In the second part of EG’s series on the career shake-ups of senior industry figures, Chris Peacock talks to Lucy Scott about his more relaxed life now that he is no longer at the helm of global agent Jones Lang LaSalle. Photographs by Tom Campbell
In January 2004, Chris Peacock resigned from freshly merged Jones Lang LaSalle after just two years as president and chief executive. Peacock, who had begun his career with Jones Lang Wootton as a city agent in 1972, threw in the towel owing to pressures at home after first selling his 90,000 JLL shares for $1.6m (£0.8m) to finance his divorce.
Today, those shares would be worth $9.6m.
Not only does he wish he still had them, but he also confesses to feeling a little regretful that his time at the top was so fraught.
“When I was at the helm, there is no doubt that those were hard times,” says the dapper Peacock. “But shortly after I left, the markets took a turn for the better, business grew and things became easier. It would have been nice to have been at the top in a growing market.”
As JLL’s top man, he had to face the fallout of the merger between Jones Lang Wootton and LaSalle at a time when the markets were reeling from the dot.com crash and 9/11. As a result, the newly listed US company took its time to settle as it struggled with merger costs, falling revenues and rising management costs.
This financial turbulence resulted in job cuts. In early 2003, JLL shed 300 jobs due to economic weakness in Europe and the US. This followed on the heels of CB Richard Ellis’ £266m takeover of Insignia – a deal that created the world’s biggest agent and a company twice the size of JLL.
It’s little wonder then that Peacock, who is fondly described by former colleagues as “one of the lads”, is glad those days are behind him. “I don’t miss the stress of running a global business,” he says. “I was always on aeroplanes, always on parade in front of clients, analysts, bankers, and having to do all those things you have to do when you’re part of a public company. The job was a whole new ball game for me – I was a chartered surveyor from London leading a New York Stock Exchange-listed company.”
While no one had predicted the precise timing, it was not a huge surprise when he resigned, given his age and recent experiences. Eager to keep his hand in, Peacock almost immediately took up a position as non-executive director at Slough Estates – now SEGRO. “It wouldn’t have suited me to go from a 24/7 job to doing nothing,” he says.
Although he admits to spending much of the week playing golf, Peacock has taken on other roles too, including that of non-executive director at Howard de Walden Estates, and strategic adviser for former Doughty Hanson head Marc Mogull’s private equity outfit, Benson Elliot. He is also a shareholder of start-up search firm Land Locator, run by entrepreneur Max Beck.
From this position, Peacock remains confident about the UK property market and believes that those who talk down the market do it damage: “If it becomes the general view that markets will turn and become depressed then it may happen – its self-fulfilling. OK, it costs a bit more to borrow and the banks are becoming more restrained but I’m definitely not despondent about the market.”
Peacock – a lawyer’s son – says he fell into the industry by “luck rather than judgment” but, in the early years of his career, tried out as an RAF pilot. “Thank goodness that didn’t work out,” he says, “I couldn’t have chosen a better career than property.”
He adds: “I do miss the cut and thrust – doing the deals. But, having been on the other side of it for many years, it is enjoyable being able to impart wisdom and then let management get on with it.”
Peacock, who divides his time between a pad in Pimlico and a country house in Holmbury St Mary, Surrey, says he turned down a number of approaches offering further advisory roles. “I’m 62 and I think it’s perfectly acceptable for me to be more relaxed.”
Chris Peacock: “I do miss the cut and thrust but it is enjoyable being able to impart wisdom and then let management get on with it”
Chris Peacock
Born: 9 April 1945 in Bombay, India
Education: Wellington College, Berkshire
1963-1966 Articled pupil to Alan Gillet of Kemsley Whitely & Ferris, Cannon Street
1966-1972 Briant Chambers & Done Hunter in Kennington
1972 City agency department of Jones Lang Wootton
1974 Partner, JLW
1992 Managing partner, Continental Europe, JLW
1996 European chief executive, JLW
1997 First global CEO, JLW
1998 Leads merger between JLW and LaSalle Partners
1999 Deputy chief executive and chief operating officer, Jones Lang LaSalle
2002 Chief executive, JLL
2004 Resigns from chief executive role
Lifestyle Lives in Pimlico and Holmbury St Mary. Interests include sailing and golf. He has five children and five grandchildren.
