00:00:00:00 – 00:00:30:08
HOST
Welcome to the People Property Place podcast. Today we are joined by Paddy Allen, head of operational capital Markets at Colliers. Here, Paddy and his team specialize in providing a full suite of capital services including debt and equity raising, transactional services, operational consulting and real estate technology to investors and operating platforms in various sectors where real estate investment performance is directly linked to an operational business.

00:00:30:10 – 00:01:01:17
HOST
Paddy has a deep expertise in the bill to rent student accommodation, hotels, co-living and other emerging sectors. He’s also an advisor and investor to businesses across real estate, technology and wellbeing. And he’s the chair of Pathways to Property, a not for profit, initiative to increase diversity, social mobility and inclusion within the real estate sector. Paddy holds a BSc in Land Management from the University of Reading, and has completed the Real Estate Management Program at Harvard Business School.

00:01:01:21 – 00:01:03:14
HOST
Paddy, welcome to the podcast.

00:01:03:15 – 00:01:06:00
GUEST
Thanks so much. Thanks for having me. It’s a mouthful, isn’t it?

00:01:06:02 – 00:01:29:18
HOST
Yeah, there’s a fair bit there, but you’ve had a phenomenal career. And we’re actually just talking you off, mike. And we kind of reference Catherine Webster, who I recorded. Yeah, a few weeks ago. Just in terms of the squiggly career. Absolutely. And I’m really excited to kind of get stuck into a bit about your background, how you see the market and the future for you and the team moving forward, but a place that I always like this podcast is how, how and why did you get into to real estate?

00:01:29:20 – 00:01:44:24
GUEST
I think like a lot of people, when you start these things, it was, complete accident to be honest. So I was I was at school and I did not know what I wanted to do. You know, you were kind of told that you had to go to we should go to university, you know, we should. You should think about that.

00:01:44:24 – 00:02:02:17
GUEST
But I, I didn’t know what what I, what courses I should be doing. And I’ve always enjoyed business and making money and projects. I’m not somebody who likes to sit down very much. And, my team can tell you that I’m not very often sitting down at my desk. And I probably my teachers at school were testing the same thing.

00:02:02:19 – 00:02:17:01
GUEST
And I had this geography teacher that you know, I trusted, and he knew me well. And I went to him and said, you know what my good at? What am I good at? I don’t know, you know, I don’t want to do business studies or accountancy. They look a bit boring, you know. And he said, what about real estate and property?

00:02:17:01 – 00:02:36:10
GUEST
And I was like, tell me more. And yeah, this was the year 2000, I think, and still leaflets in a cupboard at the back of the geography room were thing, and he gave me a leaflet for the University of Reading Land Management, and I thought, that looks interesting. You know, I could do economics, law, architecture, you know, all these different things.

00:02:36:10 – 00:02:54:13
GUEST
And I got to choose different modules as well. I actually ended up doing French as a, as a module, because I didn’t want to learn anything more about real estate at the time. So I just wanted to have the breadth and stuff that would keep me interested. And, so I like every good person. I didn’t hedge my bets, just apply to reading.

00:02:54:13 – 00:03:12:18
GUEST
I actually applied to reading in Cambridge, mainly because my careers advice. I had told me I’d never get into Cambridge, so I wanted to do a big ask. You to hit me. Like, you know, I just watch me, I’ll prove you wrong. So I applied for Cambridge and reading, and, you know, my parents were like, are you sure?

00:03:12:18 – 00:03:28:11
GUEST
Do you know what you’re doing here? You’re obviously meant to apply for a number of universities, and I am. Yeah, I was, you know, I didn’t get into Cambridge, but I got into reading and the rest is kind of history from, from there. And it’s been, you know, a a mad journey for the last, you know, kind of I guess.

00:03:28:11 – 00:03:35:20
GUEST
What are we, 2023. Yeah. You know, 20 years, 2024, 24 gosh. Yeah. Exactly. Right. Yeah. So exactly time is flying.

00:03:35:22 – 00:03:48:22
HOST
Yeah. Well, look, that’s, that not getting into Cambridge. That’s a really important part. Not for us to kind of just skip over. Yeah, because can you just talk to me about what you were like as a student at school, and then also that kind of the impact that not getting into Cambridge actually had?

00:03:48:24 – 00:04:07:04
GUEST
Yeah, definitely. I mean, I was I was quite a, I was quite is probably but a lot of people won’t believe this. But I was quite an insular kind of kid, you know, until I was probably until I got contact lenses, I guess when I was about 14 or 15, I, I really lacked confidence. You know, I, you know, I had, yeah.

00:04:07:04 – 00:04:22:24
GUEST
I didn’t come from a very sort of, stable sort of family background firm for a while. And that was. Yeah, my parents were fantastic people, but, you know, they went through a break up when I was a kid. And that affects, you know, young children and, you know, so I always felt like a bit of, a bit of an outsider.

00:04:22:24 – 00:04:39:15
GUEST
And, you know, I teachers kind of, wrote me off, you know, a lot of the times, you know, my parents, you know, I don’t know how this I don’t think this would happen in 2024, but, you know, certainly happened in the 90s where, you know, teachers would say to parents, don’t get your kid’s hopes up. They’re not probably not going to go anyway.

00:04:39:17 – 00:04:56:13
GUEST
And I remember hearing my primary school teachers saying that about, you know, getting into a grammar school for, you know, 11 plus. And, and I remember even at nine, 9 or 10, I was like, screw you. You know, I’m going to do this. And I did, and I worked hard and I got into, you know, a really, you know, good grammar school locally for us.

00:04:56:13 – 00:05:13:19
GUEST
And again, you know, when I got there, I wasn’t wasn’t one of the straight A’s kids. In fact, I was in the bottom set for everything. Didn’t really get any help from any of the teachers. They kind of just wrote you off, you know, they’d focus on the higher performing kids rather than the ones at the bottom, and you kind of get labeled as a bit of a troublemaker.

00:05:13:21 – 00:05:44:02
GUEST
And, and actually not just gave me this real burning desire to just prove people wrong and to really graft. And so I did. I started working when I was sort of, 1213 in our local pub and, you know, just started washing up and doing all that. And I just built my confidence from there. And really, I think, you know, I kind of, I got, I, I kind of found myself, you know, when I was sort of 15, 16 found that confidence and I was like, right, I’m going to go for it.

00:05:44:02 – 00:06:02:19
GUEST
But I didn’t fit in, you know, I was never the, I always just did things my own way. And if you can imagine this, I think a 17 year old going to the Cambridge interview and I, you know, I, I go I managed to work really hard at GCSE and got all, you know, a bunch of A’s which but my, my teachers are like really?

00:06:02:19 – 00:06:28:02
GUEST
How you know, they genuinely had to check whether I had the right, the right results. And then I was predicted all over A-level. And so I had all the grades. But then when I went to see the Cambridge interview, I, I was I guess I just didn’t fit in, you know, I went up there and I drove up there and I, I put myself into a, B and B the night before because I wanted to, you know, wanted to kind of make a good impression and not turn up tired.

00:06:28:04 – 00:06:45:13
GUEST
But, you know, I was I was me. I had, what my friends would describe as a Craig David beards. I’ve had a beard since I was about 15. So, you know, lime beard. I had an earring up here. My hair gelled, you know, probably had lines in my eyebrow, which was the done thing, which probably came from a holiday with my mates.

00:06:45:15 – 00:07:03:08
GUEST
You know, a time, but I thought was me. That’s who I am. I felt confident doing that. Anyway, I walked into the room and the the chap who was interviewing me for the college just took one look at me and was like, nah. And it was such a weird feeling. And, and I my interview was six minutes long.

00:07:03:10 – 00:07:14:00
GUEST
You know, he just he he asked me a really random question. And then said, you know, we don’t say, I don’t think you’re our kind of person. Thanks for coming. And I was it.

00:07:14:02 – 00:07:15:00
HOST
No other feedback?

00:07:15:00 – 00:07:31:14
GUEST
No other feedback. And for years I, you know, I went back to my school and I said, look, I don’t think this is fair. And I said, look, don’t don’t make a fuss. And so that got my back up as well. You know, I wasn’t even able to go against the establishment because they were like, well, we want to get other people into Oxbridge.

00:07:31:14 – 00:07:50:00
GUEST
So, you know, don’t you ruin it for us. And, you know, I told my friends about it and I said, well, I’m sure it was in that party, you know? And for years I felt like, you know, I kind of held onto this. And it was it was actually after I completed the Harvard course, at the end of last year that, you know, I suddenly realized I, did have that validation.

00:07:50:00 – 00:08:08:18
GUEST
You know, I wasn’t making this up. This actually did happen to me. I did feel this way. And, but what the realization was, is that’s given me energy for 20 years, and it was the best thing that ever happened to me. I probably wouldn’t have fitted in at the time, you know, at Cambridge. And there’s no site in Cambridge, you know, it just I wasn’t we weren’t the right fit at that time.

00:08:08:19 – 00:08:37:19
GUEST
And the guy who probably said no probably made the right decision. I don’t think it would have been for me, but it just gave me that burning desire to to really kind of and maybe a chip on my shoulder. Definitely. You know, to really kind of outperform and just keep going to come full circle. The irony of it all now is that I’m actually mentoring a young guy from, East London who’s, from Somalia, a Somali background come from a comprehensive school who’s just got into the, land economy at Cambridge.

00:08:37:21 – 00:08:52:22
GUEST
And the time right. The time is right for them both. Now he’s, you know, and it’s that’s giving me a real sense of fulfillment that I can I can do that for him and be there and you know and it’s it’s allowed me to get that chip off my shoulder a little bit. And sometimes the timing’s just not right with these things.

00:08:52:22 – 00:09:07:14
GUEST
But it definitely gave me the, the real, you know, the desire. So that’s a sign of the times. Then. And I think the fact I’m mentoring a guy now doing it who’s from a sort of similar background, you know, shows how the times have changed, really. So that’s progress for you.

00:09:07:16 – 00:09:16:14
HOST
Based. Quite, quite. Right. Yeah. So you got into reading. You did kind of three years. Did. Yeah. Did you love the course?

00:09:16:16 – 00:09:34:05
GUEST
Yeah. I mean, I’m, I’m very fortunate now to be, you know, I’m a trustee for the Reading Real Estate Foundation, which last week when I went to the Henley Business School, which is merged with Reading University last week. And I realize I’ve been involved with them since 2003, which, again, was all about my personality. So I remember the student society.

00:09:34:05 – 00:09:51:24
GUEST
There was a chap, running it and he needed help, and I was like, and I didn’t, as opposed to be like, that’s your problem. I said, I’ll help you. And I remember within a year or two I was organizing the student bowl, and whereas everyone else would go to the this the land management student board and get hammered and have a great time, I was like, no, I’m going to organize this.

00:09:51:24 – 00:10:13:19
GUEST
And so yeah, I remember taking it to we went to the Medeski Stadium for the first time, and I remember running around all night like the I might as well have been that guy had a mic on my phone like some sort of wedding planner, but I loved it. I didn’t want to be the people getting, you know, being out there getting hammered and, you know, and doing all the things I wanted to be the person who was organizing it and driving it forward and making a profit.

00:10:13:19 – 00:10:27:15
GUEST
Because the great thing about doing things for charity was that, you know, if we made money, we could make money we could and reinvest it into all the different things. So I think I really I did enjoy writing. It took me a long time to fit in, you know, I think, what do.

00:10:27:15 – 00:10:28:14
HOST
You mean by fit in?

00:10:28:17 – 00:10:48:09
GUEST
So I think, you know, the real estate industry in Redding itself has, you know, has had for years a bit of a, I guess, an image problem that, you know, it is people from more privileged background. So you go there and that certainly, you know, was the case, when I was there, you know, not so you know, everyone there was was very lovely.

