Acquisition puts Savills on top in Birmingham office market

Savills leapt seven places to take top spot in EG’s Birmingham office league table. Its acquisition of GBR Phoenix Beard undoubtedly helped its performance in a year that saw take-up overall return to more normal levels, after the 220,000 sq ft letting to HSBC gave the numbers for last year’s table a boost. While Savills’ instruction on Alpha Tower gained it eight separate deals, its most significant deal was arguably the 19,448 sq ft let to Pinsent Masons at 19 Cornwall Street. Without a deal of HSBC scale, the overall amount of space disposed of dropped 40.8%, equating to 976,570 sq ft of space across the city. While the number of deals remained fairly consistent – 225 deals in 2017, compared with 252 in 2016 – average deal size dropped 48.4%. Going up Savills made a massive leap to the top of the league table this year, thanks in no small part to its acquisition of last year’s third-placed agent, GBR Phoenix Beard. The firm’s deals numbers increased from five to 41. New entries With GBR Phoenix Beard and DTZ out of the picture, it paved the way for come-back kids Siddall Jones, Lambert Smith Hampton and Pennycuick Collins in the top 10. The latter narrowly snuck in with a sole deal for 26,100 sq ft at 76‑80 Sherlock Street. Key stats 671,752 sq ft: total space disposed of, a 40.8% decrease on last year’s figure 72.7%: proportion of space disposed of by top 10 agents 37: increase in number of deals 48.4%: drop in average deal size, to 3,393 sq ft 26,102 sq ft: largest deal, at 76-80 Sherlock Street, to Syed & Co – Pennycuick Collins was the agent Birmingham league table – disposals Ranking Agent Total space disposed (sq ft) Number of deals Average deal size (sq ft) 1 (7) Savills 216,996 41 5,293 2 (1) CBRE 153,960 34 4,528 3 (4) Cushman & Wakefield 129,068 27 4,780 4 (2) GVA 105,246 21 5,012 5 (6) JLL 64,361 21 3,065 6 (n/a) Siddall Jones 58,165 21 2,770 7 (5) Knight Frank 54,909 18 3,051 8 (n/a) Lambert Smith Hampton 37,605 23 1,635 9 (8) KWB 29,591 18 1,644 10 (n/a) Pennycuick Collins 26,102 1 26,102 Source: EGi Main picture © Alamy