PropCast

PropCast host Andrew Teacher grills his former IPD colleague and renowned market analyst Colm Lauder on the future for listed property stocks and private investors. Lauder, formerly an investment banker at Goodbody, debates how real estate’s “operation game” is becoming an increasingly vital part of the mix and the duo explain why investors need to stop being so obsessed with NAV.

Listen on Apple, Amazon, Spotify, or SoundCloud. Hosts: Andrew Teacher   In this episode of PropCast, Andrew Teacher speaks to Akeel Malik, co-architect behind the Urban Splash Residential Fund, on connecting capital and the regeneration of regional cities, how technology can keep communities connected, and why real estate must grow closer to its customers.   Akeel Malik operates at the intersection of brands, technology and institutional investment, not just as a partner at SURE Capital – a new investment management business with a focus on sustainable urban real estate in the UK, and a partnership with Urban Splash Group on its residential strategy – but also as a technology entrepreneur and co-founder of a residential investment fund. Malik’s relationship with residential property was catalysed at an early age. Malik, of Pakistani and Irish heritage, grew up in Wilmslow on the outskirts of Manchester’s city centre within a family with some experience of residential development, mainly in “private rented sector and senior living.” Even as far back as school, this familial connection to property and the transformational effects that Urban Splash was having on his local neighbourhood “were definitely on the radar.” After studying Economics and Management at the University of Oxford, Malik worked in London for UBS in its Real Estate, Lodging and Leisure Team, advising on M&A and capital markets. It wasn’t long before he was drawn back to Manchester. Seeking to find quality rental accommodation post-university, Malik and his friends found that many regional city centres lacked decent properties. These personal, familial and professional experiences would converge around Malik’s vision for “using the physical landscape and creating branded, well-designed properties at affordable prices.” Malik found his ideal partner in Urban Splash and its founder Tom Bloxham, launching the Urban Splash Residential Fund together, along with Paul Gough from STAR Capital. The Fund now owns and operates 500 homes across the UK, with first look access over the £1.2bn pipeline of Urban Splash as well as working with other developer partners. It seeks to provide investors with the opportunity to co-invest in a branded, institutional quality portfolio of residential properties for rent. Malik attributes much of Urban Splash’s success to the close match between commitment and delivery. In his words: “Knowing what a company does and what sort of product they’re going to deliver over an extended period of time across different scenarios is what’s made Urban Splash what it is today.” This track record, for Malik, has fostered “trust between the public and private sector.” Because of its 20-year regeneration of inner-city district New Islington, Urban Splash is primarily associated with Manchester. But its next generation of schemes also include Campbell Park, where 1500 homes will be delivered in partnership with the Milton Keynes Development Corporation, while Port Loop in Birmingham is being delivered in a joint venture with Places for People. Malik says: “It’s an island site, 15-20 minutes’ walk from Brindley Place but it is a great opportunity to create an island community. The land was previously industrial, and we got to engage with the community at an early stage.” For Malik, the scale and type of these projects are more akin to major regeneration schemes, unlike “transforming unused mill and warehouse buildings in...

