Outsourcing company Amcroft has brought in Insignia Richard Ellis to help target corporates across Europe.
Property services company Amcroft, set up this year by developer Arrowcroft and business services group Amey, will announce next week that IRE is to join the team.
As preferred property adviser and financial solutions provider, IRE will help bid for outsourcing contracts ranging from sale-and-leaseback to facilities management.
Martin Samworth, chief executive of commercial markets at IRE, said: “We recognised the obvious synergy between ourselves and Amcroft. We consider Amcroft to be an exciting new venture that adds another dimension to our financial services and corporate advisory divisions.”
Earlier in the year, Amcroft lost out to Land Securities Trillium on the £500m BBC portfolio and is now expected to target lower-level deals.
Arrowcroft chief executive Nicholas Hai said: “We are not focusing on the huge PFI-type deals and would not position ourselves as a competitor to Trillium or Mapeley on the billion-pound contracts. We will be looking at the next stage down, on deals worth around £120m.”
Samworth added that IRE would step aside on bids or approaches where mandates with existing IRE clients might exist. “We are in an ideal position to deliver operational and financial solutions to Amcrofts client base,” he said.
The consortium is searching for a managing director to deal with the day-to-day running of the business across Europe. Amey group director John Robinson said: “We intend to expand. We saw this as a business of the times before the economic downturn hit and now it is even more a business of the times. It takes the pain of managing property and services out of the corporates hands and reduces costs.”
EGi News 17/11/01
