thing for me, and I always enjoyed it. When school was coming to an end and everyone was thinking about what to study, I said, well, I've always wanted to do something with hotels. If I go to university, it will be a never-ending party, just like my school days, and probably nothing worthwhile will come of it . I then did some practical work in their class during the holidays and quickly found an apprenticeship with the medium-sized Swabian hotel chain that had a hotel here in Munich . And after Maritour, I started there. They were a few interesting years, tough years, because of course, when you go straight from school into working life , it's something else entirely. I always did something on the side , uh, when we were younger we delivered newspapers, then uh, stocked shelves in the supermarket, but when you're in the middle of your professional life, it's something else. I quickly realized what most people learn first during their training: how can I, in principle, make my boss's job easier ? And yes, I didn't find it particularly important that I had to learn that. However, I've realized that if you want to get ahead in the industry , you also have to know the side behind the passport, i.e., where the food is handed out. Uh, because if you don't know, then the cook will tell you, uh, for pork tenderloin, uh, culinarily, beef tenderloin. If you have no idea, uh, it's difficult. This is a bit of an exaggeration, but I did a second apprenticeship at Fecos Käfer, which then lasted another two years . Afterwards, I stayed with you at the party for a little while longer and then, uh, I got a job offer that I could say no to. That was basically a management position in the catering section of the furniture store. Mhm. I did that for two years. and then went through various stations . Um, uh, I've opened something at Augustina's . I was with Kufler for quite a while, then I was with a, uh, medium-sized company here in Munich. We had five properties and had opened a large property in Theres at a height of... The two of them then unfortunately, uh, argued with each other. That's what caused the company to go under, and after that, uh, I spent 5 years with the personnel service provider and managed the VIP area for Arena One, the caterer at the time, in the Allianz Arena . Each game with 25,000 guests in the area. That was a totally amazing experience. I met a lot of people. Probably built a good network. Yes, I started working diligently then and became self-employed in 2011. That's how things progressed. Parallel to my second apprenticeship, uh, as a cook, I then spent the holidays at Union Hagen. Mhm. I studied business administration (BWL) and completed my preliminary diploma in six semesters, as it was called back then . Today it would be my Bachelor's degree, but I stopped because when you work between 12 and 13 hours a day, there isn't much time left to study. Why did you take that step back into theory? Because I was sure, uh, now I know how it works practically, but uh, it 's like this: if you do n't have the theoretical background, uh, the studies include labor law, uh, a little bit of business administration, uh, a little is well said about business administration, but balance sheets, economics, microeconomics, what I didn't need was all that technical stuff , that wasn't really my strength. Um, labor law, well, there were many aspects that helped me a lot in practice, especially when I was self-employed, so that you're not confronted with the next person and say: "Oh, I have a knowledge gap here, I need external help again." Um, that's going to be quite exciting. Over the years, this combination of practical experience and business acumen has grown into an entire group of companies. How did this happen ? I became self-employed and took over a long-established restaurant in Munich, and I also built a hotel on the property. It was very large, and by chance, another hotel was located about a stone's throw away, 50 to 100 meters away . That was then offered to me by the owner. He saw, uh, we're doing it right next door . He only wanted to rent it out. And so I ended up staying in two hotels. Shortly after, another object was added. That was in, uh, Weer, a little outside of town. I did that with a partner . Um, that went pretty well, but uh, in the short term, when you enter into a partnership, uh, we are still uh, very good friends, but uh, when it starts, well, uh, I did this, you only did that , uh, we quickly agreed, okay, no problem at all, you continue doing it . Uh, in the meantime I had the next property in Ibersberg and yes, one thing led to another. In Swabia, something else happened, then there were four hotels, everything went very well, but it was very hotel-heavy. I also did events and catering on the side, uh, providing services for a few district offices. That was most of what we had, 35 ounces of food a day that we delivered. And then I decided, well, uh, if everything works out well in Munich , uh, we'll go to Frankfurt. We met, um, an older gentleman, let's say. uh, he had advertised his uh office tower and actually wanted to turn it into a hostel, and after the first meetings it was already clear, well, hostel only, let's do half hostel, half hotel. In the end, except for the floor where his office was, it was a four-star hotel with a restaurant and a phone booth. And we opened it in November 2019. Then came Corona, and then you can put two and two together. Uh, one received assistance for projects that were already running or had comparative figures. Frankfurt opened in November 2019. That was, uh, the first object that unfortunately fell victim to Corona. And that's when the first big pile of money went up in smoke . When they founded the holding company, I believe it was in 2015, did they already know that they would build this group consisting of a