IPD founder Rupert Nabarro is undertaking feasibility studies to set up a new “data warehouse” for the UK real estate industry, five years after he sold the property consultant to MSCI.
Nabarro and former IPD chief executive Laurent Ternisien have sent proposals for CERAM, the Centre for Real Asset Management, to key institutional clients to gauge interest and seek support.
The new company is intended to be a repository for real estate-related data, which will standardise and clean the information and create data that can be shared across systems.
CERAM is intended to be a go-between for property companies, asset managers and agents supplying the data, and those using it for the creation of benchmarks and other reports, such as MSCI, INREV and other bodies.
The investment proposal says: “The goal is to set up a business to create, manage and maintain a centralised and value-added repository of data concerning real assets related to performance and risk.”
A feasibility studyto determine the size and scope of the company is under way. The process is being conducted by information experts in the sector, many of whom built and operated IPD. Alongside Nabarro and Ternisien, Olivier Mege, former deputy managing director of IPD France and southern Europe is also involved.
Nabarro is looking for support from a small number of larger players, with the intention to create a project brief in the next six months, and an active launch within a year.
The proposal makes no mention of using the collected data for the creation of indices or benchmarks. However, it states that the new warehouse will be owned by the industry and run for its benefit. When IPD was bought by MSCI in 2012, one of the key concerns from investors was the loss of control of their data. IPD had previously been owned by a number of real estate companies.
Nabarro set up the Investment Property Databank with Ian Cullen in 1985. The intention was to make commercial real estate measureable against bonds, equities and other investment classes.
The company grew to provide benchmarks and indices for the entire UK property market, and was instrumental in increasing the transparency and accountability of commercial real estate. This in turn helped to make investment easier, and its services expanded to include other property types and a number of other countries, though attempts to break into the US and Asian markets were slower.
In 2012, US index provider MSCI bought the company for £78m, intending to integrate its property indices with its wider suite of investment benchmarks.
Nabarro and Cullen remained as consultants, with Nabarro eventually resigning in February last year. Many senior members of staff left, while others, including Phil Tily and Mark Weedon, were made redundant.
When he resigned, Nabarro wrote in an email to former colleagues, friends and contacts: “We sold the business to facilitate further growth, especially in the US, and received assurances that the identity and team we had created would be preserved and developed.
“While results to date have been disappointing, I am hopeful that there will be a successful outturn to the investments that are being made and I thank those of you still employed for the extraordinary efforts you are making to enable this.”
