Being privately owned and independent could be a challenge in the present market, but the property industry seems to think that Barker Storey Matthews has done all right by it. The agency was voted property adviser of the year in the East of England by EG’s readers.
In Cambridge, for example, those who have worked with the company point to the “great team” that has been built up under director Mike Sumpster.
“He’s not acted for me directly,” says Chris Goldsmith, managing director of Turnstone Estates, “but has for tenants who have taken space in some of my developments. He has always got to a solution, often through discussion to establish common ground. That’s the mark of a good agent.”
The practice counts letting the Alpha Plus industrial unit at St Neots as one of its best achievements this year. Cath Kidston and Hotel Chocolat took space totalling 220,000 sq ft. It was also involved in the Dorel’s 141,000 sq ft letting at Wrenbridge’s Saxham Business Park.
In addition, the agent let the 10,000 sq ft industrial unit at The Links, Bar Hill, in Cambridge to Scientific Analysis Laboratories. Sumpster says: “In a weak market, to relet a property within three months of the previous lease ending was an achievement. Next year we will be concentrating on securing design-and-build prelets and sales, owing to the lack of off-the-peg space.”
Even in a tough market, EG award winners managed to do some outstanding deals. Nadia Elghamry reports
Wrenbridge
It is the second time in the limelight for Wrenbridge. Having been voted EG’s best property company in the South in 2008, it is the developer-investor’s work in East Anglia that drew admiring glances from its peers at this year’s awards, when EG’s readers voted it property company of the year in the East of England. So what did you like?
Ben Green, associate at local agency Cheffins, describes the company as a very active and successful regional developer – adding that they are “a nice bunch of guys that aren’t bad at 5-a-side footy, either”.
The team behind Wrenbridge have also scored a few goals in their work trousers. The firm’s ability to develop has probably been helped by the fact that it is backed by Palmer Capital and therefore not likely to be short of a bob or two.
Other local developers point to its business model of doing “lots in-house”, rather than using consultants, and its “scatter-gun approach”, which allows it to look at anything that comes along.
The company has signed 13 deals so far in 2010, which chief executive Ben Coles says is in excess of its targets. It has completed the biggest deal in East Anglia this year – an £11m letting to Dorel for 140,000 sq ft at Saxham Business Park, Bury St Edmonds – and also penned the biggest office deal for “years”, according to Coles, when it sold the 60,000 sq ft Landmark House in Ipswich to the police and council in a joint venture with Landmark East Anglia.
By the end of the year, the company will have spent £75m. Most recently, in June, it acquired Cambridge United FC’s Abbey Stadium in a joint venture with Grosvenor. It plans to relocate the club and regenerate the 6.1-acre site.
So what next? More of the same, please, say agents.
Striking a somewhat macabre note, Coles says: “We want to continue to do more deals to take advantage of the competitors going bust, others not able to get funding and sensible pricing for the first time in years.”
* Saxam Business Park 2 Team BSM: (l-r) Stephen Hawkins, Alan Matthews, Michael Sumpster 3 Team Wrenbridge: (l-r) Peter Jarman, Ben Coles, Ewan McLeod
