Is 2021 a year of opportunity for UK real estate?

Speaker

Dialogue

David Hatcher

Good morning ladies and gents and thanks very much indeed for joining us today for BCLP’s latest webinar “Is 2021 a Year of Opportunity for UK Real Estate?” My name is David Hatcher and I’m one of the Editorial Directors of “React News”, a London-based on-line real estate news service, which I jointly founded a year and a half ago, which is now the best read property subscription news service in Europe. The past year has comparatively been one of the most dramatic in the UK’s history in that of its real estate industry. The pandemic has hit as hard here as it has anywhere in the increasing backdrop of Brexit this caused some investors an occupies to think twice before making their next move. And yet there’s been something of a hiatus in certain areas of the market. That said, there are plenty of reasons to be optimistic aside from Israel the UK is making as good a progress with vaccination rates as anywhere in the world, a trade deal with EU has now been agreed, there is a wall of capital looking to enter the sector in the context of a broader, low return environment. So there’s plenty, there’s indeed plenty of reasons to think that 2021 could be a year of opportunity for UK real estate and thankfully we have an excellent panel to help us in our firm. I have plenty of questions for them, but please, please don’t make me do all the hard work. There’s a Q&A section at the bottom which you can fire questions through to me and I will pick them up and put them to these guys and put them on the spot for you. I’d like to kick off by just asking the panel to introduce themselves briefly, starting with Adam.

Adam Buchler (7:23)

Morning everyone, thanks David. My name is Adam Buchler. I run a debt advisory business called BBS Capital, which I started in 2003. We act for a wide range of investors and developers in arranging their property finance. Those who are active both in the UK and Western Europe and we’ve always had a very close relationship with the Israeli investment community. We try to do a trip out to Israel to see our clients and partners once a year, once every two years and we look forward to being able to do that shortly hopefully.

David Hatcher

Thanks Adam. How about you Steven?

Steven Lewis (7:23:32)

Steven Lewis, Lewis and Partners, founded in 1994. We act for clients buying and selling commercial properties primarily throughout United Kingdom. Our clients range from high net worth private investors to main line institutions and corporates as well. Fortunately, as a result of acting across the board with a range of people, we do put a lot of joint ventures together, which is particularly relevant in the current market where that is not so easy although Adam may tell me otherwise during the conversation. But our business is very much focused around our personal relationships. On the Israel side, I have done a couple of trips myself over the years and we do have a number of clients who we are busy for at the moment from Israel but often based here as well.

David Hatcher

And last but not least, Barry Gross.

Barry Gross (7:24:18)

Hi, Barry Gross and I’m a partner at Bryan Cave Leyton Paisner, the UK global law firm. I sit in the real estate team at anchor all aspects of the real estate sector. I also head up the European Data Centre and Visualisation group within BCLP. I have a longstanding relationship with Israel and Israeli-related clients working across sectors, and similar to both Adam and Steven. Have made numerous trips to Israel and I think last year was the first year in about five years I was not in Israel for at least a couple of visits and so hoping to be able rectify that in the near future.

David Hatcher

Great thanks you so much guys. Just to kick off Barry, just big picture. How is the UK market operating for those who aren’t here, is it operating as such? Are transactions happening? What are the logistics of getting business done here?