Developer First Base is splitting its team and portfolio to create two new companies.
First Base former chief executive Barry Jessup will lead Socius Development as managing director. He will retain his interest in First Base, but will focus on the new business line.
Jessup is joined by directors Olaide Oboh, Steve Eccles and Daniel May, with Peter Rogers, Rupert Clarke and Phil Wade as non-executive directors.
Socius will take forward a £1bn pipeline of schemes in Milton Keynes (pictured), Bristol, Brighton and Cambridge. The mixed-use, urban regeneration developer will seek to expand its pipeline of projects in London and major towns and cities.
Chairman Elliot Lipton will continue to lead First Base as managing director. Lipton founded First Base in 2002 and was joined by Jessup in 2004.
First Base will continue to operate as an independent separate entity focusing on public-private partnerships, such as East Village, Olympic Park, looking to grow investments and affordable housing via subsidiary First Affordable. The company will retain investments in a number of Socius’s development projects.
Jessup said: “The pandemic has further strengthened the importance of genuine mixed-use communities and provides a once-in-a-generation opportunity to revitalise town and city centres as greener, more sustainable, and more people-oriented places. All of this can be achieved alongside major wider community investment that can benefit everyone.
“We are proud of everything that we have achieved at First Base over the last 20 years, and we are looking for Socius to take this to a new level again.”
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