Although she has swapped the rally track for property development, Jane McGivern, Redrow Commercial’s managing director, still has a driving ambition – this time for company growth. Elaine Knutt reports
A year ago, when Knight Frank devised a marketing strategy for a business park site in Windsor, it planned something of a test. A few months previously, a little-known developer and its joint-venture partner had come unexpectedly close to securing the AXA Sun Life site in Guildford. If invited to view a similarly attractive proposition in Windsor, would Redrow Commercial recognise a solid opportunity when it saw one and take the bait?
This, at least, is the spin Jane McGivern, Redrow’s charismatic managing director, puts on events leading to the company’s winning bid for Windsor Business Park. The Chester-based offshoot of Redrow Homes now hopes that its success in the Knight Frank challenge puts it in the league of serious commercial players, and – just as importantly – on the A-list of names agents think of first when marketing a site.
Former rally driver
McGivern, 38, is a former champion motor rally driver who turned to property after her racing career culminated in winning the Middle East Rally Championship. She feels she is still firmly in the competitive arena. On Redrow Commercial’s prospects in the property development “Grand Prix”, she jokingly warns competitors to “watch out… I intend to have pole position”.
Before McGivern joined the company three years ago, Redrow Commercial really was the phantom company that Knight Frank once suspected it might be. With no sites, no product, and no profile, the developer existed mainly in the ambitions of Redrow chairman Steve Morgan and group chief executive Paul Pedley. McGivern was appointed, as she says, “to make something of it”, by developing relatively low-risk properties on the best sites available, with a view to selling them on quickly.
McGivern has spent those three years slowly building up a profile for her company. “We’ve hit the market at the right time,” she says. “There’s no supply, a lot of demand, and I can see that holding steady for the next couple of years. So I’m anxious to buy, and to get my buildings into the marketplace.”
Apart from Windsor Business Park, Redrow Commercial has exchanged contracts on a leisure scheme in Liverpool’s Lime Street, and is working on a commercial scheme at Severnside, Bristol, next to a 400-unit Redrow Homes development. The company is also talking to Grosvenor Estates – its joint-venture partner for an office scheme in London’s Victoria – about future projects, and has its eye on sites in Manchester and Guildford.
McGivern’s five-year growth plan is now to nurture Redrow Commercial until it contributes 15-20% of the Redrow Group’s profits. In the 12 months to September, these profits amounted to £55.6m on a turnover of £341.6m. The results show that Redrow Commercial contributed a modest profit of £1.7m – down from £2.3m the previous year. McGivern hopes to smooth out such blips in the future. “I want a nice steady growth line. Whatever we do will be sustainable – we’ll never make less one year than we did the previous year.”
One advantage the figures give Redrow Commercial is that it can call on the cash reserves of the group, and move quickly to exploit a dip in the market or buy the sites that take its fancy. “I like to think of us as lean and nippy – we’re the greyhounds of the property world,” she laughs.
Racing is a recurring theme with McGivern. She is “passionate” about horse racing, and her dream development would be to build “an all-weather racecourse with a huge casino”. She used to be a keen point-to-point rider, and gambling is a passion, too – the tan that sets off her elegant clothing comes from California, and on her last trip to the States she and her husband visited Las Vegas.
Grabbing opportunities
Indeed, racing, gambling and grabbing opportunities seem to have set the tone for McGivern’s career. Having joined her father in Dubai in 1979 for a pre-university year off after Cheltenham Ladies College, she worked as a newsreader for the local television station. She became a trainee surveyor for Cluttons while pursuing a successful three-year career as a professional rally driver for Toyota, 10 days each month.
McGivern realised she needed to be in the UK to advance her career in property. Returning in 1986, she joined consultant EDS International as property manager, later following her boss Richard Allen to Bass Leisure as development manager. The next step was to Asda’s Gazeley Properties, while a joint-venture development company job with North East contractor Tolent Construction preceded the Redrow post.
As with any development company bankrolled by a construction parent, the inevitable question mark over Redrow Commercial is whether the group would back it during any downturn, or get bored of having a risky business with lumpy cash flow on its balance sheet. McGivern admits to some nerves on this score. “I did think long and hard about it. But I was absolutely convinced after meeting Steve [Morgan] and Paul [Pedley] that they had a big commitment to property.”
She explains the Redrow board’s decision as seeking outlets for a cash-rich, growth-hungry business. “There is a given number of homes you can develop in a given year or you start diluting your profitability. The way they saw the company growing, they knew there was a risk of hitting a plateau in five to 10 years’ time. So they looked at other ways of finding growth.”
Further joint ventures
Apart from working with Redrow Homes, McGivern is happy to contemplate further joint ventures with other developers, such as the fruitful partnership with Grosvenor Estates. “We are the tarts of the property world. If it’s right for us and it’s going to make us money, we’ll do it,” she says.
At the same time, McGivern says that Redrow Commercial is “incredibly loyal” to companies it has worked with successfully in the past, such as DTZ. This loyalty extends to contractors, as McGivern is a convert to the “partnering” school of construction. The development 10 Lower Grosvenor was built by Laing, and this contractor will be invited to start discussions on Windsor Business Park.
One change, however, will be to shift Redrow Commercial on the geographical map. So far, the company has been sharing space in Redrow’s Chester head office, an arrangement that allowed it access to group support services.
But McGivern plans to flee the nest for a base in Manchester, as well as finding a toehold in the capital. “It’s getting to the stage where we would benefit from a presence in London,” she says – no doubt to help ensure a flow of invitations to view off-market opportunities.
McGivern appears to have her race plan well thought out. But as any rally driver knows, it is not just the individual’s skill and nerve that counts. The back-up they receive from sponsors, mechanics and navigators is crucial. And in Redrow Commercial’s case, it will be Redrow’s main board that will inevitably have a huge influence on whether the group’s development company can take home the trophies.