00:10:48:09 – 00:11:06:04
GUEST
And, you know, I’ve made some incredible friends from a real diverse, you know, bunch of backgrounds. But, you know, I was definitely I’d come from a, you know, come from Essex where, you know, most of the I suppose I wasn’t really brought up around much privilege in that sort of sense. I had mates you done well and parents you’ve done well and stuff like that.

00:11:06:04 – 00:11:38:19
GUEST
But old, older money was really new to me, and especially private schools. I’d never been. I didn’t know anyone from a private school. I didn’t I didn’t even know that people paid for their education, to be honest with you. So I was quite naive, you know, going into it. And so, you know, there was a lot of 18, 19 year olds who that who’d just been brought up in a totally different way to me and didn’t see any barriers, didn’t, you know, didn’t you know, their their idea of how work and got off was very different from mine, you know, because they had networks, they had confidence it was this, this, this, this confidence.

00:11:38:19 – 00:11:55:04
GUEST
I think it was it was always questioning about which I don’t think you have when you kind of, you don’t have those networks. And I’m not taking anything away from any of these guys. I don’t think that’s what diversity and all that is, but it you know, it was definitely it took me a long time to understand whether I fit it in.

00:11:55:04 – 00:12:16:02
GUEST
So. But I’m glad I stuck it out because I’ve made some fantastic friends there who. And they’ve taught me a lot as well. You know, I’ve learned a lot about what diversity is and all of that through going through that experience. And I don’t begrudge anyone, you know, the worlds that they’re brought up in. I just kind of, you know, for me, it’s about sharing those those those kind of, experience races and what have you.

00:12:16:02 – 00:12:32:13
GUEST
But yeah, going back to your question, it was it was a great course because for me, it was vocational. And I was I’m not a good person. If you just put me in front of a book and say, learn that from a book, you know, I want it to fail. I wanted to do. And so from day one, you’re you’re ingrained in the industry.

00:12:32:13 – 00:12:54:19
GUEST
You start building industry contacts. They were bringing people into, to lecture you to, to review your work. That were from, from industry. So from day one, I was, I was making contacts talking to people about their businesses. And, you know, so I don’t see any other courses that, that do that. And I think writing still does that today, which I think is, you know, is is brilliant.

00:12:54:21 – 00:13:11:02
GUEST
And so for somebody like me who just wanted to get on with it and work, it was it was really good. And I was meant to do the three plus one course, which is three years undergrad, one year, master’s in planning and I can that after the second year, I was like, no, I just want to get out there and start working.

00:13:11:02 – 00:13:12:23
GUEST
I don’t want to. Yeah, I don’t want to do that.

00:13:12:23 – 00:13:18:08
HOST
So you finish uni, talk to me about how you kind of landed your first job and then, you know. Yeah. From there.

00:13:18:08 – 00:13:39:06
GUEST
So, the I it was a really, really good, careers advisor call Jane Batchelor who’s still there. She’s still there. You’re still there. And she gave me a list of email addresses. And back in 2003 for. Yeah, to go to the library and queue up for the, computer. Yeah. That was on the internet. It was a lot of a lot of computers are on the internet.

00:13:39:06 – 00:13:57:16
GUEST
I didn’t have internet in the halls, and I just sent off email addresses from my Yahoo address, which I still have today. So all of these H.R. Contact saying I’d like to do work experience, you know, how you know, tell me the process. So I was very fortunate to get offered work experience. What was that is real.

00:13:57:16 – 00:14:14:12
GUEST
Now BNP Paribas and Knight Frank as well. I, I never did the work experience at Knight Frank because I did. I was meant to do four weeks at it and then four weeks at Knight Frank and I got on really well with the, with the, with the Atlas team. And they said, oh, why don’t you just stay for the whole summer?

00:14:14:12 – 00:14:31:03
GUEST
So I thought, well, what would you rather, for rightly or wrongly, what would you rather take? Two, four week experiences which, you know, you’ve got to start again, or one three month experience where I get to go deeper into the kind of business. So, you know, I phoned up the knight, the knight Frank team the week before and said, no, I’m not coming.

00:14:31:08 – 00:14:47:08
GUEST
Which in hindsight, you know, I could say they were pretty annoyed. But I can kind of see why. But it was best for me. I felt for me, you know, I wanted to go deeper. And so I worked in the office agency team there for three months over the summer. Loved it. Really, really enjoyed it. Took so much from it.

00:14:47:08 – 00:15:06:23
GUEST
And at the end of it, about the week before I was leaving, I, I used to sit outside the CEO’s office, a guy called Greg Cook, and I think I must have said to to Greg and to Mark England, who is then that still the MD there. So damn any chance I could have a job on the on the grass King and I must have been like, who the hell is this guy asking for a job?

00:15:06:23 – 00:15:25:08
GUEST
I said, well, look, it’s a three month interview. I said, if you you know, if you like me after three months, then somebody, you know, surely you’re not going to you. What are you going to glean from doing a couple of assessment days? Right. You know, you’re either like me or you don’t like me. I’m sure it wasn’t as kind of, quickly as that, but, they came back and said, yeah, absolutely.

00:15:25:08 – 00:15:39:01
GUEST
Like, you know, we’d love to have you on board and offered me, a position. And you’ve got in those days, you’ve got a signing on bonus of 1,000 pounds. And I was like, brilliant, but I was I was paying my own uni face, which were around about 1,000 pounds and so on. So I said, that’s well, and good.

00:15:39:01 – 00:15:54:05
GUEST
Thank you very much. I appreciate that. And they were like, you’re not going to take it. I said, well, any chance you could pay my university fees as well? Because I want the grants to to pay for my living costs. I want to grind living costs and I want a grand for the fees. And I remember Greg Mark looked at me like, who is this guy kind of thing?

00:15:54:05 – 00:15:57:07
GUEST
Anyway, they came back a day later, said, yeah.

00:15:57:09 – 00:16:03:24
HOST
So nice, you know? Yeah, yeah. So you put yourself into a role. Yeah. And you’ve got a sign on bonus and you’ve got an additional bonus as well. Yeah.

00:16:03:24 – 00:16:18:13
GUEST
And so like, yeah they, they they do. Greg, Greg it’s been great. See I’ve always kept in contact with Greg and you know he’s one of my mentors and you know so for the last 20 years and you know like you say if you don’t ask you don’t get. And I’ve got a special, special place for them in, you know, my heart.

00:16:18:13 – 00:16:36:10
GUEST
And that the other days I was I never even completed my APC that I could. I got bored and and left 16 months into my APC, which they all thought I was mad, but I kept the relationships with with those guys and they’ve been, you know, it’s really I love it when I, when I say especially, you know, Greg and Mark, you know, out in the various events and stuff like that.

00:16:36:10 – 00:16:37:06
GUEST
It’s great.

00:16:37:08 – 00:16:40:22
HOST
So did you go back into the agency?

00:16:40:24 – 00:16:59:24
GUEST
No. So I, I, I was just I wasn’t very good at being one of 25 graduates, you know, and being on a two year kind of training. Just do this, do this, do this. I was really I just wanted to get going. I otherwise I’m the kind of person that’s always had three jobs, you know, I worked for Pete’s Heart for five years.

00:16:59:24 – 00:17:15:19
GUEST
I was doing marketing jobs. I was doing bar jobs. If I had a spare hour, I’ll be trying to work and work out why I could do it. And I really struggled coming into an environment where somebody said, to stay in your lane, do this, work 9 to 5 and turn up and, well, I just it was driving me crazy.

00:17:15:19 – 00:17:42:17
GUEST
I couldn’t and so I was at a Reading Real Estate Foundation bowling event, which was sponsored by a company called Calverton, which, was is Richard Croft with Richard Croft’s first iteration of his businesses back in 2005. Six and I was chatting to a guy there and he said, he and he introduced me to it was a chap called Rod Lockhart, who is now CEO at Lend Invest.

00:17:42:19 – 00:17:59:09
GUEST
And Rod, introduced me to one of his friends, and he said, oh, hey, you bought licensing. You know, I didn’t that wasn’t meant to be common knowledge and said, well, I worked for this group called Halton. You know, we’re really fast growing business, doing loads of really interesting stuff. Do you fancy coming and interviewing for a job on the acquisitions team?

00:17:59:09 – 00:18:19:04
GUEST
I was like, yeah, great, let’s do it. So I, our data went along for an interview. I knew nothing about fund management. I didn’t even know what it was or what it did. You know, back in those days as well, websites were there, but they weren’t massively informative. So I yeah, I kind of faked it a little bit.

00:18:19:04 – 00:18:38:05
GUEST
And so you made it. And so I got interviewed by a guy called Charlie Allcock, who is one of my clients now, and he remembers it, and he’s. I turned up all sweaty because I, I’d walks there and, because I didn’t want to pay the the chief fat because in those days, I walks everywhere because I didn’t have the money for the for the tube.

00:18:38:05 – 00:18:53:03
GUEST
And it was I could sort of save it. And I you said to me, how do you know how to read deed reports? And I’m like, yeah, sure. And he there was this weird silence where he sort of meant, you don’t know what D-Day stands for. You. And I was like, if you don’t ask, I’m not telling you.

00:18:53:05 – 00:18:54:11
GUEST
And I didn’t I didn’t have a clue.

00:18:54:15 – 00:18:55:11
HOST
Due diligence to be.

00:18:55:12 – 00:19:15:01
GUEST
Yeah, yeah. Due diligence. I learned that only a few years ago. Anyway, I see similar. I’ll work on. I’ll get stuck in, you know, it is what it is. And, I very fortunately got off the job. I said, look, you’re going to have to put yourself through your IPC. We don’t have a structure here, but, you know, I said, yeah, that’s fine.

00:19:15:01 – 00:19:48:15
GUEST
You know, I’ve got mates for doing it. And as long as one of the guys in the team who’s qualified can kind of be my, counselor or whatever will be fine. So I did, you know, and I put myself through the IPC and, but I ended up kind of, you know, working at an amazing time, free JFC with, you know, incredibly fast growing business, with, with Richard at the helm, which was, you know, a brilliant, brilliant experience, you know, and he probably, you know, there was lots going on, but I was this kind of 22 year old sitting outside his office just watching and glaring.

00:19:48:15 – 00:20:03:01
GUEST
Yeah. And taking everything in off of what was happening. And it was a it was a brilliant experience. So I went from being in a very corporate environment where you were one of a number to being I think I was probably employee number 60 or so in that business, but it went from 60 to 160 in the next year.

00:20:03:03 – 00:20:13:17
GUEST
Just seeing all this stuff happen around me. And it was just that was what I wanted. That fast pace growing, no fear of failure. Just get on with it. You know, that was that was that I’d found my place at that point.

00:20:13:18 – 00:20:19:17
HOST
And what I guess your your understanding of, management, it kind of expanded. What was your kind of role and how did that that didn’t.

00:20:19:17 – 00:20:37:20
GUEST
So I went in is an acquisition surveyor. So we were just buying our role was my role was part of the acquisition team was just to go around Europe and I’d buy assets, for the funds that we had. And I worked on the logistics fund. So I, I would go to, and this is it’s crazy.

00:20:37:20 – 00:20:57:16
GUEST
I never really traveled much as a kid. And you know, I think remember, I remember my first, the first week I was on a plane to Hamburg, and I remember my first trip was Hamburg. And I remember getting getting the hiring a car, and I got this brand. Brand spanking new BMW three series touring. And I was like, wow, this is what am I doing?

00:20:57:16 – 00:21:17:18
GUEST
This is brilliant. And I went to a hotel and it was a beautiful hotel, and I could expense my meals and we would, you know, it was a totally all well for me. But it came, you got these lovely things, but you had to work hard. Yeah, we were working all hours of the day. Yeah, we used to work in the office and then we’d all go off to Heathrow, Gatwick or wherever, and we get on a flight and we’d all land at 11:00 at night.

