Significant growth for Charles Irvine and a positive outlook for 2022
Charles Irvine doubles size of team in 12 months.
In 2021, we pivoted to refocus on those sectors and client strategies where capital was weighted and there was evidence of increased investor demand. As David Cunnington recently highlighted in his Property Week piece, logistics, residential – and especially BtR – have been key areas for investment.
We turn what can be a transactional relationship for our clients, into one that is consultative and through this we have supported the resurrection of mothballed projects and advised clients on a reactive and proactive basis and with a longer-term view to building their portfolio. Our entrepreneurial approach – the foundation of our business – allows us to respond quickly to market and sector fluctuations and manage accordingly.
At the start of the pandemic in Q1 and Q2 2020, some real estate lenders started to ‘go slow’ and even considered withdrawing funding offers. This sentiment encouraged us back into the capital markets to raise new funds from new sources, including loans from the government CBIL scheme. Land sales and planning permissions were delayed, which had a knock-on effect in the development management process and so some loans required extensions.
As with many property businesses, the business plan of one of our UK projects took far longer than expected and it was our role to negotiate that delay with the lenders. It is these strong relationships that helped minimise, and often remove, many penalties and smooth the process for clients and sponsors alike.
During the past two years, we have been able to demonstrate the benefit of our partnership relationships with new clients who, operating on projects with values between £5m-£100m, may have been used to more of a transactional process when working with capital advisors. Our ethos of advising clients throughout the whole life cycle of a project gave them consistent access to the expertise of our team.
Towards the end of 2020, we reorganised our company structure to make it easier for us to grow. We were delighted to be able to invite Marcus Perry to join Douglas and David as a partner within Charles Irvine to support real estate capital advisory services and manage clients across sectors including residential, student, transitional office, and retail.
We continued to expand the team with the appointment of Archi Griffin Wallace, a senior analyst who specialises in supporting SME residential developers.
In May, we also appointed Thomas Bland as an associate. As a chartered accountant, Thomas adds great financial modelling into our mix of expertise with a deep understanding of the real estate capital structure and project management. He is fluent in French and German and alongside our Italian speakers, Douglas and Renata, we have been able to broaden our reach across Europe and have new access to European capital and sponsors as well as the country-specific real estate advisory.
Renata Bazzani is our Italian-based representative. With over 20 years’ experience in Italian real estate as an investor-client and a consultant, she has a deep knowledge of underwriting, due diligence and acquisition of property.
The addition of multiple-language speakers within the team means we are well positioned to deliver cross-border expertise and can offer our clients a platform to Europe should they need it as part of their portfolio building.
We continue to focus on UK based capital and projects and work with our established family office partners as well as building new relationships with emerging family offices and lenders.
We do not see the investor interest in industrial and logistics abating; this is creating a highly competitive environment and these projects are increasingly hard to come by. Those development projects that stack up and are sponsored by credible sponsors garner significant interest from family office capital.
Although under recent strain, the office sector presents new and exciting opportunities. Occupiers still want offices, just in a different model and investors are looking to those landlords who are building brand strength and loyalty as part of their offer. There are those who believe 2022 is set to be the year of the office refurbishment. If so, there will be a need for new capital investment for upgrading and re-positioning.
Though it remains an uncertain sector, unloved retail assets, often those identified as key to high street regeneration strategies, are attracting attention of family office capital.
As an entrepreneurial business, we are in the exciting position of working with entrepreneurial participants in the property market. The requirement for tomorrow’s development projects to offer something alternative and interesting as points of difference is at the heart of many of our developer clients’ businesses.
Bringing capital to the table for an exciting project is what we are all about and 2022 looks to be a busy and interesting year for real estate investment and development.