Congratulations to all the winners of this year EG Awards; each and every one deserving of their accolade in the face of stiffer competition than ever. This year we saw perhaps our most varied set of winners, too, highlighting just how the industry is changing.
Winners were drawn from real estate’s proven stomping grounds (offices, industrial, residential – though less retail this year, as you might expect). But more awards – and award winners – in the spotlight this year came from those parts of the sector where growth is fastest, much needed and most welcome.
There were new awards for alternatives and tech – congratulations to Knight Frank and Demand Logic – and another focused on the future of real estate, where Urban Splash and its modular programme won over the judges.
The Office Group took the EG London award, a recognition of the business’s own achievements of course, but also the fact that the flexible workspace sector is now an essential component of the real estate mix.
And Freehold won the Outstanding Contribution to Property Award, not just for its own work in benefiting the network’s 1,200 LGBT members working in real estate, but for helping shift attitudes to diversity and inclusion across the industry.
Awards necessarily reflect what’s already come to pass. But this year’s EG Awards revealed a clearer picture of what should be this industry’s future: one where breadth, connectivity, flexibility and diversity reign.
The full list of winners is online now. Pick up next week’s EG for a full report.
Speaking of tech, Cloudscraper’s appointment of a new global head of capital markets should make everyone in property sit up and take notice.
What do you mean you don’t know Cloudscraper? Don’t worry, you won’t be alone.
First featured in EG in May, Cloudscraper describes itself as the world’s first fully integrated institutional real estate trading data platform for buying, selling and financing assets. Quite a mouthful. But it claims to be able to reduce the time it takes to transact and finance property dramatically.
And, headquartered in London with offices in Tel Aviv, Dublin and Frankfurt, it says it has hundreds of global real estate institutions on board, representing in
excess of $350bn (£264bn) of assets.
The business has only been out of what it describes as “stealth mode” for less than six months. But this week’s heavyweight appointment of Rawle Howard – European head of private real estate debt at Canada Pension Plan Investment Board – is a real statement of intent.
Howard does have a background in tech, but his CV groans under the weight of blue-chip credentials too – from BlackRock to Lehman Brothers.
The former NFL linebacker isn’t the only big name to make the switch from the traditional real estate finance world to this emerging, digital one. Cloudscraper appointed Matt Webster, the former global head of real estate finance at HSBC, as chief financial officer in January.
“The commercial real estate industry is set to undergo massive change and I believe that Cloudscraper is well positioned to become an industry leader,” says Howard.
He’s wrong about at least one thing though. This industry isn’t set to undergo massive change. It’s already happening.
To send feedback, e-mail damian.wild@egi.co.uk or tweet @DamianWild or @estatesgazette