hotel, catering, clinic, restaurant, and university bistro in this way, or did it simply develop organically? That happened organically . Um, we did the catering. We also had catering services in the hotels, and we continued to develop accordingly. With Corona came a really severe disruption. The first restaurant/hotel I had was also the property I owned. Mhm. And yes, I unfortunately had to sacrifice the two hotels in Munich, so to speak, in order not to have to move back into the children's room at my mother's house a few weeks later . Tough times. Yes, well, the circumstances weren't exactly pleasant, and yes, things kept getting tighter and, well, more exciting in quotes, and in the end we had 3.6 million in burned equity. So basically everything I had built up over the years , um, has been destroyed by a smoker. Of course, there were many clever people who said, well, one could have set aside some reserves. Well, I always put the money into the next project, but nobody expects something like Corona . And in Frankfurt alone, with €100,000 rent and very small additional costs, you can roughly calculate what reserves you would have needed to survive Corona . So, there was simply no way to fight against it. Besides the hotels, they also have a pillar that probably often gets lost in the public perception , namely this institutional catering. Uh, they supply, among other things, the FMI Bistro at the TUI Munich with up to 1000 guests daily. Is that correct? Correct. So, we're still doing... well, I say "we," meaning me, but my companies and my employees are, I think, the most important support I have, because without employees I could have lots of great ideas, but do nothing . Yes, I feel the same way. And we basically have, uh, 1000, so on average we produce 1000-1200 meals a day and distribute them completely across our businesses . That part of the company chain came about; I had been doing things with Mrs. Wilhelm on and off for years before. Sometimes she produced something for me, sometimes I produced something for her, uh, then I stopped doing something , and she took it over. Uh, and at some point during the Corona pandemic, we packed lunch bags, again for the district offices. There were up to 1400 bags a day, and the collaboration was very close. She kept telling me, well, she was looking for someone to take over, she kept getting different offers, and then at some point I said, well, Mrs. Wilhelm, if you also have a profit-sharing agreement or something else, you can have a Burger King crown from me, but maybe we should talk sometime. And we were sitting in the garden of the State Office for Health and Food Safety, who had also been there for a while, and I think we came to an agreement after about half an hour or three hours, and then, as a succession in quotation marks, I took over the businesses from Mrs. Wilhelm with the holding company. Um, Mar Korean Barbecue is a whole different world. How did you come into contact with Mar Berlin and why was the brand so interesting to you ? That was actually, uh, a big coincidence. We had gone on a family trip, uh, Grandma, daughters and I, and we were in Berlin. Mhm. And then it turned out, well, Munich does n't exist. They saw that there was something Korean in Berlin, in all sorts of shades. And then I looked on the internet to see what was available. That was right when the hype or when Korea was just emerging. And then we saw, okay, there are Mary and barbecue in different places, and we were then in the KDW to look at the whole thing, the children know this from Munich also from the various Käfermeier stores, but of course the food department there is much bigger. And then we went to eat, uh, to the Korean restaurant, and ordered two or three portions. I didn't receive any of that. Before I knew it, I'd gotten the drinks and the food was gone. Then we ordered everything again and it was sensational. Oh, I have to have that too, because I saw that the two brothers, Andreas and Sebastian, were looking for a franchise, a new website, and I just went in as I was, like, hello friends, how's it going? Is your boss here? And then, by chance, Andreas was actually in the store. I waited a moment, he still had something to do, and then we sat outside for about an hour and a half or two hours, talked, and got very close very quickly and almost agreed. Three weeks later I was in Berlin again. Then, when I was back in Munich, I founded a new GmbH (limited liability company) and started looking for a shop. Craziness. That went very quickly indeed. That went very quickly because the concept, um, is also one that grows organically and now has around 22 or 24 branches throughout Germany. I have three branches in Munich and a ghost kitchen where we basically just prepare food for delivery services and send it out. Yes . And I would say that the partnership has also become a friendship, and I hope that we will open many more beers in Munich. I think we definitely have room for seven or eight people here in Munich, and then we just have to see what's happening in the surrounding cities. Mhm. Yes, it's definitely very exciting. Um, with CL Bayern GmbH you then set up a holding company for the Tacobell project. What does this step mean for you strategically? Because now you really have a very wide range of options. That's correct. Um, Corona was a lesson for me, in quotes. Never stand on just one leg, preferably on 27. Mhm. Um, and if you look at our environment now , uh, the next crisis is coming, whether it's a disease, a war , no oil, uh, no gas, uh, a volcano erupts, the sun doesn't shine, something uh serious is happening right now in every corner of the world. Mhm. And that gives us just another uh, pillar of our business. Tacobell is something I've always wanted. I'm like a little child in that respect. If I want something, uh, then I'll keep