Cassidy Turley has been wed, just not to the groom we were expecting. GVA spent years in its company and only recently had talked of a relationship that could go places. But then along came another wealthy suitor.
Once the formalities are complete, that suitor, TPG, will marry the US firm off to its adopted son DTZ. It’s a union that catapults DTZ into an enviable position in high (agency) society. It now sits third globally, ahead of Cushman & Wakefield in terms of revenue but behind CBRE and JLL in the fiercely competitive rankings.
TPG won’t rest on its laurels. Former CBRE group chief executive Brett White is a co-investor in DTZ and has again co-invested in the Cassidy Turley deal. There may be more activity even before he joins the group as an executive chairman in March 2015.
Meanwhile, Colliers International held something of a debutante’s ball in the appropriately grand surroundings of Claridge’s hotel this week. Its central London offices party was designed to show off its credentials and its ambition. The firm has been putting together something of a harem this year, bringing Briant Champion Long and H2S0 into its embrace.
There will be more flirtations among agents in the months ahead, no shortage of marriages and plenty of other alliances too. And don’t think their terms will be bound by modern convention. Polygamy is perhaps the future.
¦ There’s a juicy rights-to-light row brewing in the Square Mile. Two of the UK’s largest pension fund managers are taking on the City Corporation in a dispute over Goldman Sachs’ proposed new HQ at the Fleet Buildings and Plumtree Court, EC4.
The City Corporation is considering controversial section 237 planning powers to intervene after the US investment bank failed to reach agreement with Aberdeen Asset Management and Royal London Asset Management over the issue.
Irony is laid upon irony with this one. If the action proceeds it would see a London local authority deploy little-used powers against two UK pension funds on behalf of a US investment bank. And not just any investment bank, one, need I remind you, once memorably described as “a great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money”. Were the City to proceed, it would be likely to face legal action.
Or, to take the counter view, in Aberdeen and Royal London you have two of the biggest developers in the City holding out for a higher settlement before they consent to a development proceeding.
Add to that the fact that Royal London has itself made use of section 237 powers in the past and the upshot is a slightly unseemly row that will presumably reach an expensive resolution.
¦ Creative halos are helping drive the gentrification of the world’s leading cities. The sector’s growth is taking businesses to the fringes of central business districts. As a result, rents in these areas are rising far more sharply than in the core. And, according to Knight Frank’s Global Cities report, it’s a trend that will accelerate, not slow.
If this sounds like a London phenomenon it’s not; it’s global. Indeed, San Francisco has led this development. But for London, and other UK cities, it does beg a fundamental question. Landlords and tenants are acutely aware of the phenomenon. As is the next generation of workers, many of whom would choose the city over the suburbs as a place to live.
It’s the government that needs to sit up and take notice.
Political power in the UK has been on a centralising march for decades. Scotland’s “no” vote makes a greater degree of devolution a necessity. Will ministers be prepared to empower cities as well as the countries of the union? They should, as an EG-supported debate at the Labour Party conference concluded (p50). The cost to UK cities of failing to do so would be colossal.
damian.wild@estatesgazette.com
