Property Movers & Shakers April 2023

14 April 2023

Estate Agencies & Property Management

Chestertons has acquired the letting and management arm of well-known Prime Central London estate agency Henry & James. The H&J team will join Chestertons’ Knightsbridge base on Lowndes Street. Read more.

JLL has set up a dedicated agency sales team in W1, to work alongside the established lettings team in Mayfair. Shereen Akhtar is heading up the new operation as Director of Sales, having moved to JLL from Sotheby’s International. Mohamed Zaghloul has also been recruited from Sotheby’s International, to run JLL’s Private Office team. Akhtar and Zaghloul have been tasked with “strengthening JLL’s residential presence across Prime Central London with a focus on the W1 postcode district, building upon the firm’s market share and offering in the local area.” Read more.

Kensington-based boutique estate agency Wilfords is branching out with a new base, south of the river. The new Wandsworth office is on Northcote Road in SW11, offering sales, lettings and property management services. Read more.

Savills has acquired a residential sales and lettings agency in Italy, expanding the firm’s Italian offering and bolstering its resi presence in Europe. Beliving in Italy was founded by Danilo Orlando in 2013 and has been a Savills associate since 2017. Beliving’s offices in Rome, Milan and Sicily will be fully branded and operated as Savills. The existing Beliving team will be retained with Orlando taking the position of Head of Residential for Savills Italy. Read more.

Lili Zhang has returned Savills to head up the agency’s expanded UK Asia Pacific team. Zhang, who left the firm to join Knight Frank in 2019, is now back at Savills in charge of the UK Asia Pacific operation, based at the global HQ on Margaret Street. Read more.

LSL Property Services Plc has appointed David Barral as a Non Exec Director and Chair Designate of its Board, to replace Bill Shannon, who will retire after the firms 2023 AGM. Barral was previously CEO of insurance giant Aviva UK. Read more.

Leaders Romans Group has acquired Sussex-based residential lettings business, Stanley & Partners, which operates two lettings branches in Lewes and Burgess Hill. The current Burgess Hill office will be combined with the Leaders’ existing Burgess Hill office, while the Lewes office will be re-branded to Leaders. James and Karen Stanley will step back from the agency following a handover period, with all remaining staff transferring to LRG. Read more.

Fine & Country has added two new offices to its network of estate agencies in London. Gareth Mozley, Director of Gareth James Estate Agency in South East London, has signed his firm up to the brand. And property entrepreneur Justin John, who owns and manages four agencies in London and Hertfordshire, has taken on the brand’s Winchmore Hill license. Read more here and here.

Rendall & Rittner has recruited Jo Watson as Head of New Business and promoted John Osborn to Business Development Manager, as the property management firm eyes expansion across the UK. Watson returns to R&R after eight years with Canary Wharf Group, where she set up the company’s residential property arm and worked as Head of Residential and then Operations Director. Read more.

 

Buying Agencies

Buying and selling agency Middleton Advisors has recruited two big-hitters to its newly-formed advisory board. The Chelsea-based property firm has signed ex-Savills COO Juliette Stacey and Zephyr Energy’s Chris Eadie to work with its senior leadership team. Read more.

Richard Winter Property Search, a buying agency set up by a former Savills area director in 2020, has added two new recruits to the team. Anne Soutry, who was a Partner at the Fulham branch of Knight Frank, joins as a Property Consultant specialising in property acquisitions in Fulham. Georgie Geary-Pepper joins as Office Manager. She moves from Savills, where she was Sales Coordinator and PA in Cobham then Guildford, having previously worked as Personal Assistant to Knight Frank’s Chairman in Esher and St George’s Hill. Read more.

 

Developers & Finance

Ballymore has installed Joe Cashman in the newly-created Operations Director role, overseeing delivery of all the developer’s projects from pre-construction stage through to handover. He was previously Contracts Director at the firm. Read more.

Two-year-old real estate development lender Precede Capital Partners (formerly known as Précis) has added two new faces to its team: Leon Johnson joins as Associate Director (Credit), and Sonali Mullick as Senior Associate (Legal). Read more.

 

Marketing & Research

Residential property research and data house Dataloft has been acquired by Swiss-based international proptech and data firm PriceHubble. Dataloft will continue to operate as a separate legal entity to its new owner in the UK, with Sandra Jones continuing to lead the operation. Dataloft will keep its brand and customer relationships, while gaining access to PriceHubble’s tech and Europe-wide resources. “Further integration” is planned in the year ahead. Read more.

 

Consultancy

London-based property consultancy Gerald Eve has been acquired by American commercial real estate services business Newmark. Gerald Eve has been operating for nearly 100 years, and currently has nine offices across the UK and around 600 people. Newmark Group says the deal provides it with “added depth and breadth of services, augmenting its expansion internationally.” The Nasdaq-listed firm adds that this is the latest in a series of business acquisitions around Europe, meaning “Newmark is positioned to be a market leader in office, logistics and retail in the UK and Europe.” Simon Prichard will continue to serve as Senior Partner of the business, alongside Managing Partner Simon Rees. Read more.

Fisher German has announced 54 promotions across its 28 offices, including naming ten new partners. This follows the Midlands-based firm’s merger with commercial agency Matthews & Goodman last Summer – which created one of Britain’s biggest multi-disciplinary property consultancies, with a turnover approaching £60mn. The new Partners are: Louise Duffin, Richard Gadd, Simon Geary, Tom Giddings, James Pegrum, Jonathan Perks, Tom Pike, Hugh Platt, James Wadland and James Watson. Read more.