The Dutch propco’s UK managing director is changing tack and targeting shopping centre acquisitions.
Andrew Turton, UK managing director at Dutch property firm Wereldhave, is a lover of the high seas, so where better for him to make his big splash for the company than in the Dorset harbour town of Poole?
Turton, 39, last week successfully led Wereldhave (which means “world port” in Dutch) to the front of the pack in the race to buy Grosvenor’s 530,000 sq ft Dolphin shopping centre in Poole. The company is under offer on the mall after bidding £80m – a circa 6% yield (6 November, p37).
While Wereldhave has been relatively quiet in the UK for many years, that now looks set to change.
Last year, Hans Pars, the firm’s global chief executive, outlined plans to refocus and rebalance the business. He announced that the group would reweight its portfolio more towards retail assets and would almost triple its £180m UK portfolio to around £500m.
It was with that ambition in mind that Turton was recruited in February this year, initially as joint managing director alongside Jonathan Speakman-Brown, who left the firm several months ago.
Turton says that Wereldhave is keen to sell some of the offices, shops and retail warehouses in its portfolio to create a “shopping centre-focused asset management business”.
It is targeting shopping centres with values between £70m and £150m, and has bid on a number of assets this year, including the Arc in Bury St Edmunds.
While it may have taken many months to finally start this process, the acquisition of the Dolphin Centre certainly goes a long way to helping achieve the group’s targets in the UK.
And with the investment market still in a relative state of flux – with some out there believing that the currently still waters are only the calm before the storm – it is useful that Turton can bring to bear plenty of experience to navigate any choppy seas.
Prior to joining Wereldhave, he spent a season sailing in North America before racing back to the UK from Boston, Massachusetts, to the Isle of Wight in just 26 days.
Turton began his career at Healey & Baker in 1993 before moving to Weatherall Green & Smith (now part of BNP Paribas Real Estate) and later to Jamie Ritblat’s Delancey, where he was in charge of retail acquisitions.
And he seems to like to take on more than one new venture at a time. As well as being tasked with growing the Wereldhave family of UK assets, Turton this month announced – via the Daily Telegraph – his engagement to Jemma Robinson.
