Lewis Davis founded Davis Coffer Lyons, while daughter Emma co-founded Berkeley Simmons Davis. For the past seven years, they have been working together on high-spec residential developments, and have just put a £30m Mayfair new-build on the market. Here they describe their rise through the industry.
Lewis’s story
Born in the Royal Northern Hospital, Holloway, but living in Barking, Essex, it is fair to say I had the sound of Bow bells ringing in my ears, but I was destined for W1.
In 1964 I got my first job at Lewis & Tucker in Hanover Square, W1. I immediately found my true calling and beavered away trying to understand what it meant to do a deal. True, the boss didn’t speak to me for four months, and then it was only to say “hang up my coat, boy” and I was paid £5 a week – very little even then, but I got a great bonus at Christmas, 20 Players cigarettes. I didn’t smoke but I did manage to sell them.
Lewis & Tucker was one of the great groundings, with super-bright guys like Anthony P Grant, John F Newman and various others. Also there at the same time were Irving Scholar, Tony Lorenz and John Baker.
By 1968 I was an all-round clever dick and had started to work for De Groot Collis – good all-round operators who, while not being market leaders, had a successful business in shops, offices and investments. It was there that I met my partner to be, David Coffer.
During my introduction to the “shops department”, his colleague, Roger Mautner, gushed all over me while David just stared at me without speaking. Game on, I thought, and so life began.
But it didn’t last long. To the wrath of a partner, I spent a whole morning with David Dutton and was ordered into the filing room for a day. But the morning with Dutton worked to my benefit as with my help he went on to open hundreds of Pizzaland units.
I was more or less drummed out unceremoniously and finished up 100 yards away at Smith Melzac, a similar set-up with similar ambitions.
I used to walk through to Cork Street from the back of Kingly Street through Galeries Lafayette. This was a massive department store on Regent Street and was fundamentally French. I kept walking through wondering what it was doing in London: it had no particular brand and, more importantly, very few people shopping there. I enlisted the help of a friend and wrote to them in French asking if they would sell.
A week later, I was called into the office of one of the partners. He had his head in his hands and had a worrying look. On his desk was a letter from Galeries Lafayette in response to my letter, saying: “Yes, we will sell: who is your client?” The problem was, I didn’t have one, but I was sure I
could find one. However, that didn’t sit well with the partner, who wrote back saying: “Sorry you’ve been troubled.” I had never seen anybody hang out the white flag before a fight, but this was part of life’s rich tapestry.
A little while later, I had made a few acquisitions for Pizzaland, which wanted to go on from there with its expansion. David Dutton came to me and said he would, for a discounted fee of £7,750 pa, like to retain the firm to secure three Pizzalands in the coming year.
It was one of my first commercial dilemmas. There I was earning £1,250 a year and a share of the commission pot and then suddenly someone comes along and offers six times my salary. Back to the same partner and more head holding, shrugging and defensive posturing. I offered to split the £7,750 with them equally, but was told without hesitation: “No way.” It left me with little choice, so, in 1972, Davis Associates hit the streets with a new office in Fleet Street.
David Coffer soon joined the fray and Davis Associates became Davis & Coffer, and briefly in 1974 David Menzies joined to form Davis Coffer Menzies.
The next 10 years were “mega” in every sense. Direct canvassing became our clarion call, but this was with a difference. We weren’t phoning or writing to an occupier with some bogus story about clients being interested in their property; we really did have a client who really was interested in their property. It didn’t take long to strike the first three deals: Dutton was, and remains, the most aggressive operator I have ever met. Before the legal formalities were completed, the shop was being demolished and the fit-out began.
Three units a year soon became 10, and then 20. We travelled to Cardiff in the west, Hull in the east, Glasgow in the north, Plymouth down in the south-west and every major city in between, especially tourist centres such as York, Windsor and Edinburgh. The only competitors were Wimpy and Golden Egg; pizza had arrived in the UK.
Over subsequent years, we met with every operator coming in from the US – McDonald’s, Arby’s, Denny’s and Wendy’s, to name but a few – suddenly realising there was a market outside of their beloved America.
The business of Davis & Coffer had been created, the first pure restaurant agency of its kind – many times copied since, but never repeated.
In 1980, Dutton sold out and the three of us purchased a small property company named after the sons of a local butcher in East Ham: Trevor and Ian became Trevian Holdings. In that year, the rental income was £14,733 pa, the pretax profit £451, and the net assets £27,000. Ten years later in 1990, rental income was £820,000 pa, pretax profit was £2.06m, and assets just under £9m.
Having taken the company onto the Unlisted Securities Market (USM), we continued to trade with very few cash resources, carrying out joint ventures where possible. One of these, with Gerald Newton’s company, was Country & Newtown, which allowed us to purchase
in Leicester Square. We somehow convinced the vendor to accept the price of £7.5m and deferred completion for six months.
Between the two companies we had sufficient funds for a deposit and that was about it. Luckily we “turned” the property for some £11m to a Hong Kong buyer. This was a major transaction for us at that time and an incredible profit for the plc, which was subsequently lucky enough to buy properties in Irving Street, Charing Cross Road, Old Compton Street, Leicester Place and St John Street among others.