00:21:17:19 – 00:21:42:18
GUEST
And, so we were ready for the next day. It was. Yeah, you really, really sort of went through it. But it was brilliant. You know, within a year I had done deals in Germany, Netherlands, Denmark, France. We did, you know, various bits and pieces. And so all of these countries that I’d never even really been to, even as a tourist, I suddenly was doing business in.

00:21:42:18 – 00:22:04:13
GUEST
And yeah, it was, it was, it was brilliant, you know, trying to negotiate deals, get deals across the line, suddenly dealing with equity and debt, you know, having to put together business cases. You know, I love marketing business plans and the business cases are we take an asset. We’d have to write a business plan for it, have to financially model it and then make the make the case to the board to the.

00:22:04:13 – 00:22:21:22
GUEST
I say that this is what we want to do. So for a 22 year old, that was incredible sort of experience. And it was just me and my my boss on that song. So, you know, I wasn’t sheltered in any way from the stuff that sort of went on. And you had all the direct relationships, and because we were requiring so much, we had to divide and conquer as well.

00:22:21:22 – 00:22:41:11
GUEST
So it wasn’t like I was shadowing him around Europe, you know, we used to he’d go off, I’d go off, and then we might meet in Berlin or somewhere or Stuttgart where we were looking at, you know, assets, compare notes, and then we go off again and, you know, look at our, our own assets. So it was an it was a really amazing, like learning experience, an incredible time and wouldn’t have had it any other way.

00:22:41:16 – 00:22:50:07
HOST
Chalk and cheese at the 9 to 5 advisors stuff. You were probably just, as you said, bored and you wanted more or a higher, higher octane or higher intensity environment.

00:22:50:13 – 00:23:05:07
GUEST
Yeah, exactly. And it’s no slight on that at all. But it just at that time, my career in life, I just felt I had more energy and more to give. And I didn’t want to sit on a, you know, what felt like a bit of a treadmill. So I’m really I shouldn’t really say this because my, my grades in my team now look, okay.

00:23:05:09 – 00:23:22:09
GUEST
Right. You know, I’m going to do the same thing. But, you know, I’ve always tried to stay true to my values. And I think you get the best out of me when I’m in an environment where I feel like I can, you know, I can. Yeah, I can be free to to do those kind of things rather than having to tarry there the whole time.

00:23:22:10 – 00:23:29:02
GUEST
Yeah. Everyone’s done. Yeah. And just get on with it Patty, because this is what everyone’s done for the last 50 years. Well, I’m just not. I’m not.

00:23:29:02 – 00:23:42:15
HOST
That’s not, you know, you you left the business in, December 2012. Yeah. Kind of set up your own firm set, right? Yeah. Can you just talk to me about that and why you left? Yeah. That’s why you kind of came into your own business. So I.

00:23:42:15 – 00:24:05:18
GUEST
Was really. I was really fortunate. Halvorson, which subsequently became GPT Halvorson and then was taken over by a group called into in 2010. And it when, when things when the GFC sort of happened and we went from acquisition mode to management mode. Yeah. My, my job changed from being an acquisition surveyor to really being a kind of portfolio manager.

00:24:05:19 – 00:24:31:02
GUEST
Fund manager. And I really had to learn, you know, about right. What do you how do you manage these things for, for investors? I was really fortunate that I got posted to Germany, in 2009 for, best part of nine months, to go and help work out our German portfolio. You know, had kind of, we acquired it so quickly that we just there were so many management issues that we needed to sort out.

00:24:31:02 – 00:24:46:00
GUEST
So that was that was brilliant. You know, I got a real you know, experience of living abroad and doing all these things. I then, you know, I think I did quite a decent job there when I came back. And instead of taking over the business, they asked me to do the same in, in, in Amsterdam, in Holland.

00:24:46:02 – 00:25:09:07
GUEST
So I went over and spent two years in an Amsterdam with the newly formed sort of internal business, working very closely with the Dutch team, but also with Joshua and Andrew Sorensen and sort of taking over that business, and Joel Smith, who’s still there as well, really trying to sort of work out what is we’ve got what are we doing, you know, trying to build the investor relationships on the ground, but also have a hands on role.

00:25:09:09 – 00:25:30:02
GUEST
And yeah, this is where the property investment markets were really changing at the time. You know, we we bought a lot of office buildings in the Netherlands. And, you know, many people used to say the Dutch office market was overbuilt, you know, and somebody said to me once say it’s actually, the demolished, you know, and there was, there was just all these buildings and, and the market hubris at the time was such that anyone was buying anything.

00:25:30:04 – 00:26:02:01
GUEST
And so, yeah, we we ended up with a very, diverse portfolio of assets, some really good, some more challenging, the challenging assets. So I really enjoyed, you know, and and what ended up happening was I was selling a lot of these assets, to local residential developers for student housing or, you know, apartments. And there was one particular one in Utrecht, which I sold to a local student housing guy, and he just created this really cool, kind of residence.

00:26:02:01 – 00:26:21:12
GUEST
You know, from, from basically, I think he has like a team of builders that just came in and put a load of walls up, created all these spaces, and he let them out for like 3 or €400 a month. I thought, wow, this is really interesting. So after two years, in 2012, I kind of I decided that, you know, again, I sort of felt like I’d done the job and it wasn’t sort of interesting anymore.

00:26:21:12 – 00:26:36:17
GUEST
And and I feel I can say this because I think I said it to Joss at the time, hopefully, you know, and so I came back in to London and I was like, right, well, what do we do next? And we looked at internals with interest, whether we could start a student fund or reserve fund.

00:26:36:17 – 00:26:56:06
GUEST
And, you know, it was just too early. It was it wasn’t quite the time, you know, it was a good idea, but we just didn’t have the there wasn’t support for it. It was too off pace at the time. And I thought, you know what, I need to do something. You know, I’m both 28 and I didn’t have any responsibilities like kids and mortgages that I have now.

00:26:56:06 – 00:27:26:11
GUEST
And I thought, yeah, I’m going to go and do this. So I wrote a business plan one night to, basically become Phil and Kirsty. So go and start a residential consultancy. There was nobody that I could see doing residential consultancy for investors in the market. The, the beachhead I saw was to go and advise, retail clients rather than institutional investors, which proved to not probably not be the right thing for me.

00:27:26:13 – 00:27:51:17
GUEST
So I tried that for about probably 5 or 6 months, you know, trying to help people buy houses. Hated it, couldn’t deal with it, you know, realized that their very emotive decisions rather than rational, rational decisions. So I went back to kind of what my network was, which was, institutional investors, private equity people like that and started helping them put together residential strategies.

00:27:51:19 – 00:28:06:06
GUEST
There was a couple of guys we did try and start a fund, which was madness, really, when you think about it, because I was 28 and had no money. But was an incredible experience. And actually, I’m pretty sure, you know, people at the meetings I had to pay for their product. Who is this.

00:28:06:06 – 00:28:08:21
HOST
Guy? You know, that’s that’s like a recurring theme, right? Yeah.

00:28:09:00 – 00:28:12:13
GUEST
Who is this guy? Is he trying to sell me a residential university?

00:28:12:15 – 00:28:17:03
HOST
Yeah. It’s, at is, you know, you keep getting that. Who is this? Yeah.

00:28:17:05 – 00:28:38:01
GUEST
And I think people were very polite and gave me the time of day. And actually, you know, again, some of those people I met obviously didn’t invest. But I still speak to now. And, you know, we do we’ve we’ve done subsequent business together. But, yeah, I sort of, I kind of it gave me a real understanding of how to run your own business, how to do something that’s different.

00:28:38:03 – 00:28:59:17
GUEST
You know, I did it with a business partner who ended up starting it. We we started a sister business. Kuramoto Model, in Sydney, at the time. And that still runs today. So that is we’ve still got offices in Sydney and Brisbane. And runs is a very successful buyers advocacy business in for retail clients in, in Australia.

00:28:59:19 – 00:29:20:04
GUEST
I but then I got to meet all these random people and I suppose the two, the two sliding doors moments were really, one was I used to write research, because again, I thought, what I’ll do is I’ll try and sign. Sounds smart, so I’ll write, really research, and I’ll come up with loads of theories, and then I’ll write the research and I’ll put it on social media, you know, as a kind of hook.

00:29:20:04 – 00:29:54:03
GUEST
Right, to, to that, to what’s going on. I still do that now. But I realized I wasn’t that smart to do that. So I remember I paid a guy to write the research for me, and I paid my mate who designed trainers for Nike, I think at the time, to design what it looked like. And I paid them all a couple of hundred quid and bought some beers for them, and we put together some really, really pretty different kind of research because it wasn’t corporate like, you know, you see it, you still say it was kind of I remember doing one, which was an analysis of the performance of gold versus real estate, you

00:29:54:03 – 00:30:13:16
GUEST
know, and we just did this whole thing. And in fact, I know I pushed that out onto Twitter. And listen, I just got into really interesting conversations. And one was with a chap called Nick Katz who, was working at the Open Data Institute, which was funded by the government, and Tim Berners-Lee. He founded the World Wide Web.

00:30:13:18 – 00:30:40:23
GUEST
And we just got talking about technology and real estate, and we ended up sitting in a pub in Shoreditch and coming up with some business to help people manage real estate better, which, you know, there’s a long story there, but yeah, ultimately became a castle. So I found myself after about a year of after leaving internal. So running three businesses, you know, one advisory business, one tech business and then one ran the business in Australia with my mate, which I, I’ve never even been to Australia.

00:30:40:23 – 00:31:04:05
GUEST
Still, I still need to still need to go. Which was way too much and it didn’t really sort of work. You know, I was pulled in different directions. Lots of stress. Startup. One startup was stressful. You know, 2 or 3 is not actually lunacy at the same time. So this carried on for about 18 months, and then I kind of had to sit there and say, enough is enough.

00:31:04:10 – 00:31:23:10
GUEST
I wasn’t earning any money. I was stressed out. I was, you know, I was, being pulled in different directions. So I went to Nic and, you know, a castle, and we done really well, and I need to. I’m going to take a more of a part time role here for now. And he was very understanding with our other co-founder as well at time, and with the advisory business, I was like, right, what do I do?

00:31:23:12 – 00:31:44:08
GUEST
And I was very fortunate that, and now this is comes back to my, the, the real estate foundation or this, that, Robert Lockhart, who is a, he’s now at London best. He was abroad has been a great support. I’ve got a I’ve, a lot to be appreciative of for free forever and grateful for my relationship with Robert.

00:31:44:10 – 00:32:10:12
GUEST
He was my first client when I started my business. And when it wasn’t working, he was the first person I went to and said, well, I don’t think this is working, you know, what do you think I should do? And he’d introduce me to a guy called John Kennedy, who was, managed a company called Coal Portfolio, but previously that was a company, the company called Brando, which became Liberty Living, which is now part of Cppib he went into and, and then now part of unite.

00:32:10:14 – 00:32:25:20
GUEST
And John was a pioneer and he just he had these random he had a he, he had this, this, these kind of two funds that just sort of sat there really kind of, didn’t make a splash. One was student one was Rosie and said, do you want to come and help me, you know, with the strategy.

00:32:25:21 – 00:32:40:18
GUEST
So I did, helped him for a few months, realized it was enough to pay the bills, but I was never going to scale it. And, you know, is this the future? So, you know, after building a relationship with John, I said, look, you know, any chance I can, I just have it. Just have a job. Just come and work for you.

00:32:40:20 – 00:33:00:11
GUEST
And at the time, he just sold half his business to Nick Porter of, who many people will know is, obviously running GSA. You go and the previously, run United had started unite and, at the time it started over nest. And so I was like, yeah, you know, he says, we need we want to build this business.

00:33:00:11 – 00:33:15:21
GUEST
We want to drive forward. I’m now, you know, on our in this business with Nick, you know, there’s a job, job for you here. So I did I went and joined and, you know, kept my best position with the, with the casa and did all that on the side. Some people played rugby at the weekends or hockey.