ringing until I get it, in quotation marks. I did n't quite manage that with Tacobell. I've been trying to get a foot in the door there for 20 years. I tried everything via Rammstein and made contact there . I wrote to them in California , at their headquarters, but I never got anywhere. And last year, so to speak, I fell for Facebook again. Mhm. Uh, there was also a "here you can be a franchise" section, and there were questionnaires to click through, and then a few suggestions came up about what you could do as a franchise, and Tacobell was one of them. Of course, I immediately got in touch with Rimond Rossleben from Franchise Focus, who organized the whole thing for Tacobell here in Germany, these tenders. Yes, and that's how I came to Tacobell, and we first met in a video call in mid-November, and well, it's going to take a while before we get a response . Yes, a few days more or less doesn't matter . That was on Tuesday. On Friday he called me to ask how things were looking for a video call the following Tuesday with America and London, because the headquarters is in London. Yes . And in mid-January this year, I was already in London with three other franchises for the first kickoff, and basically, yes, I then got the franchise license for Bavaria. And Taco Bell is something that, when I flew to America, the first thing I did was either look for Taco Bell at the airport or, if we had the rental car, we drove to Taco Bell, because it 's completely different compared to German fast food and a great alternative. Yes, and if you are so convinced of it yourself, then the project should hopefully be very successful, at least we hope so. Well, at least for you, Mr. Lehmann. Um, let's get a little more specific about how the path to tokenization, to the security token, actually came about. What did the banks say to you when you arrived and presented your idea ? Well, uh, the banks, uh, I have a main bank uh that I work with and also uh a second bank that uh simply financed the purchase uh for Mrs. Willim because of the structure . Um, well, we lost a lot of ground during the Corona pandemic. Given the loss, you can imagine, uh, what the balance sheets and figures looked like . Um, the negative equity in the holding company is now gone, except for a few small euros. Um, and if they then go to the bank and say, "Hello, it's me again, and I need some more money, please. I have a really great idea." Um , they don't even need to bother , because the regular banks don't lift a finger anymore when it comes to restaurants, hotels, or snack bars, unless they have so much small change to collateral that it's no risk for the bank. So they had to look for or explore alternative financing options. And what was your first encounter with tokenization? How did that come about? I had already done something similar, not with tokens, but with private capital, and offered a reasonable interest rate. But on the scale I needed, it's a bit difficult with private individuals because they naturally say, "Well, I need some kind of security ." It's a great idea, though. But if it goes wrong, my money is gone too, so to speak, and I can't get that much from you . Hmm. And then I did some more research and got in touch with, uh, Sven Büchel, who's based in Malta. Hmm. And yes, we had some good conversations, and it was like stepping into the unknown for me . I mean, I had absolutely no idea what it was. I had an idea of ​​what I'd like, and that was pretty much where I needed to go, and then I really had to learn a lot about all these things: blockchain, tokens, profit participation rights, uh, Barfin . So, I met Mr. Büchel shortly after I started talking to Tacobell, and well, it's looking pretty good. Uh, now we have to do something. This will take a little while until we need the first money. And yes, then we developed the securities prospectus together . We did the whole thing through the holding company , which will probably scare off a lot of people, who will say: "Yeah, look Take a look at the numbers, they're quite okay, but Krefo Schufer, that's all not great. "There's still an entry somewhere." I mean, of course, after Corona, that's clear; you can't make up for that so quickly . With Corona, we in the gastronomy and hotel industry were automatically downgraded after the first three weeks, even though nothing had actually happened yet . The first 100 points were gone. Unfortunately, last year my accounting department left me, and as a reward, I received five moving boxes full of mail—opened, unopened, unprocessed. That, of course, had a domino effect, which isn't exactly positive for our public image. But, looking at the development now, the numbers we have, I think we don't have to hide. And because of everything we've done , we said, okay, to make it an incentive for investors , so that it's not a complete gamble . Tacobell can work, but it does n't have to. I'm sure the whole thing will be... Let's talk about the ceiling. We've structured everything around the holding company with its subsidiaries because, of course, we have quite a few different business segments, and this is a deliberate design choice. If something goes wrong somewhere, the others can compensate without causing a total loss. So, let me briefly clarify two things. First, for those who don't know, Mr. Sven Büchel is the managing director of Van Sterling in Malta, and they, in turn, are licensed here in Germany for the Buffin product through Black Manta. Just so people can understand that this isn't just some random Malta product thrown onto the market, but rather something that 's properly secured. Thank you again for being so honest with what you've just presented , including the fact that the situation isn't always easy, and isn't necessarily easy at the moment either. Do you see yourself as a pioneer in this field? Especially