DTZ’s takeover of West End specialist Hodnett Martin Smith helped cement its position at the top of the first quarter’s London lettings league table.
In a poor quarter for take-up, the firms, which merged on3 March, were agents on 484,305 sq ft of disposals — around a fifth of the total — according to the latest figures from EGi London Office Database. HMS handled around 100,000 sq ft of that.
HMS co-founder Paul Smith, now director of West End agency at DTZ, said: “This demonstrates why the DTZ/HMS deal is a good fit. The vast majority of deals in the West End are under 5,000 sq ft. Jointly we can service the full range, which you have to do to reflect the market.”
Last year, DTZ ranked second in Q4 and fourth for the year as a whole, and HMS ranked 11th and fourth respectively.
The first quarter’s largest deal, the sale-and-leaseback to Sloane Capital of Standard Chartered’s 227,000 sq ft proposed HQ at 35 Basinghall Street, EC2, secured Cushman & Wakefield Healey & Baker second spot in the league, up from fifth in Q4.
But CBRE -which came top for the previous two years as a whole – was absent from many of the deals that shaped Q1, and ranked fourth.
The signing of 3i’s 64,000 sq ft letting at Land Securities’ Cardinal Place, SW1, at 7.30pm on 31 March came too late to push joint agents CBRE and JLL into third and second place.
Hargreaves Goswell Down, which began trading 18 months ago, made its second entry into the top 10 since Q3 last year.