00:33:15:21 – 00:33:35:01
GUEST
I decided I was going to try and run a tech business and, you know, with the, with the guys and do that, but got this job with, with coral portfolio and, and the newly formed kind of GSA that was happening in the background. And that was, again, another sliding doors moment. Didn’t plan it, but to be honest with you was the best thing.

00:33:35:01 – 00:33:49:13
GUEST
One of the best things that happened is kind of, you know, how I’ve ended up in the world of operational operational readiness, and it didn’t even know what it was at the time. I kind of been selling my way through it for two years. On my own is my own business, with a bit of no real characterization to it.

00:33:49:13 – 00:34:21:21
GUEST
Just trying to this seems interesting. Let’s do it. And then I think, you know, with with coral portfolio and with GSA actually became more of a, a thing. And meeting Nick was, you know, again, was a really. Yeah, he was he was another person who’s just like, sort of, has the same kind of characteristics and attributes of Richard Croft in that sense, just, you know, a really brilliant entrepreneur who just doesn’t accept no for an answer, just tenacious, just goes, has a vision and just, you know, is so brilliant.

00:34:21:21 – 00:34:45:13
GUEST
I kind of, you know, with the narrative and getting those forward when everyone else around you is saying, what are you doing? You know, being part of another business that was going to kind of, you know, be a first and early mover was hugely exciting. And yeah, I sat in an office in London for two months on my own with people coming in and out, but I used to have to lock the door when I went to the toilet, because, you know, there was this.

00:34:45:15 – 00:35:03:24
GUEST
I was like, what is this? What if I just joined and, you know, but it was I mean, I think we all know today what it sort of went on to become. But I think, again, for me being there in those super early days before we even had, you know, knew what we were doing was, was, was a fantastic opportunity and but I wouldn’t have got there if I hadn’t had done all that other.

00:35:04:04 – 00:35:14:19
HOST
Other stuff, all the other crap before. And it was kind of what the start of the kind of the street, what institutional world, institutional money comes of entering that space. And you were responsible for going and sourcing and finding you kit. What you.

00:35:14:20 – 00:35:38:02
GUEST
Yeah, exactly. So coral was a really interesting business because it been set up based on, you know, a lot of our investors were kind of life insurance firms and it was all they run these kind of life insurance wrappers that were very much of their day in the kind of early 2000s. And, you know, the big life insurance companies were were able to kind of, you know, they pooled money from their, policyholders and would be able to invest it.

00:35:38:04 – 00:36:08:22
GUEST
But really, you know, after the GFC, investment changed and it became a lot more regulated and, a lot more sort of transparent and, and institutional investors changed as well. So the business was at a pivotal point there where the market that we, the coral had previously kind of been, you know, known and improved and so liquid for them had kind of become a market that was becoming, you know, was now, was less was less kind of frenetic, less less liquid, but also more regulated.

00:36:08:24 – 00:36:33:15
GUEST
And that regulation meant that we needed to change. So my job really was to try and pivot the fun, to be more of an institutional product than it was than a retail type product, which, I don’t know anyone who’s ever really done that. It’s just a kind of not a done thing. You don’t really go from taking a fund from, you know, from being retail investors essentially, to being institutional investors, you know, and it happens over quite a long period of time.

00:36:33:15 – 00:36:58:16
GUEST
I’m sure there are businesses that have done that. But it’s a it’s like trying to turn a boat. You know, it’s very because institutional investors don’t want to be invested alongside retail investors, you know. And so yeah, we had to manage that. But it was a it was a it was a really, you know, incredible experience. And what that led to was, you know, merging with with next greater kind of visions to, to, to do student accommodation, you know, across the world in all these different places.

00:36:58:16 – 00:37:17:19
GUEST
So it was just the turn of where, you know, student accommodation kind of wasn’t institutional yet. It was there was private equity in it. But there was that they could sell to an institution at some point, and that’s where they were going to get their returns. And we were driving that. It was just to the point where Greystar were coming into the market as well.

00:37:17:24 – 00:37:44:24
GUEST
And if I was like, who are Greystar? What are they doing? Nobody had ever heard of them. And they came over and, you know, a couple of big portfolios and some wow, you know, so it was it was just at that kind of pivotal point. So timing wise, I think it was a fascinating time for me to, to be coming into the sector to really see that kind of evolution, you know, and how how we went from being what was quite granular, you know, investment sources to much bigger, much more institutionalized investment sources.

00:37:44:24 – 00:37:48:12
GUEST
But that needed a totally different approach to unlock.

00:37:48:14 – 00:38:08:03
HOST
We I’ve spoken a few times this in terms of other guests come on the podcasts in terms of the investable universe at that particular time. It’s kind of office, industrial and retail, family and residential. You know, it was just, you know, probably single family housing, really. And it was kind of like Granger. Yeah. Couple of others and a couple of retail, large landlords.

00:38:08:03 – 00:38:19:19
HOST
But, you know, focus on the buy of that market. So you’re kind of ahead of your curve in a sense, or at the time in terms of wanting to explore or kind of lean into that part or that subsector.

00:38:19:21 – 00:38:38:08
GUEST
Yeah. No. Absolutely. And I think, you know, I’m, I love these things because I’m curious about them all and, and I, I love about student accommodation was that interaction between, you know, people and universities and, and real estate, you know, to be able to understand the investment proposition, you have to understand people. It’s not just bricks and mortar.

00:38:38:08 – 00:39:03:19
GUEST
And that’s that was a room that I didn’t know it at the time. But that’s a real passion of mine. But yeah, I mean, look, we had to have a lot of resilience in those days because, I say those days, but I mean, nearly ten years ago, it was ten years ago. Because I often joke and I say this in meetings when I go in, you know, especially where I get prime slot, you know, if I was trying to get investor meetings before, more often than not, they would get canceled in 20 1415 because they’d be like, who are you?

00:39:03:19 – 00:39:18:17
GUEST
What are you trying to sell? Not interested. Or you be the graveyard Friday afternoon. So and, you know, over the years we’ve graduated, you know, so now being yeah, if you’ve people are coming to you saying, can we meet you, you know, whereas before you just have to kind of beg for these meetings and they’d be like, what?

00:39:18:17 – 00:39:50:16
GUEST
Understand what you’re looking for and don’t really get it. You know, nobody wanted to be an alternate lives at the time. And if they did, they there was no data for them to, you know, student housing was such a small part of it. But yeah, I mean, the growth of it just it was exponential really at that, at that sort of time and an amazing sort of, well, for the private equity guys who came in past GFC and kind of took over a number of the there’s the, I guess the boat, the seeds were sown just as the kind of GFC kind of was happening.

00:39:50:18 – 00:40:11:16
GUEST
People were saying that this might be a thing, but what ended up happening was they were over paid for land, took out too much debt on land, and so a lot of it was consumed into kind of the, the NPLs. You know, you know, non-performing loan books that kind of happened. So it kind of stole it. But the private equity guys, you know, in 20 1011 were able to take these out.

00:40:11:16 – 00:40:36:06
GUEST
And you know, these these student sites would sit amongst other portfolios. So there’d be a big office in their warehouse, shopping center or whatever, and then be these random sites that random people were going to do things on, but they were able to bring enough of them together and sort of got sold on the fundamentals. And, you know, so the likes of Carlyle, Oaktree, Blackstone, you know, where I was actually there might be on a scale and just had the conviction to be an early mover.

00:40:36:06 – 00:40:54:15
GUEST
And again, you know, they were buying probably buying it, you know yields close to eight 9%. You know time by land London property London developments like, you know, unheard of. And you probably won’t even get that now. We definitely won’t get that now. But you know, so they they really benefited from having that conviction. But there was no data, no nothing.

00:40:54:15 – 00:41:03:20
GUEST
You know, to do it. You just had to be convinced on the fundamentals and the fact that you were buying good, solid real estate. And then I think everyone just kind of learned on the learn on the job.

00:41:03:20 – 00:41:11:01
HOST
Really talk to me about your move away from GSA because you you flipped back to the principal side, right? And you went.

00:41:11:07 – 00:41:11:22
GUEST
Back to the advice.

00:41:11:22 – 00:41:35:14
HOST
Oh, sorry. Go back from the from the principal side, back to the advisory. Yeah. And you went to be a partner at Cushman Wakefield? Yeah. Talk to me about that because, so one hand, you know, as a, as a headhunter, you know, you think you’ve probably stayed more on that principal side and keep leaning in or, you know, maybe pivot into a different business, take your learnings from from maybe GSA and take it to another business and capture more of the upside there.

00:41:35:14 – 00:41:37:07
HOST
But you wouldn’t you want to be in. Yeah.

00:41:37:08 – 00:41:57:03
GUEST
So I think the I would say and then I’m in several different ways. One was I think my time at GSA, did you say come to a, it become a completely different business? Yeah. It was it was a really big business. I probably yeah. And I’ve said this to Nick before, I wasn’t working closely with Nick as I was in the early days with some of the other guys.

00:41:57:03 – 00:42:18:01
GUEST
And, you know, that’s kind of where I drew my energy from and, you know, and, and I thought, you know, what? It felt like the right time to try and do sort of something else. But I didn’t really want to go and work for any other business in that space. I really, you know, I had yeah, it was a when you build a business, I think you put a lot of emotional energy into it, not just the physical energy.

00:42:18:01 – 00:42:33:04
GUEST
And, you know, I still have a real special place for all the people there. And that and that business, you know, in my in my heart and head, you know, at the time, I didn’t I didn’t want to go in, you know, work for anyone else. But I thought, what an incredible journey I’ve been on and everything that I’ve learned.

00:42:33:06 – 00:42:58:09
GUEST
And I knew, Brian Laxton, who was the, CEO at Cushman at the time. And we were just chatting and he said, look, we’re we’re trying to start, you know, this, student accommodation business within, bigger, bolder, you know, within within. Cushman, would you, would you be interested? And I thought, you know, that’s a really interesting way to not compete with my old business, but potentially be able to still work with them.

00:42:58:09 – 00:43:32:00
GUEST
But and the way I look at things is that I always look at something is how do I build that business, you know, what is the product I’m going to be selling? How do I make that product profitable? How do I create competitive advantage? That’s everything. I oversee everything you do. How do you create competitive advantage? And my view was rightly or wrongly, was the you know, if I go into Cushman and set up this, you know, we set up the kind of, it may student accommodation team, then surely three guys, you know, two other colleagues who came out as well, three guys who’ve been there and done it, got the scars on

00:43:32:00 – 00:43:37:08
GUEST
their back are going to be much better placed to advise than people who haven’t done it before.

00:43:37:09 – 00:43:39:17
HOST
And one of those guys, George Dyer. Right. Yeah.

00:43:39:17 – 00:43:41:18
GUEST
So George and Andrew Smith as well. Yeah.

00:43:41:19 – 00:43:51:04
HOST
Because I remember seeing that as I specifically remember George time actually. So that’s an interesting. Yeah. At the time. But it was you George and Andrew. It was. Yeah. Three of you went to go and set that up.

00:43:51:05 – 00:44:09:03
GUEST
Exactly. And that was for me. It was really that was kind of compelling because I got to work with my mates, you know, and you know, we, we were and we felt that as a threesome, we would be kind of, you know, that that’s just better. That’s better than one in the sense that. So we’ve got three and Andrew.

00:44:09:03 – 00:44:28:03
GUEST
Yeah. Anyone who knows Andrew, George and I know that we’re very different people and we think really differently. And actually we we saw that as a real strength rather than, you know, rather than a weakness. And so, you know, because actually our clients will get three different perspectives from all of our different kind of, skill sets.

00:44:28:05 – 00:44:46:12
GUEST
And actually, you know, it proved to be we had a really good stable of clients there. And. Yeah, proved to be a really I think it takes a long time to get proof of concept in brokerage is what I’ve learned. And I’ve got a lot of respect for people who do, you know, advisory and brokerage businesses because it’s not easy.

