The former head of international development at London & Regional has raised £75m of equity to launch a boutique property company.
Jason Mills, who in 2007 led L&R’s successful bid for the 3,300-acre, $10bn (£6bn) Panama Pacifico new city development near Panama City, has secured backing from a Latin America-based investor to launch the new business, named Sequoia.
With debt, the firm will have firepower of around £150m.
Mills said Bath-based Sequoia – named after the world’s largest tree species – will focus on the refurbishment, redevelopment and repositioning of large, under-utilised period buildings across southern England.
The business has already secured its first project: Orchard Mews in Yeovil, Somerset. The group plans to convert the vacant former Victorian bakery into a 40,000 sq ft mixed-use office, townhouse and loft scheme.
Similar properties are being targeted in Bath, Bristol, Richmond-upon-Thames and on London’s South Bank.
Mills said: “The timing feels right to embark on the ultimate career challenge: to launch a property company from a standing start. We plan to focus on the creative reuse of existing buildings and to add value by applying our town planning skills and hands-on development management.”
Mills left L&R in 2007 to join Nigel and John Timmis’s Abbey Manor Group as managing director and a 25% shareholder of its commercial business. While at the Yeovil-based business, he helped to progress its 5m sq ft pipeline of development projects, which include the 160-acre Solstice Park in Amesbury, Wiltshire, and a 12-acre mixed-use scheme in Taunton, Somerset.
Prior to L&R, Mills was a project director in the London development team at AMEC Developments. He started his career as an agent at CB Hillier Parker and Drivers Jonas in London.
