TOMORROW’S LEADERS: After spending nine years as property director at NewRiver REIT, Allan Lockhart is taking over as chief executive from his father, David Lockhart. He describes the challenges of a public facing role and what it is really like working with family.
“I really wasn’t always the public face of NewRiver,” the younger Lockhart says in EG’s latest Tomorrow’s Leaders podcast. “I will have to devote more time to investor relations, stakeholder engagement, media engagement – that type of thing.
“I will be stepping a little bit out of the shadows going forward.”
Listen to Lockhart describe what it is like working with family and how he rose to the top in the podcast below:
Lockhart was one of the founders of NewRiver REIT in 2009 alongside his father whom he calls a “great friend”.
As the company continues to grow from a £25m market cap to just under £900m, Lockhart reflects on the challenge of taking on a public facing role after years in the background. Just two years ago, he told EG that he was like Batman. He operates in the shadows but always comes out on the side of good.
These days, however, he says: “I’ve had to do more TV interviews and I’m probably not in my comfort zone with cameras in front of me and necessarily being interviewed. But the more you do it the better you become at it.”
Property has been a continuous learning experience for Lockhart over three decades. He said: “I joined Strutt & Parker in 1988 working in the retail team, but really starting right at the bottom. I knew very little about real estate.
“I probably spent the first two years at Strutt & Parker measuring plans – in those days you had to measure plans because we didn’t have computers or anything like that. As a consequence I think that’s why I have to wear glasses today for reading and working on the computer.”
After 14 years of experience and a habit of showing up to the office before anyone else, Lockhart worked his way up to divisional partner at the firm. He started advising his father’s company, Halladale, and convinced him he was “reasonably competent”.
A family affair
Lockhart joined his father at Halladale in 2002 and went on to found NewRiver with him seven years later.
“It’s been a great privilege for me to work with my father over many years. Not many people have that opportunity – we’re great friends,” he says, listing the lessons he has learnt from him: the importance of having a collegiate approach, putting your stakeholders first and having an entrepreneurial spirit to build businesses.
But Lockhart’s drive to learn and the recognition that he could know more has never left him. “I think it’s so important to put yourself in a position where you are learning and gaining new experiences, and I feel that almost every day I am learning something very new,” Lockhart says.
He had little experience of working in the capital equity markets when NewRiver launched, but the past nine years have filled that gap. NewRiver issued its first corporate bond in February – a £300m bond that created a fully unsecured balance sheet for the company.
It was “incredibly exciting”, Lockhart says, to approach the bond market for the first time and have another lesson under his belt.
As he prepares to take over as chief executive on 1 May, Lockhart is entering the next phase of a 30-year learning experience. For him, complacency has no place for longevity in property.
Lockhart on…
…challenging the industry:
“Mark Davies [NewRiver chief financial officer] is probably one of the fastest finance directors, not just in real estate but probably UK corporates. If any of your listeners are interested in taking on the NewRiver running team, then get in touch.”
…the 1980s:
“I love the Police. I wasn’t a new romantic at that time. Never was a punk rocker.”
…how to get ahead in the industry:
“Networking is very important – to be meeting people in the marketplace, not hiding behind emails, actually physically getting out and meeting your peer group.”
…what to expect from a job interview:
“I won’t necessarily ask technical questions to test knowledge. I’m much more interested in the type of person they are. Do they have ambition? What are their communication skills like?”
…enjoying work:
“I love going in to work, into the office, or going out and looking at shopping centres, retail parks and pubs – because we own 336 pubs around the UK. Particularly like going to look at pubs for obvious reasons.”
…emojis:
“I don’t think there’s an emoji shopping centre. Maybe one of your listeners could come up with an emoji NewRiver shopping centre. We’d be delighted to hear about it. Might start using it then.”
What to expect from a Lockhart mix tape:
■ Pink Floyd – Another Brick in the Wall
■ Dire Straits – Telegraph Road
■ The Police
■ Genesis (with Phil Collins)
■ David Bowie
To send feedback, e-mail karl.tomusk@egi.co.uk or tweet @ktomusk or @estatesgazette