regarding tokenization? Are you aware that this isn't yet the path typically taken by traditional German medium-sized businesses? Yes, I'm aware that I 'm a pioneer in this area. I only became aware of it when I started looking into all these things. Just wondering if the comma was placed correctly in the advertising brochure and if the sentence would have a different meaning if the regulator had said, "Yes, but that could also mean something else, please rewrite it." And I saw that there are many people in this field doing this kind of thing, but they only have one idea. That is, I'm developing—I don't even know—a car that does n't run on cooking oil, but instead I put lettuce in it and it can run on lettuce, to put it simply. And they raise money for this idea in this way. So, basically, with all these tokenized financings, they're making a bet on the future. I'll take 1000, 2000, I don't know how much, and that could amount to something . But if the salad doesn't power the car, then I'm just out of luck. With us, it's like this: we're a tangible product, you can touch us, you can see us, you can wash us, and taste us, so to speak. Um, we're not exactly a surprise; we're already on the market and are now trying to raise money for a project that I think has a very promising future . In Germany, we currently have a situation where the market is changing very rapidly, and if you, as a restaurateur or hotelier, don't react quickly, then the lights go out. When I took over a new hotel in Munich's Obermenzing district over two years ago, we renovated—the restaurant— to a high shine, turned everything upside down, and if you don't set a goal and say, "It has to be up and running by then," then you're simply burning money. And I said, I'll look at the whole year It's about the restaurant business. If that works, great. If not, then we have to do something else. And this year, let's just say, was n't so great financially, but I knew that . But after a year, we reached a level where I said , okay, just a little more, and then we'll be in the green, or breaking even, or even making a profit, and I said, fine, then we'll do this for another six months. And it continued steadily in that direction, as it should. And last year in April, May, with the same performance , the same customer—we did n't change anything on our end—the business collapsed. Simply due to external circumstances. People started saving money, and delivery services are getting bigger and more aggressive. Because, let's be honest, if I have the same food delivered to my home, a) I don't have to dress up, b) I can watch TV, sit on the couch, and drink my cold beer from the fridge, which costs me, in quotes, €1 instead of € 5. And there That's just the way the trend is going. So I said, okay, uh, it's being scrapped. We'll still do breakfast for the hotel guests, coffee, cake, and drinks for the hotel guests or from outside. We've remodeled the kitchen a bit and turned it into a ghost kitchen for Ma. That's going well, it's steadily increasing, and that's where it's fun. But right now, the situation is developing so quickly; if you don't react, uh, it's going to be difficult. And now, uh, we already had uh, the war in Ukraine, which has n't affected us economically that much yet , but people have become more cautious. And now, uh, with the catastrophe in the East—there's no other way to describe it—uh, people are even less willing to spend money, everything is getting more expensive, and uh, people are looking for an alternative. Of course, with all the institutional catering, uh, which is partly subsidized by employers or government agencies, uh, we're already way ahead, even at schools. If a child can eat for €6, uh, Mom can try hard at home, but it won't work. So, it's simply difficult in terms of food prices. More and more people are turning to alternatives, or they want something cheap and quick, but even if it's supposed to be cheap, they still expect quality. And with the two concepts we're working on, the one that's already up and running, we really have excellent quality. And they get a complete meal, uh, with either rice and a salad and meat, or the same thing baked with potato slices and meat on top, for just under €10 or up to €12, depending on whether they choose chicken or beef. And Taco Bell is also in a similar price range. The quality is really excellent. Yes, I can see that's what people are looking for. Yes, they're 100% convinced that this will work out in the food service sector. You can hear that in their voices . Now we've moved a bit away from the tokenization story, namely from what our community might still like to know about this area. We're talking today about... Not consciously about the product itself yet, but um, what I'd still be interested in in this area, um, in the preparation for the security token. Um, what did you learn about crypto and blockchain that you were n't aware of before? Basically everything, it was like a check in the box or a black hole for me. So, it was actually an area I hadn't dealt with at all. Um, I knew about it, in quotes, uh, yes, from NTV, from the newspaper, government bond, in quotes. Mhm. Um, and now what I'm about to say is probably completely wrong again. It's not a bond, but a profit participation right. But in principle, it comes down to the same thing. Um, you have to be careful not to say anything wrong or confuse things in this area . Yes. Um, but it's a completely different product than a classic bank or corporate financing. Mhm. Did you also meet other medium-sized companies in this area that... do they have something similar planned, or have they already exchanged ideas with other companies, managing directors, who approached them and said: " Listen, Christian, what you're doing is absolutely crazy." Um, does anyone have any experience with this? I actually