Listen on Apple, Amazon, Spotify, or SoundCloud. Hosts: Andrew Teacher Bidwells is one of the UK’s oldest property businesses, well-known for its focus on life sciences, energy and natural assets. Yet far from resting on its laurels, the firm has made recent moves to amplify its existing capabilities, including advising on the growing market interest in operational real estate. Andrew Teacher speaks to chief operating officer, Kelly Bream, and Iain Murray, head of operational living.   Few businesses are able to celebrate their 185th anniversary, and still fewer make plans for their next 185 years, but real estate consultancy Bidwells is doing just that. To this end, it has launched a growth strategy designed to double the firm in size over the next five years. Steering this ambitious plan is chief operating officer Kelly Bream. Bream studied property estate management at university and brings to her role experience at Berkeley Homes and a third party build to rent operator, as well as from co-founding a number of startup businesses. Bidwells is perhaps best known for its work as the lynchpin of the science and technology clusters in the Oxford-Cambridge Arc. Bream says: “We created Cambridge Science Park back in the 1970s with Trinity College, so our experience in innovation real estate is certainly part of Bidwells’ DNA.” Since 2021, Bream estimates that Bidwells has advised on “probably 80% of the life sciences deals across the Oxford-Cambridge Arc.” Bidwells’ hire of Iain Murray and his Cortland Consultancy team earlier this year boosted its capabilities further, with Murray joining as partner and head of operational living. Murray brings with him a decade of experience in the sector having advised on over £6.2bn in assets, alongside a wider 30-year pedigree across asset classes, including advising on £8bn worth of schools and hospitals while a Partner at G&T. The move comes as part of a wider firm focus on services relating to operational real estate. Reflecting on the outlook for the living sectors, Murray says: “Of particular interest has been the sector’s adoption of whole life modelling and costing, with the industry gaining a longer view of procurement than it has traditionally had. Residential has been short termist, but we are now building a product that lasts.” Murray believes that the key distinction between the build for sale and the build to rent markets lies in the latter’s “focus on the income side” and on “quality, environmental sustainability and safety.” He sees the benefit of Bidwells’ integrated expertise meaning it is able to transcend some of the siloed disciplines, avoiding friction between, for example, parts of businesses that focus on customer experience, cost management and sustainability. He cautions against living sector operators focusing too much on the capital expenditure associated with meeting legislative requirements, such as the inclusion of second staircases: “What we are trying to do is make sure that people don’t focus too much on the capital side when really it is the revenue that generates the value in build to rent projects.” Beyond build to rent, Murray sees opportunity in specialist living sectors such as co-living and senior living. “They represent less than one percent of the private rented sector, but they have further to go in terms of their professionalisation, and the demand will increase owing to demographic tailwinds.” Murray also...

Listen on Apple, Amazon, Spotify, or SoundCloud. Hosts: Andrew Teacher In a future-gazing episode of PropCast, Andrew Teacher speaks to Sophie Hine, the John Lewis Partnership’s head of operations for build-to-rent, biophilic design pioneer Oliver Heath, and fellow architect Tim Tolcher from CJCT about leveraging nature into build-to-rent.

Mission Street founder Artem Korolev discusses how he has quietly built one of the UK’s market leaders in innovation real estate. He tells Andrew Teacher why navigating tech transfer and underwriting for emerging science is key to succeeding in a nascent market.

