If a year ago Colliers employees and directors were drowning their sorrows as the business stared into the abyss, many of them will tonight raise a celebratory glass or two.
Some 120 of them have just become partners in the newly formed Colliers LLP.
The structural shift is a surprise. It had seemed the days of agency partnerships were all but numbered. Partners in smaller firms were selling out to the listed giants, others have been expected to follow suit. Only Knight Frank was seen as having the muscle to resist such overtures.
That it should be Colliers that bucks the trends, little more than 12 months on from its sale in a prepack administration to First Service, will only cause eyebrows to rise that bit further.
Yet the reasons are understandable. Presumably, with the firm turning over £48m in the nine months to December, it was a relatively cheap time to make the ownership switch.
Meanwhile, the breeze of recovery is starting to blow that bit harder. And with firms of all shapes and sizes on the hunt for talent, it is not a bad time to lock in and incentivise key individuals. The promise of a profit share is a differentiator and potentially attractive enough to draw others to the firm.
There will be a buzz around Colliers in the coming weeks and months, further fuelled by its swanky new London HQ. But it will have to deliver in the marketplace. And even as the climate improves, competition will get tougher. Colliers is now able to differentiate itself from many rivals to employees existing and prospective. Can it do so when it comes to clients?
• First Land Securities’ Trinity scheme, then KPMG’s prelet, soon the Arena opens and next year the Tour de France starts in the city: it’s all happening in Leeds. Figures from EGi Research show that offices take-up rose 50% on Q1 2012. And this week Yorkshire Building Society announced a major letting, for 76,500 sq ft at Highcross’ Broad Gate development. It is the city’s largest letting in a decade and subsumes Leeds’ last remaining significant office block. The problem, not unique to Leeds, is the looming lack of available space.
“There is 480,000 sq ft here-and-now named requirements and only 400,000 sq ft available,” says CBRE’s Andrew Shires. Others warn that the lack of space will drive occupiers to the city fringes. The prelet market should benefit, while the spec development train – which is already calling at Bristol and Reading – could stop at ?Leeds next.
• The ambition is breathtaking: to create London’s third financial district and to build the most significant Chinese financial hub outside what will be the world’s largest economy by 2016.
The £1bn deal to regenerate London’s Royal Docks into a port for Asian businesses has the potential to be transformational for the capital and for the UK.
To add further significance, the deal also represents one of the first direct investments in London’s property market by a Chinese developer. ABP will work with Stanhope on the development at the 35-acre Royal Albert Dock. The 3.2m sq ft of commercial space, including 2.5m sq ft of offices, could be worth £6bn to the UK economy. It will be delivered with Far Eastern speed too: the first occupiers could move in by 2017.
If the project attracts the Asian businesses it hopes, it will cement the capital’s status as the real estate capital of the world. ABP chairman Xu Weiping suggested this week that he saw the city as a gateway to the UK, a tantalising prospect. Transform London and make the UK the first port of call for globally ambitious Asian businesses and it is a project that would be worth far, far more than £6bn to the UK economy.
damian.wild@estatesgazette.com
