There is no more depressing way to round off a weekend than with an attack of the Sunday night blues – especially if you know you need to be up at the crack of dawn the following morning. But Richard Susskind doesn’t let that get in the way of his Monday meetings. A 7am start to the week come rain, shine or – in recent weeks – snow is compulsory for each and every member of his team. And he doesn’t give two hoots whether they like him or hate him for it.
“The 7am lettings meetings are legendary,” says the head of commercial property advisor Richard Susskind & Company in his Hatton Garden offices. “Everyone absolutely has to be here – no excuses – and we cover everything from the week before from sales and lettings to the latest football results until 9am. I think it would be fair to say that the staff don’t always enjoy it and they often look bleary eyed. But they do get used to it. Eventually.”
Susskind has been running the early-morning gathering for 25 years and has no plans to break the habit now just when things are getting interesting for city fringe agents.
The firm is one that, after years of feeling like the poor relation to its west London counterparts, is finally in the right place at the right time, as TMT growth elevates the areas of the capital around Old Street and Silicone Roundabout to new heights.
Susskind, whose firm topped the city fringes ranking in the Estates Gazette London Offices league in Q4 2012 with 25% market share, says the rapid transformation of the area will see his business grow by 50% in the next 18 months.
The King of Clerkenwell
While Susskind’s 30-year-old firm operates across east London covering areas from Shoreditch to Hoxton and Holborn to Islington – he has referred to himself as The King of Clerkenwell ever since someone shouted the moniker out to him across a crowded north London street ? years ago.
“I suppose I am known in some circles as the face of Clerkenwell,” he says with a coy shrug. “I used to focus on that area a lot when we started off in 1983 and have become well known for it.”
Nowadays – Clerkenwell or not – he says the City fringe area is finally having its moment – and its lifting the agents both big and small up with it; “When I set up here in 1983 we were considered to be in the middle of nowhere,” he says. “West End agents wouldn’t even come to see us. We had to go to them as this part of London was considered no man’s land. The first office I ever leased was 80 Goswell Road where we paid £10 per sq ft. In the second quarter of 2012 we let the same building on behalf of Derwent London for £37 per sq ft.
“That’s the thing about this area – I always liked it because it was accessible, close to the City and cheap. It’s not really that cheap anymore. But the TMT firms are moving in any way to be near Tech City and the Silicone Roundabout.
“And strong demand is still there from investors, especially around Farringdon Station where Crossrail is being factored into purchasing prices. We are very fortunate to be in one of the central London hotspots where there is so much demand but not enough supply – so rents will only go in one direction for the very best space. Historically we have always had a ceiling of £50 per sq ft and we have never reached it. Rents have been historically in the low 40s but now we’re seeing that creep up to around £45 and we believe that the Buckley and Turnmill Buildings will both reach that £50 per sq ft ceiling.”
Susskind says that the boom in the city fringe area is likely to see the group’s £?m turnover grow by 20% over the next 12 months and that the sheer volume of work to be done means it is preparing to expand by 50% – a significant amount for an already boutique firm of just six people. “There are three divisions to the agency at the moment; retail & leisure – which I am planning to grow, investment and the core leasing business. I want to bolt on a management arm to increase the size of the business so we are not entirely reliant on the agency. The plan is for that to happen within the next 18 months. We take on so many lettings it seemed like a natural add-on for the business.”
Indeed, the group did 20 deals in the final quarter of 2012 alone and is working on key projects 69 Wilson Street – the former Stock Exchange building now under the Tech City umbrella – where 60,000 sq ft of space has been prelet to six TMT firms, 18-20 Lemon Street in Shoreditch and 1 Seckforde Street for Hermes.
Old and new
Most of the London property sector is keeping a beady eye on the changing occupier profile. And there are few areas where the shift has been more pronounced in the city fringes as the TMT firms have moved in to replace what used to be a much more fashion-dominated district: “In the early two thousands the lettings we were doing around here were to people like Timberland, Esprit, Alexander McQueen and Agent Provocateur,” says Susskind. “Fashion retailer HQs basically. The firms we are dealing with now are still creatives and designers but it’s all TMT groups who don’t mind paying a bit more now the Google factor has started to have such a huge impact on the Silicone Roundabout. And that area is where so much stems from. It was always an unfriendly, concrete urban landscape. In the evenings it was threatening and it was seen as nothing more than a gateway to the City. Now it’s a creative hub.”
He adds that even in such a fast-changing part of London, there are certain things that have remained the same. Occupiers will always want space, volume, light and character – it’s just that the traditional suspended ceilings and carpet tiles have been replaced with a more stripped back, industrial feel preferred by creative companies.
On the developers he thinks are leading the pack when it comes to delivering what occupiers want Derwent London is – once again – first up for praise: “Derwent is the apple of the property world,” he says. “Innovative and creative and a Derwent building now always comes at a premium. Then there is Dorrington, LaSalle, Hermes. These are all developers who have recognised for a while that this part of London is becoming a destination for the creative world.”
Early starts
And being ahead of the pack is something Susskind is hell bent on keeping at the heart of his own business strategy – as his 7am meetings will attest.
It helps that for him, this is a perfectly normal time to kick off the working day. In fact by this time in the day he has already been up for hours: “I leave the house every day at 5:30am to get to the gym at 6am and am at work an hour later,” he says enthusiastically. “I go to the gym six days a week and on Sundays I do a double spinning class – one from 8:30-9:15 and another one from 9:30 to 10:15. I have been living my life like this for 30 years. Exercise keeps me totally focussed, energised and stress-free. And when I am on holiday it’s the same. I am up first thing and we can’t go anywhere that doesn’t have a gym. I just can’t really lie-in. I wake up every morning fully energised and ready to go.”
If seems unlikely that his bleary eyed colleagues feel the same when their Monday morning alarms go off at ridiculous o’clock and they have to haul themselves into the office for 7am come what may. “I am completely serious too when I say no excuses,” reiterates Susskind in case anyone assumes for a second that, actually, he probably takes a light hearted attitude towards attendance rates at the infamous start to the week. Apparently not – the King of Clerkenwell has spoken.