Andrew Teacher speaks to Jace Tyrrell, chief executive of Opportunity London, on his role attracting £100bn in capital investment for low-carbon real estate, infrastructure and transport, and his rich background in aligning public and private sectors in major cities worldwide over the last 25 years. Jace Tyrrell has spent the last two decades promoting London as an attractive investment destination. Perhaps best known for his time as Chief Executive of New West End Company, the business improvement district (BID) for London’s West End, this expertise informed his next role exporting the BID model to Australia across Sydney’s Western Harbour, the New Sydney Waterfront Co. Tyrrell estimates that there are now around 2,000 business improvement districts worldwide, each established by local democracy and funded by a levy on local taxation. Jace Tyrrell is British by birth but sees himself as very much a ‘Boomerang Brit’, having grown up in Singapore and Canberra thanks to his father’s career in the Foreign Office. On his parents’ retirement, he enjoyed a very remote, rural stint in Queensland that he likens to “living in an episode of the Flying Doctors”. Tyrrell believes his diverse experiences during a globe-trotting upbringing has helped him in “dealing with lots of different cultures, different people around the world.” More recently, Tyrrell was recruited to lead Opportunity London, a new partnership between the City of London Corporation, London Councils and the Mayor of London alongside public and private partners. Opportunity London is co-chaired by London and Partners and NLA.  Its mission is to attract the next £100bn in capital investment into London’s low carbon real estate, energy and infrastructure. Opportunity London has identified the first nine investment zone opportunities in London, seeking £9.5bn of immediate investment at locations as diverse as Old Oak, Brent Cross Town, Crystal Palace and Earl’s Court. To that end, Tyrrell has spent the last six months or so travelling and speaking to investors globally about their preferences and attitudes towards the British capital. Citing research by JLL for Opportunity London, Tyrrell argues that London remains “the most globally traded city for real estate in the world, stretching back over the last five years.” Nevertheless, while the value of that investment was £22bn pre-2019, the value in 2024 is £11bn. Tyrrell says that some of the loss can be attributed to “macro trends on the cost of capital and pressure on sovereign wealth and pension funds to invest domestically within their own jurisdictions, resulting in lower outward capital flows.” Yet, as Tyrrell also cautions, “some of the reason why is the pace of getting decisions made, and unlocking the deals, has slowed which is putting off some global investment committees.” In the year ahead, and with a new Government, Tyrrell hopes “to get some of that friction out of the decision-making process to unlock more investment deals.” A primary challenge for a Labour government focused on productivity and growth will be courting third party capital, given the state of public finances. To do that, in Tyrrell’s view, will require being “very clear with metro mayors and local councils about what they wish to achieve through planning, in turn unlocking investors for housing, infrastructure and transport. These investors will need to be reassured that the goalposts will not be moved.” This will also involve acclimatising local authorities to “being more comfortable talking to institutional and private capital.” Outside of Opportunity London, Tyrrell has been advising in Singapore on a consultancy basis, and points to an example there of what can be achieved where decision-makers agree to a common vision. Tyrrell says: “I think their...

Listen on Apple, Amazon, Spotify, or SoundCloud. Hosts: Andrew Teacher Andrew Teacher talks to the outgoing CEO of Helical, Gerald Kaye, on a life spent in property, the challenges facing the London real estate market, and what he plans to do post-Helical.   Gerald Kaye has devoted his life to the real estate sector. In March of this year, Gerald Kaye celebrated 30 years with Helical, but he admits that he had not imagined at the start of his career becoming one of real estate’s leading authorities on offices. Kaye says his early choice of career was instead influenced by familial ties in land agency and a childhood connection to the countryside. Kaye envisaged being the custodian of a country estate: “I went to Reading University to study Estate Management but I realised soon into the course that I wasn’t going to make much money as a land agent.” Hence, Kaye took a specialism in commercial property and then cut his teeth as a graduate surveyor with Knight Frank and Rutley which remains, for Kaye: “one of the top firms.” Kaye specialised in the office market outside of Central London. It was early work with property developers Peter and John Beckwith via Second London Wall that sparked Kaye’s interest in commercial development. Kaye says: “They would always react when you contacted them and look at a site you recommended.” Kaye enjoyed working with them so much so that he gave notice at Knight Frank and joined London & Edinburgh Trust, the newly rechristened Second London Wall, shortly then to IPO. Looking back, Kaye reflects that he was given remarkable independence and latitude to act from inception to completion on projects from the start: “it really was a case of going in at the deep end and after about a week I had to start to swim or sink.” The 1980s represented a fascinating time for Kaye to be involved in real estate amid the Big Bang and deregulatory agenda under Thatcher, which caused a strong demand for new offices for merged investment banks, and the advent of large-scale development projects such as Broadgate and Canary Wharf. Kaye considers Canary Wharf fulfilled a useful function at the time by providing: “the very large offices for the mega investment banks who wanted a base in Europe and who could get the space they wanted at Canary Wharf without planning constraints.” For Kaye, the trade-off was that while City rents did not rise as fast as they might have done, Canary Wharf was additive and well-timed to cementing London’s role as a financial centre. Changes in planning rules under Peter Wynne Rees as Chief Planning Officer in the late 1980s expanded the amount of space that could be built on sites in the City of London. As Kaye puts it: “Until that point, you could only build five times the amount of space on the site.” From that point on, Kaye considers, the quality of architecture improved as architects and developers were given greater freedom. Kaye saw an expanded remit with London and Edinburgh Trust after it was taken over by a Swedish pension trust in April 1990. Kaye assumed the reins as CEO of a new head office in Brussels in March 1992, overseeing developments across France, Germany, Italy, and Spain. After 18 months he had begun to feel the need for a change. It was an introduction to Mike Slade in 1994 that led to Kaye’s beginnings with Helical. Kaye was brought into Helical with a brief to, “do more development”. The timing was auspicious, since the beginnings...

