This week’s Estates Gazette Top Agents survey paints a picture of an optimistic sector, already enjoying the rewards ?of a recovering market. So brace yourself for an intense period of jostling for supremacy.
The UK’s top agents turned over a very healthy, collective £2.3bn last year. Familiar names lead the league table, though it’s a little surprising that the gap between the number one (Savills, which only returned to the top of the tree last year) and the rest is widening, not narrowing. As always there are some fast-growing smaller businesses. And it is revealing to note that the fastest of all (CVS, business rates, 40% growth) is also the most specialist.
Names that looked vulnerable not so long ago – Colliers, LSH – are still there. (That DTZ isn’t is simply a factor of its parent UGL not declaring UK figures for the business).
Will the list look different next year? Almost certainly. There will be mergers and acquisitions. Some look at risk of being left behind by their peers. Others are punching below their weight in certain markets. But for the first time in a few years, no firm looks obviously at risk of debt-driven death.
All this and a property market that is further strengthening in core cities with each passing day.
Which brings us to GVA. The firm has long wanted to rid itself of the stake held by Lloyds Development Capital. And chief executive Rob Bould was comprehensive in detailing the firm’s options this week – from “do nothing” all the way to flotation (p41). The former is unlikely, the latter ambitious but possible. Given its international ambitions, what the firm really wants may be a happy home in a global business. Easier said than done.
GVA deserves plaudits for striking first in the coming battle for a place at the advisory top table. It is the motive for UGL wanting to spin DTZ off into a standalone floated vehicle. It is far from inconceivable that Cushmans would follow. But speed is of the essence. As Bould himself notes, it wasn’t so long ago that the capital markets were shut. They won’t stay open for ever.
¦ Forgive the numbers, but it will put the following announcement in context. The ?value of the UK commercial property market is around £570bn. It is about a third of the value of government bonds and 30% of UK equities. It accounts for almost 5% of the £2.5tn invested by insurance companies and pension funds. Residential property, meanwhile, is worth around eight times that of commercial property and more than any other asset class.
Its contribution, though, is barely recognised, under-regarded and rarely celebrated.
But the UK still lacks an event that takes ?in all sectors, across the country and straddles leasing and investment.
With MIPIM UK launching this week – and taking place next October – that is about to change – and high time too.
Certainly to some the UK property industry already has its own event. It’s called MIPIM and takes place in Cannes each March.
And while that is and will remain a vitally important event to this industry, at Estates Gazette we believe the industry needs and deserves its own event here in the UK.
And that is why we have thrown our full weight behind MIPIM UK. We will be producing daily magazines from Olympia come next October and we will be staging events in and around the conference and exhibition too.
You could argue that the last thing this industry needs is another event to attend that risks being a further distraction from fee-earning time.
We would argue though that the industry should have a domestic event that properly recognises, celebrates and accelerates its scale, contribution and creativity. MIPIM UK should be just that.
Damian.Wild@estatesgazette.com