only exchanged information with one person. This is one of the franchise colleagues from, uh, Frankfurt, who will be active in the Frankfurt area . And I told him he noticed . That's also where I made contact with Sven Büchel. I do n't know if and how far they've gotten , because he focuses more on private equity, so he's basically taking a different approach than the others. Mhm. And so I haven't actually met anyone who does things the way I do. So you see, it was pioneering work after all. Yeah right. And yes, I always rely on my gut feeling. So, if it's important to me, when I see the other person, get to know them, talk to them, then it's either a good fit or not a good fit, because I basically say I only do business with someone I like . Mhm. So, if I say, wow, no, that's a real ah, no, let's leave it at that. I wouldn't go out for a beer privately, in quotation marks, and then have to meet someone, be it a landlord or something else, that isn't for very long . But if it's not fun and is a chore, then I'll pass. But that's actually how many investors think when they do n't like the product and the people behind it. And that's why we're doing this today, so that people can get an impression of them and form an opinion; otherwise, they wo n't invest. Yes, that's also the case in the Web 3 community. Um, you just brought up something very important. Uh, many projects we've encountered in the last, well, almost 7 years that I've been in the business, have only been able to implement what they said they would: an idea, but no actual product. And that's exactly why I find it so exciting to be talking to you here today , because you have something solid behind it. And that's something, um, that not many products can launch, as they usually live off an idea. Um, I don't know how involved they were in setting up the security token, or how much they took over for Van Sterling. But if they could ask something of German politicians or of the Barfin to make this path perhaps easier to follow , what would it be? So for us, uh, it was actually the case that, uh, in terms of the way things went, uh, that we didn't really come into conflict with the regulator, i.e., with the Barfin . We prepared this together. Uh, Büchel and I, he of course has all these regulatory things, because he has experience, uh, knew what to look out for . Mhm. But the whole content and number idea, I had to put that in quotation marks regarding taxes. Um, in this case, it was actually surprising to me how quickly it happened. We submitted on December 29th and 31 working days later we had the Genigur Mhm. Um, Mr. Büchel also said that he had never experienced anything like it so quickly. But I also said that this is probably because, uh, we simply had or have a product, uh, that already exists, which is not based on some idea that needs explaining, uh, where you can say it has to work this way or that way, but okay, uh, here are numbers, uh, no forecasts. That's how it is . We can access, uh, track record. We have the sales figures, we have planned the sales figures. Even now at Tacobell, we can draw on a total of 9000 branches, in quotation marks. We based our calculations on the English figures, and that made it tangible for us, but also for the gentlemen or ladies at Barfin who processed it; it was tangible and, above all, comprehensible. So you are currently completely satisfied with this area. I am actually surprised and pleased in this area , although I actually believe that a lot of things are over-regulated here. Just look at all the Basel regulations, from one to something, when ordinary mortals want or need money, and see what they have to do and show for it compared to the past. It 's understandable in this day and age that there needs to be a control mechanism to prevent any shady dealings. But I think, uh, if one could say that one is making the whole thing easier for the end customer , mhm. It will be very advantageous. And also, uh, with the banks, I have the feeling, um, that they are more concerned with, uh, making money somewhere. Whether it's through stock transactions, currency transactions, or options, the focus is no longer on the end customer as it used to be . Basically, if you have a lot of money, you have to pay penalty interest. If you have money, you won't get any. But they are not really welcome as customers who do work . That's the good thing about my, uh, local bank. Uh, that's a savings bank. They really make an effort, they take care of you. Um, but they are also, so to speak, trapped in the regulations of Basel and say, okay, we can't do that, because we meet one of eight criteria. Stupidly said. Yes, thank you very much for this honest assessment. Um, maybe one final question: if we were to disagree in 5 years , I hope we might talk again before then to actually discuss the product. But what would you like to be able to tell ? Well, I'd like to tell you, uh, that I have a bunch of uh satisfied, happy investors who got what uh was at the top end of the scale we offered. And from that I naturally conclude that our project, uh, went really well, just as we planned it . Mr. Leemand, I certainly wish you the same in principle. Thank you so much for taking the time to speak with me today. I hope that the community sees it as well as I do, that they view the whole project positively, and that we receive appropriate feedback, and then I hope that we might have a separate call about the product itself . I would be very pleased if I could then present that in more detail. I'm curious to see what kind of response there will be and whether people will warm to the product or to me . I will, uh, yes, I hope very, very positively. They definitely come across as very likeable. That makes me very happy . Thank you very much for the conversation. Thank you in advance, and hopefully see you soon. M.