00:44:46:14 – 00:45:07:17
GUEST
And, you know, we were talking before about people who sort of say, oh, agencies, you know, this, that and the other. Any anyone can do it. I would I would really disagree. Yeah. It’s a really there is a real skill to, to being able to spot opportunities and make them happen and to really get people to trust you to insert yourself into a process.

00:45:07:19 – 00:45:39:14
GUEST
And I think, you know, we were very lucky that, you know, a number of the clients we had really trusted us. And also and these things are, is is about trust. Part of the other driver for me and I think on one of your podcast with Catherine Webster, she sort of mentioned this is the I felt that was a bit missing in my CV, had never really worked for big corporate for very long, and there was probably unfinished business that I had from my artist days where I, and rightly or wrongly, I felt that people were judging me on the fact that, oh well, parties, you know, probably is a bit of a,

00:45:39:16 – 00:45:56:20
GUEST
an unknown quantity. We don’t really know. And I get this feedback a lot. We don’t really know what you do. You know, we can’t really box you in. And I think it just got to me in my head, and I think in a moment of probably a bit of a lack of self-confidence, you know, I felt the to be taken seriously in this world and career.

00:45:56:20 – 00:46:15:00
GUEST
I need to go and get a big corporate on my CV and go and do this, this job and do that, which was totally against everything that I’d kind of done in the past, really. But, you know, I was happy to do it because I was working with people who I liked and knew, you know, Andrew and George and actually in the Cushman business as well.

00:46:15:00 – 00:46:35:06
GUEST
I’ve known them for a long time. And Brian and they’re really, really lovely people. And having the opportunity to build my own business within a business, really. So, yeah, it’s amazing when you go through these sort of junctures. But, you know, I probably had a little bit of a monkey on my back where I was like, I don’t think people take me seriously enough because I’ve never worked in a big 4 or 1 of these consultancies.

00:46:35:06 – 00:46:38:08
GUEST
And I don’t know, maybe that was rightly or wrongly.

00:46:38:10 – 00:46:49:11
HOST
So you take that box. Cushman Wakefield, what was the kind of the focus of your role, like, what did you build? And he just took me out that journey. Yeah. Because I’m also looking to spend a bit of time talking about colleagues as well.

00:46:49:11 – 00:47:05:07
GUEST
Yeah. Yeah. So, so I mean, it was a it was a really interesting time. You know, we had a European remit which was great, you know, built on all the things I’ve learned from, you know, starting at kind of the habits and days really. So I was able to leverage a lot of the relationships that I’d built over the years.

00:47:05:09 – 00:47:30:07
GUEST
And again, going into, you know, really kind of nice and sectors. So I tended to focus more on the research side of things. So I wrote, European research, guide that we put together. I did a lot of stuff in Spain, you know, various things in Italy between Andrew, George and I. We were very good at kind of working out where we wanted to focus and then kind of coming together and then and then sort of going apart.

00:47:30:09 – 00:47:50:13
GUEST
So I didn’t really do too much in the UK, but I tended to focus more on kind of Iberia in those markets, which was great as well, because I was, again, you were setting a very nice and sort of business plan, but I’d done, a deal. The one of the first big transactions with GSA buying Nexo residency in Spain.

00:47:50:13 – 00:48:09:02
GUEST
So again, I thought if anyone’s going to advise on doing deals in Spain, surely it’s the guy who who did the biggest one of the last the last couple of years. And you know, we did we did. It was really interesting. We did really well. But what I think where I applied to my strengths as well was that I really enjoy the research side of things and building the business cases.

00:48:09:02 – 00:48:29:18
GUEST
So I was able to kind of do that and get really involved in that. And yeah, it wasn’t just about gathering yields and rents, it was about understanding behaviors and sizing markets and understanding sitting there and going, well, look, if these people do it like this, why don’t you do it like this? If you’re looking at trying to get competitive advantage, you know, so that was it was great.

00:48:29:18 – 00:48:49:00
GUEST
I mean, I was, you know, unfortunately probably I think just as we were getting going, Covid hit really, you know, and so our job involved at the time, a lot of travel and a lot of face time with people, you know, you had to build that trust and build those relationships with people. And, you know, going into 2020, we just we just couldn’t do that anymore.

00:48:49:00 – 00:49:08:19
GUEST
So, and that was really important because I think, you know, in agency businesses and advisory businesses, it just doesn’t happen overnight. You it takes, you know, as my, as other people I’ve spoken to in the business would say that, you know, you’re often a ten year overnight success. You know, you don’t just go in and suddenly it works.

00:49:08:22 – 00:49:30:06
GUEST
Now, if you’re lucky, it might do. But most people, it’s a three year journey. By the time you feel like you’ve kind of got some momentum and it’s five, six, seven years before you really start kind of, you know, becoming the go to in, in those markets. And I guess we were kind of stalled in year two by Covid, and doing that.

00:49:30:06 – 00:49:33:20
GUEST
So we kind of just had to tread water at that at that point, which is a real shame.

00:49:33:22 – 00:49:43:17
HOST
And did you take that as an opportunity to kind of reflect and think about your kind of career and where you were going and, and where did kind of Colliers and that next stage or step up coming to you?

00:49:43:17 – 00:50:09:08
GUEST
Yeah, yeah, I did I think, you know, again, it came back to what I knew when I was 21 and that, you know, I, I really enjoyed the job and I liked the clients, but I don’t think I enjoyed being part of a very big corporate. It wasn’t really it. And this is no slight on Cushman because, you know, some really, really lovely people who work there, but it just wasn’t me.

00:50:09:10 – 00:50:17:00
GUEST
You know, I just I’m not very good at staying in my lane, which is what you often have to do in big corporates. Yeah. You do this, I do this. You stay.

00:50:17:00 – 00:50:22:00
HOST
There. That’s my client. Yeah. And and I just politics and the other bits and pieces again.

00:50:22:02 – 00:50:44:17
GUEST
I’m just I’m not very good at that. I’ve got better. But, you know, it just it wasn’t enjoyable for me, and, and I couldn’t see myself growing in that space. And so, you know, I was coming an offering about, you know, what is what does that mean? You know, and you second guess yourself a lot because, you know, I’m sitting there going, come on, Penny, grow up.

00:50:44:19 – 00:51:06:10
GUEST
You know, you had you had those you had those thoughts when you were 21. You’re not 21 now. You’ve got, you know, mortgage kids, you know, you need to be a bit more responsible. Hey, you can’t just decide it’s not for you and you know, and kind of and do this, but actually really, you know, and I talk to my wife about this a lot, you know, you want to be happy.

00:51:06:12 – 00:51:34:14
GUEST
And I think if you’re doing something because you feel like you should do it, not because you want to do it, ultimately in the long term, you know you’re not going to be fulfilled. So I think, you know, at that point you become more open to different ideas. I know, I you know, I think one of the hardest things, from going from principle to agency side was that, yes, I even now, I still don’t think I’m a very good agent, you know, because I think there’s so many people who’ve done it much longer than I have.

00:51:34:14 – 00:51:50:16
GUEST
And, and it just really, really very good at it that you always, you know, I was always second guessing myself going, I’m just not very good at this, you know, I don’t think yes, I know how to I know strategy, I know how to underwrite buildings. I can buy buildings, sell buildings, all this stuff. But I just didn’t know.

00:51:50:16 – 00:51:52:16
GUEST
I just didn’t think I was a very good broker.

00:51:52:16 – 00:52:05:14
HOST
And is that because in it’s quite binary in agency, you kind of, you know, it resets in January or one of your financial year is and then you kind of get to the end of the year and you see what you’ve built. Yeah, it’s quite black and white and, and you need to bring yourself to you.

00:52:05:14 – 00:52:32:08
GUEST
Do need to be ruthless in a sense and not, not not sharky, but you need to be ruthless in terms of understanding what opportunities are actually going to come off and which are not, you know, and aligning yourself with deals and clients that are going to happen, you know, and that’s and that’s the ruthlessness of it is because you are your own PNL and, you know, you’re only as good as your last deal of them.

00:52:32:10 – 00:52:53:10
GUEST
And, you know, that was a real key change for me. You know, in moving, you know, switching sides. And I had to learn that very quickly and, you know, and you did you need you need to align yourself to situations that are going to manifest. And you know, become tangible results. Because if they don’t, you you end up looking like a very busy fool.

00:52:53:12 – 00:53:18:13
GUEST
And that’s just that’s one of the biggest traps, I think, of, of any kind of, you know, and our jobs, I guess, is running around with, you know, down dead ends. And so I, I learned that very, very quickly. You know, whilst I wanted to work with good people, nice people and those if they were so nice that they didn’t like getting things over the line and I kind of I had to align myself with people who were going to get stuff over the line.

00:53:18:15 – 00:53:39:04
GUEST
So, you know, that was that. I think what people don’t see is that they’re kind of, you know, the self-doubt that goes on. And yeah, I’m not good enough. Can I really do this? And there was a lot of a lot of that. And so, you know, that kind of plays into that kind of sitting there thinking, right, right, what do I actually want to do?

00:53:39:04 – 00:54:05:16
GUEST
But I think fundamentally, for me, I think taking that aside, I think I wanted to be, doing something more entrepreneurial and something more kind of, building something more embryonic and something that sort of stood for something, something else. And that could be have a creative point of difference. And that’s, you know, serendipitously, I guess, is where I kind of, you know, colleagues sort of came along really.

00:54:05:18 – 00:54:23:09
HOST
The kind of the terminology up co prop co has been probably bandied around for a number of years, but in terms of like actually defining operational real estate and it becoming a little bit more mainstay probably the last few years. Right. Yeah. You kind of went in, to what set up would be head of operational Capital Market.

00:54:23:09 – 00:54:28:18
HOST
Yeah. So can you tell me the difference between operational capital markets and capital markets? Normally as it probably would have been.

00:54:28:21 – 00:54:49:03
GUEST
Yeah. I mean, look there’s no there’s no actual answer to that that makes any sense. And we kind of made it up, you know, which I think you do with my wife says I laminated my own badge. I was like, you know, we kind of, you know, we wanted to want to set up a team that kind of did, student BTR, co-living or the kind of bed sectors and kind of beds.

00:54:49:03 – 00:55:11:16
GUEST
Capital markets didn’t quite feel right. Living capital markets I think now is caught on a bit more. But you know, operational felt like the, you know, the kind of the right term to do it. So, so yeah, I mean, your colleagues wanted to grow in that space. Colliers is had a, you know, a business plan to really grow globally in kind of the, capital market spaces.

00:55:11:18 – 00:55:35:01
GUEST
I think, you know, if you look at where capital is being allocated now and, you know, everyone does these capital allocation surveys, you know, they they’ve built a brand studio and anything that has a kind of operational business, self-storage, healthcare, senior living is all getting more focus on capital now. And so as consulting businesses, brokerage businesses, you know, you need to reflect what’s going on in the market.

00:55:35:06 – 00:56:07:02
GUEST
You know, if if the market was 100% office before, then, it makes sense that 100% of your brokers and consultants are focused on offices. If it’s suddenly 50% offices, 50% retail, then it would make sense that you’ve got 50% of your staff in retail. So the same thing was sort of happening in our space. You know, you we went from probably, I guess, to big BTR beds in general, probably went from being 5% of total market share in 1617 to being, you know, near enough kind of 15 to 20 in the last few years, you know, give or take.

00:56:07:02 – 00:56:29:07
GUEST
So really as a business, we knew it wasn’t just something that kind of had to happen in you know, in the basement, you know, somebody would moonlights there. It needed proper, proper expertise. And so, you know, that was that was really the kind of Colliers plan. And they’ve they’ve been fantastic, you know, with I think they were Tony Hurrell, the CEO of Colliers, always says, you know, I’d rather I’d rather people ask for forgiveness than permission.

