A new 'Republic' is bringing the groove back to the London Docklands, while the new mayor is trying to put figures on foreign ownership in his city and a French insurer is giving a concrete signal of its belief in the post-Brexit capital. Three themes in Peter Bill's Letter from London.
To the smart glassy offices of LaSalle Investment Management in a pricey Mayfair street. Purpose of visit: to meet Alan Tripp, boss of the 170-strong UK team, which manages £12.3 bn (€13.6 bn) of property assets. The atmosphere in the Curzon Street basement is hushed, friendly and, well, a bit posh. The expectation is to hear grave talk of institutional-grade assets in golden postcodes being farmed for high rents. Not a bit of it, says Tripp, 56, a sociable 30-year veteran of the sector, who joined LaSalle in 2008 after managing funds for Invista and Clerical Medical. 'In order to provide the service that our clients expect, we can’t just invest in properties and then sit back and collect the rent. Our strategy is always to actively manage, add value and strive to earn superior returns.' LaSalle’s financials appear to bear this statement out.
Groovy Republic
The 700-strong investment arm of listed JLL operates in 17 countries and holds $59 bn (€53.8 bn) of AUM on which $397 mln in fees were earned last year. The key indicator of those ‘superior returns’ is the fact that $123 mln of the total fees came from incentive payments. From April to June, LaSalle's revenue was up 27% at $136 mln with operating income up at $48 mln from $38 mln in Q2 2015. Incentive fees accounted for 38% of revenue in the second quarter. A stern test of what might be called a ‘non-core’ policy lies in three lumpen 1980s office buildings at East India Dock, near the Blackwall tunnel.
LaSalle and partner Trilogy paid £170 mln to Asif Aziz of Criterion, after the Malawian entrepreneur failed to get permission for 1,400 new homes. Aziz bought the 591,000 sq ft complex for £163 mln from German fund KanAm in 2006. The main tenant is Tower Hamlets council.
Some very active management indeed is getting under way at what's been rebranded 'Republic'. The 'campus' is being turned groovy. The aim is to rent the space to the tieless at £35 per sq ft, half the price of achingly groovy Shoreditch. 'You can see Canary Wharf,’ says Tripp, half suggesting he has a £30 mln-plus budget to brighten the place up. ‘We want our occupiers not to feel they are in the back of beyond.'
First strike has come in the shape of a canteen-style restaurant called Quilombero opening this month which will serve Argentinian food with an Italian twist. There will be both an outdoor grill and a wood-fired oven. You can’t get groovier than that.
Spurious surveys
London mayor Sadiq Khan is to squander who knows how much on a survey on the foreign ownership property in the capital. Why? Because he has ‘real concerns’ about the impact of foreign investment in London. Well, yes, ‘that’s as maybe’ as a cantankerous old aunt of mine used to say. But what exactly does the mayor think the Greater London Authority can do? Impose exchange controls? No. Sadly he’s reduced to making Trump-like gestures. There is a touch of ‘let’s build a wall’ in the pronouncement from an otherwise respected mayor. Khan is, of course, reacting to working class anger at being locked out of the housing market. There is very little the GLA can do, unless Khan possess super-powers. But that does not excuse stirring up xenophobia.
Commercial investors need not worry, well not too much. Demand for office space is falling, the RICS said at end-October. Brexit collywobbles are blamed. But the Office of National Statistics produced fresh estimates on London's population in the same week. The numbers will jump by 1.1 million to 9.8 million by 2025. If half of them work, that adds up to an awful lot of work and play space. Lord knows where they will live.
Pierre Vaquier, hero of the City
Former mayor Boris Johnson should order an honorary OBE for Pierre Vaquier, CEO of AXA IM - Real Assets. Citation? 'For pressing the button on 22 Bishopsgate.’ AXA has poured tens of millions into the hole that will now rise 67 floors to become London's tallest skyscraper by 2019. AXA promises space for 12,000 workers in the tower by 2019. Johnson is now foreign secretary. Honours for foreign nationals are in his gift. If what AXA now seems to call plain '22' was called off, the blow to the City would have been heavy. Give that man a gong!
Peter Bill is author of Planet Property and former editor of Estates Gazette
