Enough to melt the hardest heart…
The future of retail is here and it has arrived in the form of the largest-ever augmented reality shopping centre game – Freezy’s Christmas Adventure. Being pushed out across 21 of British Land’s local and regional retail assets, the game – apparently for children – involves an app that encourages families to follow a five-step virtual present hunt, helping snowman Freezy overcome obstacles and gather gifts for Santa. Well, anything to drive a bit of footfall.
Deep in the jungle…
If you’d just been in the middle of the biggest real estate deal of the year, you would think it would be about time to sit back and put your feet up. Not for Ian Worboys, chief executive of P3, which is being bought by GIC for €2.4bn (£2.1bn). When Diary caught up with Worboys the morning the deal was announced, he had just landed in Johannesburg on his way to a five-day Bear Grylls Survival Academy course in the deepest, darkest jungle in Zimbabwe. The course culminates in a 30-hour expedition involving trapping and skinning an animal and crossing difficult terrain. Worboys, along with his brother Tim, a former director at Stonemartin, and daughter Anna, a Reading real estate student, are raising money for Cardiac Risk in the Young, following the death of Worboys’ son and Cushman & Wakefield surveyor Robert earlier this year. Here’s hoping it doesn’t come to eating scorpions…
Are your papers in order?
The Legal & General team are turning out en masse for the 2017 Cycle to MIPIM. The lead sponsor’s ensemble is being led by chief executive Bill Hughes, who has goaded the reluctant director of investment and development, Gordon Aitchison, into joining the peloton. To Aitchison’s utter disgust and dismay, Hughes was not on the list to ride. Convinced he had been sold a dummy all week, Hughes was eventually revealed just to have been a little late with his paperwork.
Barometer reading on style
Nordic noir. Scandi chic. Danish hygge. It is no longer just the weather in Europe’s northernmost territories that is proving so cool. The entire lifestyle has made its way down south, leaving a trail of church candles, woollen jumpers and cable knit throws in its wake. These days, if your
living room doesn’t come with a mug of cinnamon hot chocolate as standard, it’s just not Nordic enough. And the development team on the new One Blackfriars have taken things to a whole new level. On an exclusive tour of the new South Bank resi tower last week, Diary had a sneak peek at plans for the subterranean spa, which comes complete with… a snow room. Otherwise known as the Narnia room, the frosty addition is set to bring the development to new heights with low temperatures.
Leicester’s Poundshop
Blimey, property is pricey these days. Well, not always, actually. Leicester auctioneer SDL Graham Penny is putting a ground-floor flat under the hammer later this month with a guide price of just £1. The lot at 10 Crosfield Close in Liverpool is a purpose-built flat with communal gardens and off-road parking, but is admittedly in need of refurbishment. The marketing stunt has prompted the phone to ring off the hook, we’re told.
Troup meets Trump
Colliers International’s Mr Troup met the new Mr President in the not-too-distant past. “Honestly, he bought me a beer at Turnberry – an opportunist moment when I was trying to convince him to buy a hotel up the road,” says Julian Troup, Colliers’ head of UK hotels. Can anyone Trump that?