00:56:29:13 – 00:57:01:10
GUEST
And so that was the kind of I think that that for me, that’s all you needed to achieve, right? Yeah. That’s what you kind of needed to say really. Because like, get in there, try something. If it’s sales, learn from it and then do something else and do something different. So I was able to really go in there and, and build a business in the way that I, I take the learnings from the last 2 or 3 years with Cushman and everything I’d learned about how, you know, easy and difficult it is to to build a business, apply that understand really what customers want my clients want and then try and be a little

00:57:01:10 – 00:57:21:18
GUEST
bit different around it. So my, my thing was that I wanted to be research led, and insight led. So I wanted to put research and insight as core as a core offering within the team. That meant that, you know, we were going out there and winning business because, you know, we were smart, but also we had tangible product and value that we could give people.

00:57:21:24 – 00:57:44:20
GUEST
So even if we didn’t end up doing a deal, at least people would end up with something, you know, physical that they could take away and say, well, actually, we did move this forward. And, you know, and again, for us, it it meant that we moved away slightly from the kind of death or glory business models that if we did put time into it and still did drive the value in people’s businesses, we were at least able to get paid for our time.

00:57:44:22 – 00:58:12:17
GUEST
So Colliers were fantastic and supported that. So my first hire was with, lay in our team who, you know, is a is our, research and insight guy, and he’s brilliant. And then it was about building the, the skill sets around that. So, you know, having good brokers, people who were able to, you know, bang doors down and find opportunities, but then having good analysts as well, you know, I view having a team of consultants and brokers really as it’s a bit like a football team.

00:58:12:17 – 00:58:29:14
GUEST
Right. You know, you’re not going to win the Champions League if you’ve got 11 goalkeepers like it. Just, you know, Paris Saint-Germain and a good, good example of that. So what I needed was people applying go people apply up front. People apply midfield people to defend. Put more simply is I needed openness and closers.

00:58:29:16 – 00:58:30:18
HOST
Punters and farmers.

00:58:30:18 – 00:58:49:24
GUEST
Correct exactly that. Rather than having a load of generalists just all spinning our wheels going round. I wanted a formation and I wanted it. I wanted everyone to feel that, you know, I felt like Pep Guardiola in that sense. Right, guys? This is who I’m hiring. This is how we’re going to hire. And this is, you know, this person is a really gregarious broker and is going to go out and be our guy.

00:58:50:03 – 00:59:10:14
GUEST
But this person here is a really thoughtful analyst and has some great, you know, some great analytical skills. And I’m not going to put the same level of expectation on each of those. But what I expect is that everyone works together. And I think one of the things that, you know, I’m trying to build and is always difficult in sales driven environments is proper collaboration.

00:59:10:16 – 00:59:26:17
GUEST
You know, whatever the environments are, you know, people have their own personal numbers on them. But, you know, I try and make it a rule within our team that every man that has two people on it, you have an opener and you have a closer. I don’t want to see two closes on the daylight. I want to see two openness on the do, because that introduces the risk.

00:59:26:23 – 00:59:32:19
GUEST
You know, if you got two closes on it, then actually what ends up happening normally is you end up, weirdly.

00:59:32:19 – 00:59:33:16
HOST
Not delivering on it.

00:59:33:16 – 00:59:49:11
GUEST
Well, they end up canceling each other out normally, which is quite interesting. And if I two open is on it, then you know it will my you, when you bring in the deal, risk that it might not happen because they don’t know how to push that last little bit. Now that’s a perfect world scenario. It doesn’t always happen like that.

00:59:49:11 – 01:00:08:11
GUEST
But the ideal scenario is that we have an opener who gets the business in it has the relationship, and then we have the closing team that that kind of, you know, they get the data across the line, but my team will tell you there’s a great deal of overlap, you know, and some of our greatest openers and really building their closing skills now and some of our greatest closers building their opening skills.

01:00:08:11 – 01:00:24:15
GUEST
So that’s kind of what I want. I like that, I like that, you know, but that’s proper collaboration, you know, and that I think I just think that that creates a better environment to work in, you know, a place where you actually want to go to work every day. And I think it sets us apart in, in the market as well.

01:00:24:19 – 01:00:47:14
GUEST
You know, going back to my point with, with Andrew George and IRA Cushman, you know, I think our clients get the benefit of two different people on a deal. Comes back to my point about diversity. You know, actually, you know, for the first part, for me to say, look, I want two people. And every day our clients get two, three points and it’s on me to try and hire a diverse team to make sure that those two points are different and complementary.

01:00:47:16 – 01:00:51:19
GUEST
So my colleagues been great. They’ve let me do it.

01:00:51:21 – 01:01:06:24
HOST
Talk to me about the kind of the clients you advise, the type of capital and, you know, maybe where the hot points are in terms of this operational real estate space. I kind of feel like it’s being niche down into lots of different subsectors on one hand, but then on the other hand, it’s kind of like merging together.

01:01:06:24 – 01:01:17:17
HOST
And suddenly the conversation I’m having. Yeah, yeah. Investor developers are looking at sites where they could put student, they can put co-living and they can put retirement living all in one particular space to kind of get your views on.

01:01:17:22 – 01:01:38:03
GUEST
But I think that’s why we set up a an operational capital markets team that isn’t siloed. So I think we’re probably one of the only teams in the market that does, you know, as, as a core team, do student co-living and BTR the same people. So you know, most of us in the team will we’ll have done deals in those in those spaces.

01:01:38:05 – 01:01:57:02
GUEST
And the reason I’ve done that is purposeful in the it gives everyone that kind of exposure across those, those different subsectors to be understood, to understand where the transferable bits are. Now, I have many an argument with people about this. You know, I say they’re all the same at the end of the day. And they go, what do you mean they’re all the same?

01:01:57:03 – 01:02:17:08
GUEST
I say, well, yeah, you are building you’re building a product for a customer, and you’re delivering that product to the best of your abilities to drive a to to drive an optimized NOI. So there was, of course, student accommodation and builds rent doesn’t look the same and the management is slightly different. But the the approach is very similar in terms of why you’re building what you’re building.

01:02:17:08 – 01:02:37:08
GUEST
You. Yeah. You want to be able to define your customer market so you won’t build you won’t build something for a customer market that doesn’t exist. So number one, you need to be able to, you know, is the product you’ve got in mind actually needed or wanted by anyone you know? Or is it just a nice thing that, you know, you’ve, that is good for you, but not for a mass market?

01:02:37:08 – 01:02:54:14
GUEST
So is defining who is your addressable market? How big is that addressable market? And then where can you do it? And so whether that is Delta rent, student co-living, healthcare, self-storage or whatever, the same principle is apply to that. And then you look at it like, well, you know, who are the people who are the competition in that market?

01:02:54:14 – 01:03:09:00
GUEST
What are, you know, am I a first mover? Am I an early mover? You know, what do I what do I want to do? What are the values? What do I want to stand for? What are the what is the current competition? Do that I think I can improve on, you know, or do I just want to do what they do?

01:03:09:02 – 01:03:28:14
GUEST
You know, take that cookie cutter approach. Let’s just do what they do. That seems to work. Let’s crack on. So we got to, you know, we answer all these questions and go through all of that. But I think having everyone in the team have asked for exposure means that you’ve got, you know, they’ve just got breadth as well as depth in terms of their their advisory capabilities, which I think is really important.

01:03:28:14 – 01:03:58:22
GUEST
And it comes back to my competitive advantage point, to the types of people we kind of we work with, it’s really varied from all the institutions, you know, likes of last year we did deals with LNG, Kane International, people like that KKR see working the other side of working with really embryonic platforms. You know guys you’ve got who are operators and have got a really great operational strategy and want to set up an operational platform but need capitalizing.

01:03:58:24 – 01:04:18:03
GUEST
So they need they need an investor, they need somebody to come along and do that. So yeah, we work with them to put that whole proposition together and make the right introductions and, and get them from kind of seed to, to, to, to kind of, you know, a plant that’s growing really. So we’re quite varied in some of that.

01:04:18:03 – 01:04:34:05
GUEST
And then, you know, again, it’s working with you do want to get into the sector, people who want to build in the sector and people who want to crystallize some of the profits in the sector as well. So we’re very and I think it gives us a real for me, I love that because I can work with some of the most dynamic private equity firms.

01:04:34:05 – 01:04:53:04
GUEST
I can work with some of the the biggest kind of institutional firms. But then I get to work with some, like really cool entrepreneurs who are just like trying to do something differently. But it comes back to my ruthlessness point about being smart, right? I’ve got to be smart about how I build the business. I need. I need to make sure we’re turning over, as well as doing all the nice stuff.

01:04:53:04 – 01:05:09:22
GUEST
I need to put a probability rating on all of it and work out, you know, so the the venture capital stuff with platforms is very low probability work, but really, really interesting. You know, the kind of transactional buy sell side is a bit more high probability work. That can often be yeah, it can be a bit more cookie cutter.

01:05:09:22 – 01:05:17:01
GUEST
But the reality is actually in in our world, no sale or purchase is exactly the same as the next one, which is quite nice.

01:05:17:03 – 01:05:31:23
HOST
What? Just go back to your opener and closer. What are you, someone listening to this who’s trying to trying to self-reflect on themselves and think, am I an open or am I closer? And even if it’s as binary as that, what? What do you say the core attributes are of a good opener and then the core attributes of a good closer?

01:05:31:24 – 01:05:46:14
GUEST
Yeah, I mean, it makes it sound like I’ve kind of, you know, it is boring. But the reality is you can play all over the pitch. But I like to I think it’s really important that people, you know, when you’re building a team that you people play to their, their strengths, right. So I’m sure many defenders could score goals up front if that’s what they were doing.

01:05:46:14 – 01:06:11:22
GUEST
But they’re better being in defense. So they’re the kind of the openers for me. Yeah. They’re people who they they often have a, a higher a thicker skin, a higher resilience. You know, they’re they’re kind of they’re the people who get said no a lot too, but are not afraid to kind of go and, you know, put their ideas out there and, you know, give their opinion and try and bring business in.

01:06:11:24 – 01:06:28:15
GUEST
You know, those are the guys that do. Yeah, they do put themselves on the line. You know, they they’re grafters. They, they get out there and just really yeah. That building the relationships they’re selling the business, that’s the kind of business development side of it, but which I always think business develop gets a bit of a bad rap.

01:06:28:17 – 01:06:46:17
GUEST
But it’s a lot deeper than that. It’s a lot, you know, it’s you going out there and trying to share knowledge with different people to try and bring them into to your world. And, and then the next part of that is, is finding the opportunity where you can add value. You know, for us in our business, we have to add value.

01:06:46:17 – 01:07:08:01
GUEST
If we don’t add value, then we never going to get paid. You know, we I, you know, we only should be getting paid when our clients make money. Really. Oh, you know, we always deliver significant value to get something done. So the skill set is about being able to put yourself in the right circumstance and then being able to spot the opportunity where you can add value.

01:07:08:03 – 01:07:22:24
GUEST
And the clever bit about that is not always going for the jugular, right? It’s not always going for the big, big sale and just doing that, you know, the kind of Edison hunting kind of approach to to life, it’s it’s saying, okay, well, I like you, I like this. We could start here and then we could grow here and we could do that.

01:07:23:01 – 01:07:40:16
GUEST
So you need to be able to listen. You need to be able to empathize. You need to be able to put yourself in your client’s shoes, which I think is one of, you know, my skill sets, having been on the other side of the table, is that I’m able to do that. I know the pressures that many of our clients are under and I see everything.

01:07:40:16 – 01:07:53:23
GUEST
Well, how can how can I help you? Let me help you do that. You know, so often real help, right? People, as I see reports, you know, because we’ve done it before and we know how to do it. We know what the kind of questions that they’re going to get asked. So we we go to that level of detail.

01:07:53:23 – 01:08:11:12
GUEST
So that’s I think, you know, getting yourself in the right place, being able to spot the opportunity and then being able to convert that opportunity is is no mean feat. And that’s really the kind of the bones of kind of what the open does. I think the closing piece of it is, okay, you’ve got the business through the door.

