Chris Nicolle, a well-liked real estate industry veteran and former head of Savills Capital Advisors, has died at the age of 62 from a heart condition.
Nicolle graduated from the University of Oxford with a law degree and began his career as a solicitor at law firm Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer in London.
He subsequently took up various corporate finance roles with NatWest Markets, BZW and DTZ. At the last of these, he led the firm’s indirect investment team.
Nicolle joined Savills from DTZ in 2008, to run its corporate finance team. Two years later, law firm Norton Rose appointed him as a senior adviser to its real estate practice. He left Savills as a senior adviser in 2016.
He played an instrumental role on high-profile deals including the Ministry of Defence’s £1.7bn housing sale to Annington Homes in 1996, and the £500m sale of Saville Gordon to a Morgan Stanley-backed vehicle in 2002.
Most recently, Nicolle was an adviser to Newcore Capital Management.
Hugo Llewelyn, chief executive of Newcore Capital Management, described Nicolle as an “excellent person”. Nicolle was a non-executive director at Llewelyn’s funds through the 2010s, before his death.
“I worked for him at [legacy Natwest business] Hawkpoint, going back to the early 2000s,” said Llewelyn. “He was my boss and was unusual in the world of corporate finance – a very intelligent, shrewd person, but also extremely kind and good fun. He was a managing director there at the time, much liked by the staff because he was such a decent man.
“I define him as a ‘genuine’ alpha male – people think of alpha males as complete tossers, but he was a kind, rational, good, fun and intelligent man who can also tell you the hard truths about life, while being a wonderful person as well. A rare commodity, and therefore sadly lost.”
Outside of his career, Nicolle was also a member of Benenden School’s governing council.
Nicolle is survived by his wife Monica and son Edward, who is also a current undergraduate at Oxford University.
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