When you set up a consultancy business and win IT giant Cisco Systems as one of your first clients, you had better go out and get yourself connected to this new-fangled thing called the World Wide Web. Or that was certainly the case when Doherty Baines launched two decades ago.
The firm, set up by Nigel Doherty and Andy Baines from a flat in Fulham, SW6, celebrated its 20th anniversary this summer and is committed to a long-term future as an independent agency.
“A lot has changed in 20 years,” says Doherty, reminiscing about that first major contract. “We made sure we went out and got a modem and internet access as Cisco said they would send us an email with our fee confirmation. We were like, a what?”
But luckily, Doherty Baines went online and has not looked back since. Working for Cisco helped put the company on the map, says Baines. It started out looking for just 10,000 sq ft for the IT giant, but three months later had acquired the 120,000 sq ft 3 The Square at Stockley Park, Middlesex.
“When that fee came in, it gave us some money to reinvest in the business and find more people,” says Doherty.
In fact, the dot.com boom provided oodles of business for Doherty Baines in the early days, with newly launched companies feeding through office requirements of 20,000-30,000 sq ft, “at a ridiculous rate”.
Doherty Baines landed instructions with NTL and Cable & Wireless, as corporates started outsourcing property functions to agents and, through that, the firm started getting involved in more and more development and investment deals. Then it picked up joint agency instructions from SEGRO to lease its Park Royal and Heathrow estates.
And as income to the business grew, so too did its ambitions to move from being a niche offices firm to a more general practice. The firm boomed to more than 40 employees with expertise in investments, industrial, professional services, management and building surveying.
But as the downturn came, Doherty Baines – like every other firm around it, big or small – had to downsize and is now at a leaner 25 employees.
Doherty says the firm started to change its focus two or three years ago as corporate real estate began to be handed over to procurement teams and driving down costs became the principal aim of any property strategy.
“We didn’t want to chase down fees,” says Doherty. “With a senior team of people, we needed higher-value revenues than those contracts could deliver. The landscape changed and we naturally found ourselves headed more towards the investment and development side of the business, but still with a core of UK-based smaller corporates.”
The seven directors running the business at Doherty Baines
But a lean and nifty nature enabled Doherty Baines to react to changing markets and get involved in some major transactions, particularly over the past six months. In February, under the stewardship of investment director Vince Taylor, the group advised Lone Star on its £1bn acquisition of two funds from Moorfield Real Estate, taking it to the top of investment league tables for single office firms.
“Our business model has always been about the service level, the personal service,” says Doherty. “Because we have lots of disciplines all sitting in the same room, you can properly give rounded advice.”
Baines adds: “What we are proudest of here is that we can think laterally and come up with very creative solutions.”
He cites the example of creating three Premier Inns in vacant buildings in and around SEGRO’s Heathrow estate. “Suddenly, non-performing assets were doing very well and we’d created value for SEGRO through development and investment sales,” says Baines. “We always ask what a building could work for, about how we can unlock value and solve a problem.”
Taylor, Baines and Doherty credit these successes to the firm’s ability to make a decision quickly, its cross-team working ethos and that focus on thinking laterally. And it is this that makes them committed to remaining independent.
“We feel very strongly that there is room in this market for an independent, well-run, multidisciplinary business that is niche in term of size but not in terms of its ability to transact,” says Doherty. “My advice to anyone is to run your firm as a big firm from the minute you set it up and to have the discipline of a board, a discipline of minutes and to make sure that everything you do from that point is done properly because you will never have another chance to reinvent. If you get it right from the start, then it is much easier as the business starts to grow.”
He adds: “Even on the worst day, it has been better to be here as people who run our own business. The motivation you
get whenever you know that the buck stops with all of us in terms of running it, is great.
“We are all proud of what we have done over the last 20 years,” says Doherty. “Our overwhelming memory is that we have laughed a lot.”
And stayed connected.
samantha.mcclary@estatesgazette.com
