Movers & Shakers June 2019 Round-Up

28 June 2019

Track the latest key recruitment movements impacting London and the UK's residential sector. The below update is from June 2019 and was supplied to LonRes from PrimeResi. Links to all the full stories are at the end of each section.

Estate Agents

Cushman & Wakefield

Rich Thomas has joined Cushman & Wakefield as a Residential Partner in London, from BNP Paribas Real Estate.

Purplebricks

Kenny Bruce, co-founder and Global Sales Director of Purplebricks, has followed his older brother and co-founder out of the business, as the hybrid estate agency pledges to focus on “using data and technology to reset the service standards of the industry”. The Bruce brothers came up with the idea for PB back in 2011, launching the business in April 2014, and quickly floating on the AIM in December 2015. Michael Bruce left the business in May.

Carter Jonas

Carter Jonas has boosted its valuation team in London with three new hires. New associate Michael Henretty, who specialises in the super-prime sector, has been recruited from Cushman & Wakefield; affordable housing specialist Barry Rea has joined as partner, after a 19-year career with firms including GL Hearn, Savills and LaSalle Investment Management; Lucy-Anne Johnson has been brought on board from Lidl to concentrate on resi valuation and advisory work.

Fine & Country

Fine & Country has expanded its UK coverage with new branches in Hampshire and St Albans. The Hampshire branch is being run by Paul Wilkinson, a former logistics specialist who set up local agency Hampshirewide earlier this year. In St Albans, local agency JW&Co Langleys has relaunched as Fine & Country St Albans, led by owner Tom Smith.

Knight Frank

Knight Frank has promoted 131 of its people to Partner or Associate level: 47 step up to become Partners in the business; 84 to Associate. Full list at PrimeResi.com.

Read in full - Estate Agent stories

Buying Agents

Paul Gransbury Property Acquisitions

Well-known PCL agent Paul Gransbury has launched an eponymous new property acquisitions firm. Gransbury spent 17 years with Knight Frank in Knightsbridge as a partner, before moving over to a director role at Strutt & Parker, covering Mayfair, Belgravia, Knightsbridge, South Kensington and Chelsea. Paul Gransbury Property Acquisitions aims to be an independent “one stop shop” specialising in resi properties in central London and West Sussex. The firm has already notched up £20m worth of deals in 2019.

Quintessentially Estates

Quintessentially Estates has hired Jonathan Benarr to lead its operations in APAC. The investment specialist and former television presenter joins the Hong Kong office after stints at Buy Berlin, IP Global and his own commercial brokerage, Fifth Element, which will be incorporated into the business.

Read in full - Buying Agent stories

The Crown Estate

Dame Alison Nimmo, Chief Executive of The Crown Estate, is handing over the reins to Australian industry veteran Dan Labbad at the end of this year. Nimmo started out as a Westminster planning officer, and went on to head up the Olympic Delivery Authority from 2006; she has held the Crown Estate’s chief exec role since 2012. Labbad has been with Lendlease since 1997, stepping up to run European operations as CEO in 2009.

Capital & Counties

Capital & Counties’ Managing Director and Chief Investment Officer Gary Yardley has stepped down from the Board, and leaves the Company at the end of June for personal reasons. “The roles will not currently be directly replaced on the Board,” Capco said, as a possible demerger of the Earls Court and Covent Garden estates moves forward.

Strutt & Parker and Cadogan

Strutts & Parker’s former Group Finance Director Sanjay Patel has joined Cadogan as Financial Director. He’s been with Strutt’s for the last five years, having previously been FD of John Lewis Department Stores.

Qatari Diar

Profile: Qatari Diar’s sales and marketing chief, Richard Oakes chats about career paths, garden squares and landmark developments with property lawyer & food writer Nicky Richmond, over lunch at the floral-themed Ollie Dabbous pop-up restaurant at Chelsea Barracks.

Read in full - Developer and Landowner stories

Alix Lawson

High-end designer Alix Lawson has launched a new studio under her own name. The Australian-born interior architecture specialist co-founded Lawson Robb aged 23, after graduating from the Inchbald School of Design. Her former firm recently joined Helen Green Design and Rigby & Rigby under the Allect Group banner, but Lawson has instead decided to launch an eponymous “interiors lifestyle brand”, based in West London.

Gateley

Law-led professional services group Gateley has boosted its resi development offering with the hire of Charles Cantoni from Moore Blatch. Cantoni takes up the role of senior land acquisition lawyer, having previously headed up the legal department of Persimmon arm Charles Church Developments.

Arney Fender Katsalidis

Architecture and design firm Arney Fender Katsalidis has hired Woods Bagot’s Jonathan Clarke as director. The resi specialist has been brought on board to “drive the further strategic development” of the London and Canada-based practice, with a focus on ramping up its residential and interior design offering. Before joining Woods Bagot in 2010 to oversee its key resi and hotel projects, Clarke was MD at Universal Design Studio, where he worked on flagship stores for Stella McCartney, department stores in Korea for Lotte and exhibition designs for clients including the V&A museum.

Walpole

Luxury industry lobbying group Walpole has published its “Power List” of the 50 most influential characters in the British luxury sector, grouping them into hashtaggable categories. A few property types make the grade, including Cadogan’s chief Hugh Seaborn (a Guru), interior designer Fiona Barratt (a Taste-Maker), Auriens founder and Thomas Goode Chair Johnny Sandelson (an Entrepreneur), and David Collins Studio co-founder Iain Watson (a Hero). Full list at PrimeResi.com.

Read in full - Legal, Design and other stories