Good things, they say, come to those who wait.
For John Forrester, the prize is the top job at Cushman & Wakefield. And it’s a position he has been moving towards for more than 30 years.
On 1 January 2022, Forrester will take over from Brett White as the chief executive of the super-firm created by Cushman & Wakefield’s 2015 merger with DTZ.
The announcement landed in the UK in the middle of the night, attached almost as an afterthought to CW’s impressive quarterly results. With such good news to tell the markets, it only seemed right to break the news of Forrester’s promotion.
The agency is pitching the move as “continuity rather than change”. White, who has led Cushman since he forged the deal to unite it with DTZ in 2014, will continue to act as executive chairman. But now Forrester, the DTZ veteran, will be the big man, in command of a $7.8bn behemoth, the captain of a 50,000-strong workforce across 60 countries.
Not bad for someone who fell into the industry by accident.
It was the summer of 1980. “I had totally messed up my A-levels, having found rugby, girls and beer just about all at the same time,” Forrester told EG in 2018. His despairing headmaster at Penrith Grammar asked him what he wanted to do with his life. The Scottish-born farmer’s son thought about it for while and then said that maybe something to do with land would be good, perhaps an agricultural surveyor. But that needed qualifications, and Forrester lacked the grades. He was advised to compromise. “The plan was that I would take just about any job I could in the industry.” And so young Forrester started his career with local firm Gibbings & Thornborough at £25 a week.
He became hooked. From early days braving Carlisle council estates in his mum’s car to put up controversial “for sale” signs, Forrester knew that property was his passion. “I just loved it,” he says. And that passion was bound to drive him to greater things. He reapplied to universities, hoping that his enthusiasm for the business would make up for his dire grades, and was accepted by Nottingham Trent. Before long he was off to the bright lights of the capital. After a stint in Colliers’ West End office in 1987 he moved to DTZ, the firm he would stay with, in one form or another, for the next 34 years.
Steady hands
The rise within was steady. By 1992 he was director of West End agency. Four years later he was running central London. By 2001 he was on the board and by 2008 he was deputy chairman of DTZ UK.
“My career highs were at some points of the companies lows,” he recalls. While the times might have been tough for DTZ, he flourished, “because of the outcome”.
“At the depths of the recession DTZ was a very good organisation just going through a rough patch, a really difficult time.” But the difficult time continued.
As Forrester rose to the rank of group chief executive in 2011, the outlook for the agent was grim. Of all the top five agents, DTZ’s UK turnover continued to fall – by 12% to just £128m. Its headcount had been halved to less than 1,200, hacked back as part of a savings crusade by former chief Paul Idzik.
In fact, Forrester is widely credited with keeping key staff on board during the roller-coaster decade. which included a rescue rights issue and a near takeover by BNP Paribas Real Estate. Later that year the firm was sold, for just £77.5m in a shaming pre-pack administration to Australian engineering business UGL. Under its guidance, and with no little help from Forrester, DTZ was slowly recovering.
By 2014 it was deemed worthy of a £675m bid from a consortium led by TPG Capital. Talk of a potential tie-up with Cushman was rife, but Forrester was dismissive. “If I had a pound for every C&W/DTZ rumour,” he scoffed, “I would have left real estate by now.”
When the merger did come, in 2015, helmed by Brett White, fresh from CBRE, it was the end of a bumpy ride for many. “I left as quickly as I could,” recalls one former DTZ stalwart. “I was quite surprised certain others didn’t too.”
But for Forrester, those years of anguish were necessary. “If the company hadn’t gone through that, I wouldn’t be sat here today,” he said in 2018.
There were many who wondered at Forrester’s decision to stay. Rumours abounded that he had been offered a plum role by CBRE, possibly even the leadership, but Forrester stayed loyal to the old firm. “Of course there have been times,” he said, when he had considered jumping ship. “That’s normal over a long career. But for one reason or another I am still here.”
Some assumed that he had been made a promise. After the merger with Cushman, Forrester was anointed chief executive for EMEA. Two years later he was made global president, seemingly spending more time in planes than on the ground.
And in less than six months, that promise will be fulfilled. Loyalty has paid off.
“I am a firm believer in people being promoted to the level of their incompetence,” he said in 2018. “As one of the most incompetent people in the company, given my position now, l would not change a thing.”
But will he let it go to his head? Unlikely.
“I hope I don’t have this sort of buttoned-up persona,” he said. “It’s John, take me or leave me. I’m still just Big John to everybody, I hope.”
To send feedback, e-mail piers.wehner@eg.co.uk or tweet @PiersWehner or @EGPropertyNews
