BDC Magazine 2016 - Keepmoat Knight Frank - BDC May 2014 | Page 2

Knight Frank:feature 2 23/03/2014 10:35 Page 24

PROPERTY & FACILITIES MANAGEMENT: KNIGHT FRANK

LOCAL
KNOWLEDGE,
GLOBAL
OUTLOOK
KNIGHT FRANK IS THE LEADING INDEPENDENT,
GLOBAL REAL ESTATE CONSULTANCY PROVIDING
AN INTEGRATED PRIME COMMERCIAL AND
RESIDENTIAL OFFERING, OPERATING IN KEY
HUBS ACROSS THE GLOBE.
ounded in 1896 and now the leading and largest independent global
real estate consultancy the firm has
330 offices worldwide and 12,500
professionals across five continents. Property management is becoming
increasingly important to Knight Frank. “The
property asset management team is fundamental to what Knight Frank does because
it’s a solid business in a volatile economy,”
states Proprietary Partner and Head of
Property Asset Management Tim Robinson.
“It doesn’t tend to change because it’s a consultancy-based business on three to five-year contracts
or longer. We have worked with some clients for 25
years and management potentially feeds additional
business to other parts of the firm. Most importantly it is a service line that our clients expect us to offer.

F
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It is also very important that our business is sustainable from a financial perspective.”
DIFFERENT CHALLENGES
The company has 44 million square feet of UK
commercial property under management with a
total value of over £8.5 billion. There’s a separate
team to handle residential properties, the management of mixed-use buildings depending on the residential proportion and all, as Tim recounts, presenting different challenges: “Shopping centres
present a different set of challenges due to public
access and as a result health and safety issues.
Industrial and office buildings, which form the bulk
of our managed portfolio are more straight forward
especially when they’re single let assets for which
the tenant has responsibility. Where we can really
demonstrate our expertise and experience is on

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