The new Qatari pavilion at MIPIM was just metres from its more established London equivalent. The running joke was that it was wheeled, and moving ever closer.
That was wishful thinking, perhaps. There was much talk at MIPIM of the wall of global money looking to find a rewarding home, but there was little sign of it moving over the week.
Even that talk though was enough to upset the banks, who are growing tired, it seems, of missing out on investment opportunities to cash-rich investors.
Suffering bankers, of course, attract little sympathy, though the market may warm to financiers if they continue to act as decisively as they did this week.
News that the two major UK property lenders are set to offload €1.4bn of Irish property and loans buoyed the mood. Ulster Bank, part of Royal Bank of Scotland, is to dispose of €1bn of loan-related investment property, while Lloyds-owned Bank of Scotland Ireland is also understood to be putting together a €400m portfolio to sell. It may persuade the bankers who were in town and keeping a pretty low profile to step out of the shadows next year.
In many ways, MIPIM delegates got everything they could have wished for this year: banks releasing stock, economic stability and even sunshine that eventually arrived.
But there was frustration too. Development finance is and will be thin on the ground. Stability is never enough. And there were precious few growth signals in Cannes or beyond.
Here’s a new barometer of the MIPIM mood for you, though it’s one that is unlikely to make you weep. It seems even the yachtbrokers are suffering this year.
Yes, there were a few empty berths in the harbour, but this tragic tale is less a reflection of visitor numbers. It’s much more that ostentation is one for the dustbin of history. For the foreseeable future at least, it’s hard to see it coming back.
With Boris back in London campaigning, it fell to his deputy, Sir Edward Lister, to carry the torch for London. It was a relief to see the Olympics better celebrated too. The Games have been underplayed for the past two years – imagine how the Paris stand would have majored on it had they won the bid – and sports minister Hugh Robertson was in town to bang the drum. Legacy would be delivered, he said. We won’t make the same mistakes as Sydney and lose the momentum built up by the Games, he told delegates. And we Brits will get better at celebrating staging the event. “We are the same at parties,” he told EGTV. “We arrive late and then we go over the top.”
I spent a fascinating couple of hours at a British Property Federation discussion on the property industry’s role in helping social cohesion. It was a diverse group: developers – from Land Securities to Bruntwood, SEGRO to LendLease; agents – CBRE; and other interest groups – lobbyists, journalists and service providers. And it showed that property was more engaged with issues around social cohesion than the man on the Clapham omnibus would expect. Two problems, though. This was a hand-picked group. Is the rest of the industry as engaged? And even if it is, how do you convince the wider public that it’s genuine. It will inform our campaign, Building a Better Britain.
If you missed any of our MIPIM coverage this year, you can catch up here. There’s audio and video and our daily editions can be viewed. Go to the App Store to download the iPad edition.
