| When Andrew Coombs took over as chief executive of London-listed property company Sirius Real Estate in 2010, no one thought it would survive. Its shares were trading at just 20p, its loans were coming due, banks wanted their money back, and activist investors were trying to take control of the company or break it up. “It wasn’t working and a number of activist shareholders were building stakes on the register,” Coombs said. “Everything was set to be given back to the banks. When I came in, I was asked to write two business plans. One for how to shut it down — and the other on how we could make it work.” Today, as the property market heads into another period of turmoil, Sirius is in a very different position. Its market capitalisation of £1B puts it in the FTSE 250 of leading London-listed companies and its portfolio of German and UK flexible industrial assets and business parks are valued at €2B (£1.75B), with 78 properties in Germany and 72 in the UK totalling nearly 28M SF. 
As European property companies begin to face a debt refinancing crunch similar to that experienced by Sirius in 2010, there are lessons to be learned in how the company avoided the fate of many others that headed into bankruptcy. But the more interesting lesson is how Coombs helped Sirius to grow.…  Read the full story here. | | |