01:08:11:15 – 01:08:38:06
GUEST
Great. But next, you know, you need to convert that fact that actually needs to become a, a real thing. And it’s a very different skillset at that point. You become a lot deeper. You, you need it’s a lot more thought, like there’s a lot more moving parts. You need to be able to understand, you need to be a good conductor of the orchestra and understand what everyone’s playing.

01:08:38:06 – 01:09:06:12
GUEST
So lawyers, technical people, corporate advisors, debts, you know, the equity side of things, environmental side of things. You know, it’s really important that you kind of, you kind of you can bring all that together and, and manage a project and, and lead the projects. You know, I think often one of the big things that’s slightly different for us, I think, is that we try and lead these things to completion.

01:09:06:14 – 01:09:29:14
GUEST
Rather than just say, here you go, guys. We put the deal together. Off you go. Yeah, give us a call when you’ve done it and I’ll send you my invoice. We really try and support our clients through that whole, transactional process. We build the relationship with the lawyers. We build the relationship with, with all of the, the advisors along that, you know, we run the models, you know, we’ll help write the ECC paper.

01:09:29:16 – 01:09:47:24
GUEST
And again, that’s a slightly different sort of skill set, but that’s the kind of closing skill set for me. And I think, you know, we do that very, very, very well. And so we have slightly different people who who play to that. Because you, it’s a slightly different temperament at times. You know, you need to what’s the phrase you need to keep a cool head when everyone around you is losing theirs.

01:09:48:00 – 01:10:13:23
GUEST
You know, that’s you know, it’s that’s our job is, is to make transactions happen for our clients, you know, and so when everyone and I’ve never worked on a big transaction that hasn’t been off before, you know, most big deals at any point have been on the in the bin. Right. And it’s how do you how do you get that back, you know, as opposed to saying, oh well lost that one is, you know, how do you how do you how do you revive that.

01:10:13:23 – 01:10:32:11
GUEST
How do you put that back into intensive care and make that happen? How do you get the the stakeholders of the individual deals and understand what it’s not just what I do. I want if I’m acting for a seller, it’s not just about understanding what my client wants is understanding what what is the buy one? Can we give what the buyer what they want, but also get what we want?

01:10:32:13 – 01:10:52:16
GUEST
Then you only get that through empathy, listening, being where so I think that’s a real you know, that’s how we kind of end to end. We try to make it work. So you bring the business in, try and de-risk it and try and convert it. You know, that’s I look I’m talking maybe that’s all complete tosh, but that’s kind of what I’ve learned in the last five years.

01:10:52:16 – 01:11:13:18
GUEST
And I think, you know, I never had a burning desire to be an agent, but I have a a real interest in building businesses and building, you know, and I saw this space for me was was right to do something differently and build competitive advantage. And part of that was dissecting the process, you know, rather than just leaving life up to jeopardy.

01:11:13:20 – 01:11:32:11
GUEST
And if I throw enough in a wall, something will stick. Well, hold on a minute. What is my product? What’s the process? You know, in any whether you’re buying a coffee in Starbucks or, you know, buying a SAS technology product, there is a process, there is a product. And so our business should be no different from that. And so all I did was.

01:11:32:13 – 01:11:39:18
HOST
Just let it stand the odds in your favor and give yourself the opportunity to give your clients best, best, best advice. And it can be exactly.

01:11:39:20 – 01:11:42:05
GUEST
Exactly. Yeah.

01:11:42:07 – 01:11:54:22
HOST
Towards the end of January, we are sat here recording this as we kind of like look out to 2024 and beyond, like, what are you most excited about specifically within the context of operational real estate?

01:11:54:24 – 01:12:14:14
GUEST
I think I, I weirdly, sadistically sort of enjoy these more challenging markets because I think this, this is a real point where everything gets thrown up in the air and you’re like, right, where is it? We’re going to land. And that was very much 2023. I think things are starting to land now. And it gets into this world of like, right, who’s ready to go?

01:12:14:16 – 01:12:36:08
GUEST
Yeah. Who is, who who’s who’s got the most conviction it and wants to get on with things and do some good deals and, you know, and build some interesting businesses and build some interesting platforms. You know, there’s still dislocation in the market and often that’s, that’s the time to, to kind of seize on opportunity. But it’s also the most difficult time in a market.

01:12:36:08 – 01:13:00:02
GUEST
And so that’s where I think for me, what I’m excited about is actually say, you know, aligning myself with really interesting clients and being part of their teams. And, you know, if I’m very fortunate, I’ve got a number of those that, you know, actually, we we work as a family together. We work as a team together. And, you know, we’re going to help them succeed and go and get these, you know, seize these opportunities because we need to because it is a challenging environment to raise capital.

01:13:00:08 – 01:13:16:20
GUEST
It’s a challenging environment to get debts. There’s still debt to get deals. Sorry, there’s still a buyer. Big bias that has spread in certain areas. But what we’ve got to do is try and find those pockets of liquid liquidity and and make things, you know, make things happen, which is a real team approach. So I’m really excited about that.

01:13:16:20 – 01:13:39:12
GUEST
I think we’ll see more happening. I can’t I’m for me, you know, we’re I’m three years to the day nearly at Colliers and we’ve built a really I think we’ve built some demonstrable market share now, and we’ve got a proper track record that speaks to our values and what we do. And so I’m really excited about now being a recognized advisor in the market.

01:13:39:12 – 01:14:02:07
GUEST
And, you know, and going deeper with, with some of the clients on on bill helping build their businesses and, and also attracting new people to our to our business as well to help them go into. Yeah, into various different spaces. I’m, I’m eternally kind of curious, I guess, you know, I, I’m enjoying at the moment learning, you know, we’re doing some stuff in self storage, which is really interesting.

01:14:02:07 – 01:14:16:15
GUEST
Co-living. You know, I was with a client earlier and I said, what I need to answer the question, what is co-living? And I said to him, don’t bother. You’re never going to find an answer because it’s you know it. It’s what it means to you. And I really like that, you know, so there’s a bit like hotels, right?

01:14:16:20 – 01:14:32:15
GUEST
You know, a Travelodge is a hotel in the Four Seasons is a hotel, but they’re totally different, you know. And the same is true of co-living. And I’m sure we could go into that a, you know, kind of great length. But I like those more abstract side of things and helping people navigate those spaces. So I think there’s a lot to go there.

01:14:32:17 – 01:14:48:22
GUEST
I think also the student space is really interesting as well. You know, I think there’s this notion sometimes that everything stays the same forever. If you can get comfortable with the fact that changes are constant, then, you know, actually becomes really interesting. And so I think we’re going to see a lot of dynamics change in the student sector this year.

01:14:48:24 – 01:15:08:20
GUEST
We’re already seeing it with international students, you know, moving from more of a Chinese led demographic to more of an Indian led demographic and the affordability conversations that come with that and the types of product, you know, different customer segments are going to want to see. So you know, I think we’ll see an evolution of of how we build and operate.

01:15:08:22 – 01:15:28:11
GUEST
Yeah, in the student sector, which I think is super interesting, which means people are going to be taking a bit more risk and trying a few new things. And I like that, you know, I like being part of groups that are discussing that. And how do we do it? And also, you know, the, the BTR sector and single family housing sector still has a long way to go.

01:15:28:11 – 01:15:54:13
GUEST
You know, I just fundamentally from a pure kind of like social and political perspective, we just don’t have enough, you know, homes and houses in, in yeah. In the UK that are fit for purpose. And so trying to work with our clients to unlock those opportunities. And I’m, I guess I’m kind of enjoying working with clients who want to build housing en masse rather than kind of.

01:15:54:15 – 01:16:13:02
GUEST
Don’t get me wrong, I quite I enjoy the, the high spec BTR side of things. I find it really interesting, but I, I would love to see and I’d love to be part of kind of a group that manages to crack just delivering good, solid, quality housing for the masses. You know.

01:16:13:05 – 01:16:14:20
HOST
Isn’t super amenity rich.

01:16:14:20 – 01:16:34:23
GUEST
Yeah. Which isn’t super amenity rich, but just gives people great homes, with great landlords who they know that they can build their futures there. I think, you know, part of the problem with the rental market in the UK, at the rental market is that it’s really difficult to, to build your home, you know, tenants have limited sort of protections.

01:16:34:23 – 01:16:58:08
GUEST
And so, you know, whilst people are renting it, it’s very difficult for them to ever feel really settled, which is why we always say we must buy because at least we kind of own it. If you look at other European countries, you know, who have very, sophisticated and deep, resi rental markets, which are run by kind of semi-pro, private, housing associations.

01:16:58:08 – 01:17:21:09
GUEST
So France, Germany, Denmark, Holland, I think it’s, people can build their homes in these places. Yeah, they can put things on the wall, they can paint the walls. They can do that without fear of, you know, a landlord coming along, going, oh, by the way, you need to leave now. You know, I oversimplify it, but I’d love to see, you know, proper community building through that by just saying.

01:17:21:09 – 01:17:37:10
GUEST
Look, if you stay in this house for 20 years, that’s our goal. Our goal isn’t to capture the most market rent growth. And the irony is, when you run the models, actually, you probably earn more money in the long run by keeping your tenant in than you do by kicking them out every few years to get a higher rent.

01:17:37:12 – 01:17:56:17
GUEST
So I I’d love to see somebody crack that, and some capital come in with a platform and, and build that and you know that that be that’s that that is a room. That’s their goal. Which I think you hopefully as a team, we kind of, you know, we’re getting closer. But I think, you know, there’s there’s still a lot of barriers to, to that.

01:17:56:19 – 01:18:05:17
HOST
So you’re also involved with Pathways to Property. Can you just talk to me about that initiative and your involvement and what what it is? Yeah.

01:18:05:19 – 01:18:37:17
GUEST
So I’m very fortunate to kind of chair the chair of the Board of Pathways who’ve been involved in it now since inception, 11, 12 years ago. And, you know, it’s a project to really kind of drive more social diversity and general diversity across the kind of real estate sector. I think, you know, coming out of the GFC, there was definitely a, I guess, a notion that, you know, we we don’t have a or didn’t have at the time, a kind of, a diverse sector to kind of shout about.

01:18:37:19 – 01:19:01:04
GUEST
And one of the biggest risks to businesses is, is, is groupthink. You know, monoculture is is one of the biggest groups, biggest risks to, to, to, to industry, you know, and I think the, the real estate industry is so special because it kind of it’s, it’s tangible and it it shapes people’s lives at every level. And there’s so many cliches that get bandied around.

01:19:01:04 – 01:19:33:00
GUEST
But cliches are cliches because they’re often true. Right. You know, and it but real estate really does determine how we live, work, play, you know, and and I think as an industry we are guardians of that. But we’re also we also have a responsibility to make sure that we can drive that forward. And part of the challenges that I think we have and we have decision makers in the industry, you know, we as a as decision makers in the industry, we weren’t diverse enough to really understand all of the different things that we’re doing and go back years.

01:19:33:00 – 01:19:53:00
GUEST
You know, what ends up happening often is you end areas end up being like, gentrified, you know, because people are right. What we’re going to do is get all the poor people out and we’re going to get the richer people in because they can pay more. And then, you know, we’ll drive the profits for all this. And that’s great through a lens of property development.

01:19:53:02 – 01:20:19:07
GUEST
But it’s not so great in terms of the lens of placemaking, city culture and, you know, creating actually places that thrive and, welcoming you know, having that kind of career, having created somewhere that monoculture can thrive just isn’t really what city should be going for. And and it’s not what they want. I don’t think it’s what anyone really wants, but it’s kind of what can happen.

01:20:19:09 – 01:20:45:15
GUEST
So pathways kind of came together, which was a, an initiative put together by the Redding Real Estate Foundation and supported by British Land, really, where our main supporter, Chris Greg, in his time there was a real supporter of it and financially and, and other resources otherwise as well. And at the time was run by the Adam Froggatt, who used to be, aimed at CBRE really, you know, championed it and pushed it forward.

