Career change Nadia Elghamry speaks to four industry figures whose employer, job title or even career has changed as a result of the recession
Setting up his own company
Kenny Allan remembers the day he was made redundant all too well. “I was gutted, I just didn’t see it coming. We were a profitable team,” he says.
Now, sitting in the central Birmingham offices of KGA, the firm he set up earlier this year with Richard James-Moore from Lambert Smith Hampton, Allan reflects that he should have struck out on his own years ago. But at the time, it was a very different story.
In November, after nine years with CB Richard Ellis, Allan was told he was no longer head of its Birmingham industrial team.
The 30-day consultation that followed was a tough month for Allan – one in which he had to deal with the strain of losing his job, as well as the shock of his father suffering a stroke. “It was a pretty traumatic time. Everyone tells you not to take it personally, but at the time it felt it,” he says.
The Birmingham market rallied around Allan, and, in the new year, he set up KGA.
The idea is to become a niche industrial player, firmly sticking to the leasing side, with possibly some development thrown in, but leaving rent reviews and property management to the specialists. KGA has said “no” to as much work as it has said “yes” to because, as Allan says: “The first 30-40 instructions are important as they will say what KGA is all about.”
By the end of the year, he expects to have enough stock in hand to be turning a profit – although that may not include a salary.
It is a tough time to strike out on your own. Allan admits that, after he received his redundancy payout, he could have given up work and gone travelling. But when people started telephoning, it changed his mind. “I could have said to them, ‘The market’s crap and I’m going around the world for 18 months. Do you mind ringing me with your business then and we’ll do something?’ But you can’t do that. You need to share the pain.”
The one-year-old development company
Bob Tattrie found himself back on the job market when, after 15 years as director at Alfred McAlpine, the company succumbed to a takeover bid by Carillion in 2007.
He describes being shocked, but adds: “Having been through the 1990s market, I’d already preconditioned my brain that something would happen one day, that the market couldn’t carry on the way it was.”
After working for major corporates all of his career, including McAlpine, Tattrie thought he would like a go at building his own firm. “We’d only just seen signs of the recession biting, and I thought there were some good opportunities to pursue on the development side,” he says.
In Feburary 2008, Tattrie set up Birmingham-based Trebor Developments. “I literally left McAlpine on the Friday and started on the Monday,” he says.
It was not long before he was approached by Horton Estates to form a partnership and, by September of that year, Trebor Developments became an LLP – just as the full force of Lehman Brothers’ collapse hit the market.
Tattrie’s response is stoic: “You lower your aspirations. I just kept thinking, ‘Remember what it was like in ’91.’ You learn you can’t take a five-minute view.”
Twelve months ago, Tattrie’s one aim was to survive. A year on, and the company has made a profit and put together a three-year business plan based on gradual growth via joint ventures. Requirements are thin on the ground, but Tattrie says land still presents a huge opportunity, and he is keen to use this to position the company for the upturn.
He says he is frustrated about his company being small and new. “When you’re working with the public sector, you have to provide three years’ worth of accounts and offer discounts, despite the level of service we can offer,” says Tattrie.
The secondment
For William Martin, the name of the company on his business card changed but the firm paying his wages stayed the same. Martin has worked at Knight Frank for 20 years, heading the consultancy team.
At the start of this year, however, he was approached by Lloyds TSB’s business support team to do a two-year secondment. “I saw the market would be turning down quite markedly and any turnaround would be bank-driven,” he says.
He was right. Last month, news emerged that Lloyds TSB is reportedly looking to dispose of a £33bn loan book. Martin was one of a number of surveyors brought in as support to the bank’s regional network.
Day-to-day, Martin’s job remains largely the same because, as he says, property problems are similar whichever angle you are looking at them from.
But taking a secondment is a risky strategy. How worried was Martin that, once he left Knight Frank, it might realise that it could do without him? “Of course, it crosses your mind,” he says, “but this secondment is relatively longer term. I see it as an opportunity to bring back to Knight Frank the turnaround skills I am now involved with.”
The career change
Redundancy can bring time for reflection and reassessment of what you want in life. Simon Quantrill lost his job as office partner at Knight Frank in September. “The signs had been around for a while. I’d been at Knight Frank for 12 years,” he says.
Quantrill says that, after being made redundant: “I spent 10 days getting my head clear. I was offered other jobs, but I didn’t want to go straight back into office agency.”
Instead, Quantrill opted to join his wife Sharon and become a director at property PR firm Munro Quantrill Marketing. The firm already boasts another couple in its ranks, Debbie and Paul Munro.
“It’s different working with your wife, but I certainly don’t miss the daily grind into Birmingham,” he says. “I’ve grabbed myself an extra three hours a day, and I can pick my son up from school.” After remodelling their home to house an office for himself and his wife, Quantrill is ready for his new role.
