Incoming Message From International Investors: Manchester, You Are Too Small
So now we know. International investors have been piling into Manchester property for the last five years — but there have been some absentees, or others who have seemed cautious.
But following disclosures from Texan investor Hines' U.K. managing director, Anthony Leonard, we now have a glimpse into the boardroom.
“I love Manchester and get very excited about opportunities here, but I will then go to my investment committee — based in Houston, Texas — and they’re really lukewarm and I never quite get why," Leonard said.
"I’m always having to twist their arm. But they always say Manchester is small, and this surprises me — it feels like a massive city — but look at the statistics.”
“OK, 1M SF was taken up in Manchester’s office market in 2017 — but there are seven German cities with more take-up. Helsinki has an office market several times larger than Manchester, Vienna has twice the annual take-up.”
Leonard has a point. Cushman & Wakefield data shows the total office market in Greater Helsinki is 93.5M SF with 1.2M SF under construction. In Manchester the equivalent figures are 20M SF with 857K SF under consrtruction: a fast pace of growth but from a much smaller base.
“Scale is so important, because if you want to get a global investor to come to the city you have to be big — they want liquidity, and to know that they can sell if they need too — they need to know it's a big city with lots of employees, lots of office space, lots going on," Leonard said.
"Which is where I think U.K. regional clties struggle to complete with London. But that’s changing — Manchester is at this incredible point of opportunity, and this is a real tipping point for Manchester and the opportunity is massive.”
Leonard was speaking at Bisnow's Manchester State of the Market event in a panel discussion moderated by 5plus Architects Director Tony Skipper.
Fellow panelist were WeWork European Transactions Director Mary Finnigan, Datscha U.K. Managing Director Mark Bruno and RSM Head of Construction Ian Taylor.