01:20:45:17 – 01:21:11:12
GUEST
And I was very fortunate to be able to take over as chair from Ireland in 2020. Right. February 2000, 20th January 2020, just before we went into Covid. So, you know, I don’t know what he knew then, he said, but you know, we’ve our view is you can’t just sit there and rot in the back of a corporate brochure and say, we’re going to employ, you know, by by 2025, we’ll have 50% of the people will be women, 50% of people will be nonwhite, you know, great.

01:21:11:12 – 01:21:35:04
GUEST
Cool. Let’s set all these targets. But where are these? Where is this talent going to come from? Like where, you know, we’ve got these targets. Fine, great. Whatever. But what are we doing about, you know, nurturing that talent and bringing that talent through? So really, our goal and our focus was on young people and trying to market real estate to them as a viable career.

01:21:35:06 – 01:21:52:20
GUEST
And not be the best kept secret out there, you know, really shout about it and show them that, you know, this could be a place for anyone and also demystify a lot of the kind of, you know, things about being a surveyor and all this stuff and that it’s not just about being a surveyor. There’s so many different, careers.

01:21:52:20 – 01:22:17:20
GUEST
And actually last year I’m very fortunate with the AG to put together a book on a careers map that we designed and put together, which, you know, it was something that lived in my head for a long time. And so it was really nice to kind of see that out there, to be able to put in front of young people and say, guys, you can do whatever within the built environment from everything from kind of, you know, customer service delivery in, in a beta building to, you know, quantity surveyor engineering, whatever it is you want to do.

01:22:17:21 – 01:22:41:04
GUEST
So, so we needed to facilitate that. So the way we thought. So it was, you know, start doing some schools. So we worked in, in partnership with the Sutton Trust to start delivering summer schools, which are hosted by the University of Redding. And every year they’ve got stronger and stronger and stronger. And actually, this year, we’re now increasing the size by 50%, because last year we had the most amount of applications.

01:22:41:04 – 01:23:05:23
GUEST
And it was it was really difficult to say no to some people just for capacity issues. So this year we’re we’re building the capacity more, you know, we’re taking that upon ourselves to kind of do that which is which is great. You know, we’ve made a road for our own back there, which is fantastic, but it’s grown from being something that was just teaching people about what real estate is to now teaching soft skills, you know, like networking, presentation, team working, all of that kind of stuff.

01:23:06:00 – 01:23:31:00
GUEST
Giving people mentoring, giving people the ability to start building their own networks, giving people work experience, opportunities, but also making sure there are no barriers. So, you know, we offer full bursaries, to any student who wants to who comes through pathways, who wants to go and study realistically at any university in the UK.

01:23:31:00 – 01:23:49:21
GUEST
And we’re very proud of that. We’ve got a great partnership with the Worshipful Company of Chartered Surveyors who help fund a great deal of that, you know, alongside our funding as well. So the whole idea is no barriers. You know, we try to be nonpolitical about it, you know, get rid of all the systems. You know, we’ve got, a very, you know, clear kind of application process.

01:23:49:21 – 01:24:08:13
GUEST
And I’m really proud of it. You know, we’ve in the last 11 years, I think we’ve done them in some schools. Now, you know, we fought through over a thousand students and have over 25% of them who are either studying or working in real estate today. So when we set out in this one of our challenges was we didn’t know what KPIs real KPIs were going to be.

01:24:08:13 – 01:24:27:22
GUEST
What are we trying to achieve? We just don’t know. We didn’t know. But I think that’s not a bad KPI to sort of shout about, you know, ten, 11, 12 years on. And I, you know, my, my goal really and, and I the only time I know this will be a success is when we see somebody who came through the pathways is on a board somewhere.

01:24:28:01 – 01:24:46:23
GUEST
That’s kind of what. That’s what I to say. I will probably I’ll probably step back at that point. So, you know, what is that 20 year journey potentially for somebody who’s really valuable, you know, who comes through us at 16 potentially could be on a board of 36, you know. So I’ve we’ve been doing it now for the first cohort.

01:24:46:23 – 01:25:08:09
GUEST
If I get somebody from the first cohort, I’ve got another ten years to do this. But the real all challenge now is to support that original cohort to to get to that level, because that’s that we’re in the danger zone now with a lot of those guys who, you know, they’ve come in, they’ve done the staff got training and then they come into the industry and they just they don’t find their home.

01:25:08:11 – 01:25:27:04
GUEST
You know, they they don’t see role models that look like them, sound like them, that they resonate with. And that’s been one of my biggest challenges over the, over the years, you know, is that, I’ve always questioned myself because I’ve never really and I’m very lucky that I’ve latched on to some of our bosses who’ve been great mentors for me.

01:25:27:04 – 01:25:45:16
GUEST
But, you know, I’ve, I’ve never I’ve never found anyone who, you know, kind of, who I think you were like me, I, you know, get that and you question yourself a lot. It’s a lonely ish kind of place, you know, in that sort of sense. And you think, oh, maybe I’m not cut out for this. And I think I’ve got a lot of resilience and I’ve always sort of snapped myself out of it.

01:25:45:16 – 01:26:04:12
GUEST
But I know other people don’t have that. And they they do end up falling out of the industry and just going and doing something else because they just don’t they don’t see anyone who can help mentor them through that. So I’ve got a real focus now on trying to find role models within the industry who, and there’s some great ones.

01:26:04:12 – 01:26:16:11
GUEST
And, you know, I’ve been doing this for a couple of years now, really trying to build that role model of just trying to get, you know, people together to say, look, this person actually went through the same as you because there’s, you know, this sounds like I’m the only one who I know.

01:26:16:11 – 01:26:21:06
HOST
I’m not. You’re definitely not. I know, and there’s a lot of people that have been on this podcast you’ve shared similar and.

01:26:21:06 – 01:26:34:05
GUEST
I love it, you know, and actually, I resonate a lot with the other guests on here. And, you know, some of the stories and, and I kind of just want people to feel like they can tell those stories. They’ve kind of been in the shadows and, you know, they’ve always the they felt like, oh, I don’t belong here, that I belong.

01:26:34:05 – 01:26:55:09
GUEST
And it’s I love it. You know, LinkedIn is great. I get a lot of people that share their stories with me or in meetings, they’ll say, oh, I’ve followed what you do. And, they say I’m from exactly the same background, you know, my parents didn’t know anything about real estate. You know, I was brought up on my mom, and, you know, I just fell into this world, and I didn’t know anyone or anything, and it’s.

01:26:55:11 – 01:27:14:16
GUEST
I don’t know, it’s really it’s great to kind of know that, to hear those stories. And what I want to do is say to these, you know, to every one of these people, like, great, can we go and let’s go and help the next generation? Yeah, let’s let’s don’t feel that you have to, hide that story and hide that, because there is a bit I think people do hide that, you know, because they want to fit in.

01:27:14:18 – 01:27:19:18
GUEST
But I’m like, I don’t do that. Let’s let’s really dwell on it and go and use that story to try and help.

01:27:19:20 – 01:27:36:22
HOST
The younger the younger you. Well, what I’ll do is I’ll, I’ll make sure there’s a link to Pathways Properties in the show notes on this, but, I know you definitely make that a, a success. As we draw to a close, Patty, a question that I ask everyone that comes on the podcast, if I gave you 500 million pounds worth of capital, who are the people?

01:27:36:22 – 01:27:41:06
HOST
What property and which place would you deploy that capital?

01:27:41:08 – 01:28:03:03
GUEST
The 500 million pound question. So my first thing would be to work out what I what do I actually want from that money? Okay. That’s one of the things I’ve learned about capital is that actually, you know, what do you want from it? Is it are we looking at wealth preservation and wealth creation? What is it? I won’t get into all of that, but I think, you know, if I was to do a bit of both, I’m a I’m a at heart.

01:28:03:03 – 01:28:28:19
GUEST
I’m a simple person, and I’m, I’m a utility driven investor. I like to invest in things that I understand and that the masses need. I tend not to go down really sort of narrow verticals. And so, you know, for me, you know, I, we touched on it before, but, you know, creating good quality, accessible housing, you know, for the for the masses around.

01:28:28:19 – 01:29:02:14
GUEST
I’d love to be able to I think, you know, I think putting money into doing that I think would be really would be, you know, a great thing to sort of do. I’d love to. One of the things I’ve always talked about is going back to the original roots of private equity and venture capital from the 80s and the 70s and 80s, and I was lucky enough where I was in America recently to meet some of the, what would I call them, the godfathers of American private equity, who were just the most fascinating people who started really private equity real estate in, in the 70s and 80s, and invest in

01:29:02:14 – 01:29:18:06
GUEST
good people and good businesses rather than assets and saying, I’m going to buy this asset and this I would love to start a fund that just, you know, we took really good people with really good ideas. And there are certain people who do it really well in the space, like Blackstone have obviously been the biggest to do that.

01:29:18:06 – 01:29:42:16
GUEST
But there are others and just say, look, we can build something around. You know, when I was doing my tech business with Nick and Vass, we, we, I met some really interesting venture capital investors and one venture capital investor I met. He said, I don’t really care about your products. I care about you. And he did a psychometric testing on all of us to work out whether we were good people, the right fit, you know, what our values were and all this.

01:29:42:18 – 01:30:15:09
GUEST
And he said, look, at the end of the day, if I invest with I’d rather invest with good people with bad products because I can change the products. But if I invest with bad people who’ve got good products, then I’m stuffed because I can’t change the people. And so I think, you know, I’d love to do a, I think a fund or business that invested in great people with good ideas and gave them license to kind of go and build their businesses, you know, whether that be in really industrial retail.

01:30:15:12 – 01:30:29:11
GUEST
You know, I think, you know, for me, it’s all about the people side of it. And I’ve got a long list of people I’d love to do that with, you know, and I’ve been, I’ve mentioned a number of them, you know, they probably don’t need me or would want to do it, but, you know, they’ve been great mentors.

01:30:29:11 – 01:30:43:13
GUEST
And I always in your head, you always think, right, if you started a business, who would you want to bring on your boards and things like that. And so, you know, people like, you know, Nick Porter and Josh short and things like that have been incredible sort of mentors and just have this ability to have the have these visions.

01:30:43:13 – 01:31:04:11
GUEST
And, and again, they’re value driven people. You know, it’s all about building businesses around people. You know, Josh has done some great things in self-storage and residential and senior living over the years and always kind of, you know, he he’s always made sure we invest with good people. Yeah, first and foremost. And that’s something that I think never comes up in real estate.

01:31:04:13 – 01:31:21:22
GUEST
You know when you when you’re looking at the I see nobody sits there and goes, do you trust these people. Yeah. Would you, would you have Sunday lunch with these people. Would you. Yeah. Would you bring your wife and kids round to to this. I think that’s really, really important. So slightly tangential answer to your question rather than saying a shopping center or a student portfolio.

01:31:21:22 – 01:31:42:10
GUEST
But I would just I think that would be I think for me, you know, starting a business that just went and really took these some embryonic some hours, but just built good, scalable ideas, that helps the, you know, that were kind of utility driven. And what they mean by users, you have these people need them and people want them.

01:31:42:12 – 01:31:52:03
GUEST
You’re not trying to convince people that they want, I don’t know, you know, really, products that just don’t add any benefit. So mainly housing, mainly storage, mainly shopping.

01:31:52:05 – 01:32:14:20
HOST
Operational real estate. Exactly. Well, Patty, you’ve had a fascinating career. Not always a straight path. We’ve got a saying in the office, which is everyone is the CEO of their own career. And I think that rings no more true. In your case, you’ve always found a way. You’ve asked this question and you’ve proven the doubters wrong. So I’m really excited to see what you and the team going to do for 2020, 24 and beyond.

01:32:14:22 – 01:32:21:20
HOST
And, yeah, really excited to see also your involvement pathways property and the impact that these future leaders are going to have to.

01:32:21:22 – 01:32:23:20
GUEST
Brilliant. Thank you so much.