02 Feb 2022

Thank you to those who joined our 'Vision '22: Onwards and Upwards?' virtual event this morning, it was a popular session with over 120 people registered to attend. 

Moderator John Forbes was joined by keynote speaker Mat Oakley, who gave his views on real estate for the coming year. This was followed by a moderated interactive debate with our excellent guest panellists, Miranda Cockburn and Savvas Savouri, who had a  lively debate about what is in store for our industry in 2022 and the outlook for the markets.

Kicking off the event, Mat presented on 5 main themes, which were:

  1. The return of long-haul capital
  2. Upward pressure on pricing at both ends of the risk spectrum
  3. The race to carbon neutrality
  4. The office post-Covid
  5. The re-emergence of retail and re-balancing of total returns

During the panel discussion, Mat, Miranda and Savvas debated the regional office market vs London, repurposing of real estate space, the effects of Brexit across different sectors, which may have been masked by the effects of the pandemic, domestic and overseas capital, and the green premium.

Thank you to all our speakers for providing their insight on these highly topical issues and to members for their fantastic questions during the discussion. 

Speakers:

  • Moderator, John Forbes, Independant Consultant
  • Keynote speaker and panellist: Mat Oakley, Director, Commercial Research, Savills
  • Panellist: Miranda Cockburn, Managing Director – Real Estate Equity Research, Panmure Gordon
  • Panellist: Savvas Savouri, Chief Economist , Partner at Toscafunds 

Miranda Cockburn

Managing Director – Real Estate Equity Research, Panmure Gordon

Miranda is a highly-rated Real Estate equity analyst having covered the sector for over 20 years. She joined Panmure Gordon from Stifel in early 2019 having previously worked for Cazenove and CSFB. She originally trained as a Chartered Surveyor at Savills before moving into property finance at United Bank of Kuwait.

John Forbes

Independent Consultant, John Forbes Consulting

John Forbes is an independent consultant advising real estate investment managers, investors and others in the real estate industry in the rapidly changing areas of product development, governance and regulatory matters for real estate funds.  He has advised on the restructuring of high profile open and closed-ended real estate funds in the UK and elsewhere in Europe, as well as the establishment of new funds. He has advised service providers to the real estate investment management industry on the strategic implications of regulatory and other changes.  Prior to setting up John Forbes Consulting LLP in 2013, he spent over twenty-five years with PwC, where he led the firm's Real Estate Industry Practice in Europe, the Middle-East and Africa across all of the firm's services to the real estate industry.

John is the chairman of the Independent Supervisory Board of the UBS Triton Property Fund, independent chair of the Urban Splash Residential Fund and non executive chairman of Ginkgo Advisor UK Limited.

Mat Oakley

Director, Commercial Research, Savills

Mat is head of Savills UK and European commercial property research team and specialises in the office, leisure and retail sectors.

Mat's experience includes work on a variety of topics including various office markets, the impact of major infrastructure developments, advising on tenant mix for both in and out-of-town retail and leisure developments, environmental impact analyses and assessing demand for and master planning leisure developments. He has extensive experience in working with the public sector on inward Investment matters and with the private sector on relocation studies.

Mat has a particular focus on the UK and authors many of Savills UK market reports.

Matthew Oakshott

Co-founder and Chair, OLIM Property

Joint founder of OLIM where he managed UK commercial property and equity portfolios from 1986 to 2006 and purely commercial property since then. S.G. Warburg & Co 1976, Director of Warburg Investment Management 1978. Investment Manager of Courtaulds Pension Fund 1981 to 1985. He led a management buyout of OLIM Property in 2012.

 

Savvas Savouri

Chief Economist, Partner, Toscafund Asset Management LLP

Dr. Savvas Savouri is Chief Economist for Toscafund Asset Management. Before joining Toscafund, he was the CEO of Quantmetriks Research Limited, a business he founded in 2005. In 2008, QuantMetriksResearch was absorbed by Toscafund, where Savvas is now a Partner and Chief Economist.

Savvas has been involved in commercial finance since 1991 when he Joined Hoare Govett as their UK economist. Since then, he has worked for the capital markets divisions of Lazard, Credit Lyonnais, and Commerzbank, having started his career with ABN AMRO, in each case in the capacity of head of quantitative finance.

He has also taught extensively, in London at the LSE and the University of Woolwich, as well as at Oxford and Moscow Universities, covering statistics, mathematics, and economics. He has authored various academic papers published in peer-reviewed journals, including one authored alongside a recent Nobel Prize winner.

Dr. Savouri holds a doctorate in Econometrics and Mathematical Economics from the London School of Economics.

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