Westbrook managing partner Mark Donnor’s LinkedIn mugshot shows a good-looking 41-year-old, giving the camera a hard, if defensive, stare.
The Englishman, suckled at Richard Ellis in Britain, then the US, has good reason to be defensive. After 11 years flying under the radar at the US fund, Donnor has been subjected to a personal going-over in the press.
A Guardian headline – “Families facing eviction from New Era estate outraged at landlord’s mansion” – neatly sums up the story, relating how a man living in a 12-bedroom country mansion worth £3.9m plans to throw 93 families living on the New Era estate, in groovy Hoxton, out on to the street if they can’t pay quadruple the current £600 per month rent.
It’s not quite as simple as that – the US fund plans to upgrade the homes. But the tale has everything the papers could wish for: poor tenants with a celebrity backer – the dreadful Russell Brand – and a Tory MP, Richard Benyon, profiting from the sale of his stake to wicked Americans. The tenants marched on Downing Street last Monday, led by Brand and a gaggle of snappers.
The tale has been personalised in the shape of Donnor, who is now mired in talks with politicians to find a solution. What must they think of a man who has the affront to live in a “Grade II-listed mansion complete with lawn tennis court, swimming pool, sauna, gymnasium and butler’s quarters”?
Westbrook showed iron resolve in facing down Dolphin Square tenants and won a legal battle to buy the freehold of the 1,200 flats, after years of strife. Are 93 flats in Hoxton are worth the hassle? It’s a question Donnor and his American masters must be asking.
PS: Russell Brand was driven to blind fury when asked on the march how much rent he is paying in Hoxton. About £5,000 a month it turns out.
Party games
Here is an amusing game to play well towards the end of your firm’s Christmas party: list the 10 biggest sh**s in property.
You will likely find surprising unanimity. That’s what happened at the end of a wonderful bouillabaisse lunch given by Allsop about 10 years ago at the French beachside restaurant Nounou in Antibes during MIPIM.
It happened again recently, when I was in a crowded room, containing a scattering of the bad among the good, chatting to the scion of an old banking family whose job it is to guide ultra-high-net-worth investors towards the good.
We played the game for a minute or two, nodding towards the bad eggs. Once again, there was surprising unanimity.
The long arm of the law
A lesson from Knight Frank senior partner Alistair Elliott in how to deal with the police when pulled over – as he was in Baker Street last week.
“You ‘ain’t bin paying attention ‘ave you?” said the copper, peering through the driver’s window of Elliott’s modest buggy. Elliott had no idea what the copper was talking about, but what with the flashing lights and the attention of pedestrians mounting, all Elliott wanted to do was get out of there before a member of Knight Frank’s staff from the nearby office saw what was going on.
“I just nodded and said, ‘No officer, I was not paying attention.’”
“I won’t patronise you any further,” said the policeman. “On your way.”
Room with a view
Schadenfreude from Russia, courtesy of the New York Times. Cushman & Wakefield reports a 32% vacancy at Moscow City, a vast 148-acre partly-built complex on the banks of the Moskva river. A rate that is likely to rise to 50% as more glassy office towers are added to the eight completed on the $12bn (£7.6bn) project, designed as the Russian capital’s answer to Canary Wharf.
The owner of one skyscraper has found a temporary answer. The 43rd floor of his tower is now a youth hostel. “In the coveted corner office, a bearded man in sweatpants scrambled eggs at a kitchenette,” reports the paper.