Former Tesla exec Jacob Monroe is a man on a mission to help deploy EV charging and get property ready for the electrification revolution. But the big story here is that many real estate investors will battle obsolescence risk over coming years due to a lack of power.Whether it’s data centres, labs or even plain old housing – which now comes with requirements for EV charging, accessing power is proving trickier than ever. Crumbling infrastructure and a desire to rebuild Britain as a green energy hub are a backdrop for major change, but many are unsure about the opportunities or risks.Camion Energy, launched last year, helps map power, enabling investors to deploy EV charging infrastructure efficiently and also understand what assets may be at risk. In a highly-charged conversation, Andrew Teacher quizzes Jacob on how the convergence of electrification, net zero, emerging technologies, and a new property cycle will create winners and losers.

Andrew Teacher meets Martyn Evans, one of the property industry’s best-known creative forces, to discuss his remarkable journey from The Body Shop to Landsec U+I. In a hard-hitting interview, he opens up about overcoming his own personal challenges and how he channels the spirit of Dame Anita Roddick into each and every day.This year, Landsec celebrates its 80th birthday. Martyn Evans, creative director at Landsec U+I, who joined the business when the FTSE 100 firm acquired U+I in 2021, is playing a central role in some of the game-changing regeneration schemes that the REIT, reinvigorated under the leadership of Mark Allan, is undertaking.In Evans’s words, Landsec is: “A business that has a huge portfolio that impacts on 100 million people every year. A business that does today what it did in 1944… to seek opportunity to regenerate places that were in trouble.” For Evans, the purpose of Landsec remains the same now as it was then, “just at a different scale and in a different world and with different levers to pull.”The Landsec U+I creative director has an enviable pedigree in real estate and is best known for his élan in creative approaches to regeneration projects, deployed on schemes including the Deptford Project Café, a converted train carriage, and the MVMT Café in Greenwich.In his early career, Evans established a nous for being customer-centric. Working closely with Anita and Gordon Roddick in the Body Shop’s US expansion in the 1990s was “an immense privilege.” For Evans, it cemented his ethos of “wanting to work for a company that cared about what it did very much”, including customers, the planet and its suppliers, while also turning over a profit.Evans’s first opportunity to apply his experiences to real estate came through meeting Ofer Zeloof, owner of the Truman Brewery on Brick Lane. Close to the commercial hive of Broadgate, and a rundown district in the East End, the area was hardly considered a potential retail hub at the time. Financial constraints in redeveloping the 11-acre site meant the team there were unable to “just pull the whole thing down and do a master plan… and rebuild it.” Instead, they worked with the constraints, deploying strategies that are now much more commonplace today: meanwhile use for retailers, turnover rents, and activation through event spaces, art galleries and hospitality.Perhaps the reason this approach surfaced is because, by Evans’s own admission, he has always brought his whole self to work. Evans’s outlook is informed by influences as eclectic as The Smiths, Jane Jacobs, Bauhaus, the Pet Shop Boys and his long-time colleague Richard Upton. As Evans puts it, “everything I have had the pleasure to learn as I’ve grown, mostly from culture, has impacted on the way I do my job.”U+I was formed through the merger of Development Securities and Cathedral Group in 2014. Real estate giant Landsec acquired U+I in 2021 to combine its development expertise with the major regeneration and placemaking chops of U+I in London and core cities like Manchester. Apart from a sojourn as Development Director at the 1,200-acre Dartington Hall in Devon, close to where he spent childhood years, Martyn Evans has been with Cathedral/U+I for more than two decades. Originally intended as a sabbatical, Evans could not resist the challenge to join a team charged with saving the financially-troubled Devon estate, once home to an art centre established by philanthropist Dorothy Whitney.For Evans, Landsec U+I’s formation was a response to the need for successful real estate development to take into account how “messy” modern life is for many people as they navigate their roles of carer, parent, professional, student and otherwise. As Evans puts it, gone are the days where a real estate developer solely needs to “understand how very well to put one brick on top of another and some glass and steel in...

