Lord Sugar laid into the property agency world this morning at an entertaining Movers and Shakers Breakfast at
Sugar, who owns at least £400m worth of property overseas or via his Amshold property company, used as an example his acquisition of the Hard Rock Café in
Speaking at the BPF sponsored breakfast Sugar said agents had advised him that a £3m refurbishment would be needed to create luxury apartments at the scheme using “back of a fag packet” calculations.
Sugar said the refurbishment eventually cost him £12m, which meant he needed to sell the flats at £5m each to make a profit. He said his agents advised him the flats would not sell for any more than £3.5m.
Sugar subsequently sold the flats for £5m and above. He said: “When I sold the flats it was reported as the first time that much a sq ft had been achieved in the area and who took all the glory – the agent who told me it could not sell for that price. It is a learning thing … agents change with the wind and there is no science in valuing.”
Sugar added that consultants during the boom time valued at “whatever so-called buyers wanted them to say” because everything is predicated on making fees.
Sugar said he had started building his portfolio of property after amassing a fortune from his electronics business Amstrad and discovering first that “investment managers know nothing.”
He said his strategy was simple. “Find a street that will last forever and a building on it that will last forever and that if the tenant goes you will let it. So I bought half of
Sugar added that there was “nothing exciting” about property. He said there would be no more sales from his portfolio at present unless he could “find another lunatic” to make him an offer he could not refuse.
paul.norman@estatesgazette.com
To access all EGi news stories and commercial property data sign up for a free trial today, or visit the subscription options page to find out more.
