EDITOR’S COMMENT: Two weeks. Two big announcements. I’m not going to lie – Rob Noel is not the person I had my money on to announce that they would be stepping down as chief executive of one of the UK’s listed REITs this year.
Eight years is a pretty good tenure for a chief executive, and Noel certainly hasn’t outstayed his welcome.
Okay, the REIT has been topped as the UK’s biggest by industrial hottie SEGRO, and it has seen more than £500m wiped off its value as a result of the continuing malaise on the high street.
But Noel has set the business up to be able to deliver more than 3m sq ft of fresh, new space in London – including a decent amount on the space-starved and much in demand Southbank – as and when the market is ready for it.
And the balance sheet is in decent shape, too. A low LTV of around 27% and cash and facilities of £1.6bn ready to deploy as and when.
But with a sector going through a transformation like never before, a changing of the guards could be exactly what is needed.
As Noel says himself, he’s been going “flat out” for 33 years in the real estate sector, and it is time for a change.
The announcement of his departure came the morning after Mike Slade threw a typically Mike Slade-y bash at Claridges to officially mark his retirement from Helical, a company he sat at the helm of for 30 years, and a month after John Burns’ official retirement party (at the same venue). Burns led Derwent London for 35 years.
Throw into the mix the reshuffle at British Land, which saw veterans Charlie Maudsley and Tim Roberts leave the business, and the departure of David Fischel from intu, and we have an almost fresh set of thinkers to redefine and redesign real estate.
And after last week’s findings from the British Property Federation’s perceptions survey that only 27% of the general population looked favourably on real estate, and the excruciating results of a study by Grosvenor Britain & Ireland this week which revealed that just 2% of the public trusted developers, lord knows we need some new thinking. And new behaviours.
Noel himself says that the changing of the guard is healthy. “Bringing in new blood is vital for the industry,” he says.
The industry is going through unprecedented change. The way in which we live, work and play is wholly different to what it was 10 years ago. The way in which we operate our businesses, deliver for our employees, design, rent and build space has metamorphosed. It’s time our leading developers of that space did, too.
Landsec has a real opportunity with whomever it chooses as its successor to Noel to make a big change.
Helical, Derwent, intu and BL have all chosen “safe” successors. Perfectly capable individuals – smart, knowledgeable individuals – but all incumbents. All “traditional” property types.
Landsec could go rogue. I’d say, it should go rogue. It has time to make a smart hire, a different hire. It has time to think about what the built environment is going to look like when it gets ready to press go on its £3bn development pipeline, and what kind of leader would be best placed to deliver on that vision.
Imagine if the next leader of one of the UK’s largest REITs came from a customer service background, a tech background, a data background, or perhaps even third sector background. What could real estate look like then?