By July 1989 Trevian Holdings structured a joint venture with Frogmore giving us access to funds of £20m. Before too long we made our first purchase – the India Tea Centre on Oxford Street. A prime location almost at the junction with Bond Street. In September of that year we purchased £45m of property from Chesterfield Properties, the sums of money and the transactions were massive in the context of where we had come in that 10-year period.
But, by January 1992 and in the middle of a recession, it had been a very difficult time for property and property companies, especially for a relatively little fish in quite a big pond. It was decided that we would sell the company in its entirety to Frogmore and a period of unprecedented growth for the company was over.
In November 1993, after a rest from the public arena I made a comeback.
Emma’s story
Having shared an office with Dad since leaving Davis & Coffer in 1996, it became more apparent to me, and I hope to him, that we were able to work together very well, as opposed to just being able to work together, and while we certainly had our moments (and in truth, as those who work regularly with us will know, we continue to have our moments, much to everyone’s amusement), we also had lots of fun and laughed on a daily basis.
When I left Davis & Coffer I set up Berkeley Simmons Davis with Jeremy Simmons when I had just turned 21. I had worked with Dad and Michael Placks in the two preceding years, and it was clear that I was a very small fish in a very large pond, and while I had some loyal clients, I was never going to be able to create enough deals on my own to make any money, and needed to make a larger impact in the market. Jeremy was doing the same as I and it seemed like a good idea that we put the two companies together and join forces.
BSD was formed and the company grew and became, at the time, the third practice in the market alongside Shelley Sandzer and Davis Coffer Lyons. I loved the acquisition work for companies such as ASK and Eldridge Pope and enjoyed touring the country canvassing, when Dad and I would visit six towns in a day.
Looking back, I am not sure how easy it would be today for someone of that age to start as I did, but I was very lucky in having Dad as my safety net and mentor, and I would not have been brave enough to make the leap without him, despite the fact that yet again and as with leaving DCL, I really didn’t have anything to lose.
I am proud that we achieved what we did, and over the years acted for some great people and did some great deals. It was a time when I learned a lot about both the business and about people and it was an essential stage towards me being able to do what I do today.
Once Jeremy and I had sold Berkeley Simmons Davis to Baker Lorenz and subsequently were rolled into Erinaceous, it was clear to me that I was not suited to working in a larger company with its bureaucracy and office politics.
I had slowly been taking a more active role in what Dad was doing and understanding the deals that he was looking at. It was probably around this time it became clear to us both that we should work together on a more formal footing. Dad says now that I had reinvigorated his interest in working, and I hope this to be true, but once we had made the jump and taken an office, it was clear that we were going to have to start buying a few things otherwise we weren’t going to have anything for me to do.
Pros and cons of working together
I meet people on a regular basis, both in a social and professional environment, who ask me what it’s like working with my father, and say that they couldn’t ever contemplate the idea. In truth, overall, it’s great. We are very different and yet very similar, which is both a pro and a con in that we are both very communicative – on the plus side this means neither of us are ever in doubt as to the other’s feelings on a particular subject. The downside is that neither of us is ever in doubt as to the other’s opinions on a particular subject…
It took us a while to learn that there has to be a cut off at the end of the day or, indeed, over a weekend, when, unless it is truly urgent, things can wait until the following day or a Monday morning and that we do need a break from work.
We don’t have defined roles. While we both speak to agents regularly, I would say in the main Dad finds the property and I deal with obtaining planning consents, deal with the builders once on site and the general day-to-day running of the various projects that we have at any time.
Favourite deals?
The first building that we bought as I left BSD is in my top three.
We bought The Beehive in Crawford Street, W1, with a view to converting the upper parts into flats and leaving the pub at ground floor and basement, which after gaining planning consent we did. The property is listed and it was literally a money pit – every wall that we touched crumbled and fell down. It was both a challenge and a steep learning curve.
The other stand-out deal is the one we are now finishing, what was the Red Lion in Waverton Street, W1. This has been an extremely challenging project from start to finish.
I am really pleased to have a house that looks (in my own eyes at least) really special from the inside but leaves a really interesting architectural mark in the heart of Mayfair, that is both new and modern yet blends well into its immediate environment and looks like it has been there forever.
Having recently bought Duke St, W1, we are still keen on more commercial and residential projects. And as long as Dad is willing and able to work, I see us working together – and I see myself maintaining the status quo.
Central Investment Properties
In 1996 Lewis Davis set up Central Investment Properties following previous spells as managing director of two publicly quoted companies, Trevian Holdings and then Harmony Property Group.
Emma joined in January 2006 after selling Berkeley Simmons Davis to the then Hercules plc (subsequently Erinaceous).
Despite a difficult market and the credit crunch, CIP has strong lines of finance with several banks and, according to CIP’s website, prides itself on “being able to respond quickly to agents with a reply once we are offered properties, even if it needs to be in the negative”.
In addition to normal bank finance, CIP has many cash-rich joint venture partners that comprise high-net-worth individuals, who are not directly involved in the real estate industry.
The website continues: “Our success in getting deals through is crucial to us. We have proven and want to continue to prove that in a competitive market we are reliable, and on the basis that we are a small but nevertheless motivated team, it is an important part of the strategy not to waste precious time on situations that may not come to fruition.”