Andrew Teacher debates offices, labs and the revival of the Docklands great estate with John Mulqueen, Chief Investment Officer at Canary Wharf Group. Leave your cynicism at the door and be prepared to visit the Wharf with an open mind.

Hosts: COPY PASTE AND CHANGE Add image Hosts: COPY PASTE AND CHANGE In a novel format on PropCast, Senior Advisor to Montfort, Andrew Teacher, facilitates a debate between Dr. Anna Minton, reader in architecture at the University of East London, Honorary Professor at the Bartlett School of Sustainable Construction, and author of ‘Big Capital: Who Is London For?’, and Ryan Prince, vice chairman of Realstar Group and founder of build-to-rent brand UNCLE. The trio discuss the causes of, and possible solutions to, the housing crisis.

The John Lewis Partnership’s director of Build to Rent (BtR), Katherine Russell, joins Andrew Teacher to explain the reasoning behind the retail giant’s move into housing. The Partnership’s strategy to develop rental homes on its land and above some of its Waitrose stores could deliver thousands of additional homes in the future.

In an impassioned interview, leader of Barking and Dagenham Council, Darren Rodwell, speaks about the borough’s recent triumphs, its chequered past, and why public-private partnerships are delivering the housing, jobs, and infrastructure that will see the area continue to flourish.

Cadogan’s CEO Hugh Seaborn speaks to Andrew Teacher about the historic estate’s approach to stewardship, placemaking, and generating social value across its portfolio – which includes The Gaumont, a recently completed cultural destination on the King’s Road.

Richard Moffitt, CEO of Urban Logistics REIT, a FTSE 250-listed investment trust specialising in logistics real estate, speaks to Montfort’s Andrew Teacher about the long-term positive outlook for sheds, why the REIT structure has worked for his business, and why real estate professionals can’t always manage complex operations sitting at a desk.

The third and final episode of Property Week’s Get Set for Net Zero podcast series centres on the theme of the energy revolution. PW legal and professional editor Tim Clark is joined by Scott Murray, director and head of mechanical, electrical and public health (MEP) projects at independent real estate consultancy Hollis; and Tom Wigg, senior advisor in advancing net zero at the UK Green Building Council (UKGBC), to discuss how the property industry can meet the country’s changing energy requirements on the path to 2050.

Almost every effort to reach net zero will require teamwork both inside and outside the organisation, whether it’s through sustainability-linked financing, landlord-tenant collaboration, or supply-chain action to address Scope 3 emissions. This podcast focuses on the opportunities and difficulties presented by the need to work together to reach shared environmental goals, including practical steps, proven initiatives, contractual approaches and missteps to avoid.

The first episode in Property Week's Get Set for Net Zero podcast series discusses how the industry can make retrofitting more rewarding.

Honor Barratt, chief executive of assisted living developer Birchgrove, and Caryn Donahue, head of the senior living and healthcare team at Savills, speak to Montfort’s Andrew Teacher about the state of the later living sector.

James Saunders, chief executive officer of developer and asset manager Quintain is in the interview seat in PropCast this week, discussing the firm’s flagship Wembley Park development, the importance of branding in real estate, and why listed real estate firms can struggle to complete large redevelopment schemes on time.