The current stock market jitters may lead to more deals closing more quickly, as sellers get less picky and funds scramble to fulfil purchase plans by December.
That’s the optimistic view of one leading City agent, citing the on-off £30m deal by Slovakian developer HB Reavis to buy a development site in Farringdon. The purchase was suddenly “on” again this week – after little further interest was shown by under-bidders during the ‘off’ period.
A more pessimistic view was given last week by the boss of a Very Big Property Company. “We’ve bought nothing this year. I’ve told my chaps not to bring anything to the table unless there is a very big development angle.” Wise words. No, not from Land Securities. The world already knows boss Rob Noel stopped buying long ago.
If you want Peace…
Hail and farewell to Liz Peace, the outgoing (in both senses) boss of the British Property Federation, who held a packed retirement party at the RAC club in Pall Mall on Tuesday.
Hail and hello to Liz’s successor, Melanie Leech, a woman whose CV suggests she was selected for her similarities to Peace. Not necessarily a good thing. Leech will need the patience of a saint to smile though constant comparisons and references to her predecessor. But at least she will not suffer the threat of being ousted by next Easter.
On 5 July 2002 I met a slightly troubled Peace at a Starbucks in the City. She feared for her job of six months. The coup Peace referred to lightly in last week’s EG (11 October, p78-79) was an attempt by Nick Ritblat, then at British Land, to install the highly effective head of the Property Council of Australia, Peter Verwer, at the top of a new “super-lobby” group that would usurp the BPF. Peace handed over a series of confidential slides showing her newly formulated strategic plans for the BPF. These were published the following week in EG along with an interview with president Ian Henderson, then boss of Land Securities, who had no doubt put her up to leaking the documents. The Verwer threat evaporated.
Baby boom
Knight Frank said this week the country faced a chronic lack of retirement properties. True enough. But what about the chronic lack of accommodation for those starting out in life? Nursery care is still seen by most as a mom-and-pop operation. Except by one property operator. Watch out for someone rather good doing a “McCarthy & Stone” for kiddies.
Let’s hope they’ve worked out the major flaw: you know the exact numbers of those growing old at least half a century ahead. But you never know more than a year or so in advance how many mothers will be banging on the nursery door.
Better late than never
The former US Navy HQ at 20 Grosvenor Square is being converted to mega-luxury flats by Finchatton, after having lain empty for eight years.
Plans to rebuild the US Embassy across the square have been stalled until 2017, when diplomats are due to move to the new Embassy in Nine Elms, a site chosen in 2008.
Nearly a decade of stasis could have been prevented if the US State Department had made good on a promise to the US Navy to transfer staff into the 100,000 sq ft building across the square while a new embassy was built and the old one redeveloped. An inference easily drawn from the recollections of Captain Dave Dittmer, published in Home Bases, a book pulled together by Sean Kelly, who some will know as a tireless promoter of retail property.
Dittmer was charged by the navy with selling Number 20 in 2006. It turned out the US State Department owned the 999-year lease. They muscled the navy aside, saying they wanted to use the space to house diplomats from across the square. Instead they sold for £250m in 2007 to a consortium led by restaurateur Richard Caring, which slowly fell apart, to be replaced by Finchatton’s unknown masters in Abu Dhabi.
