ESH held their annual Spoof Challenge last night and where better to escape the grim autumnal weather than downstairs at Mulligans.

ESH held their annual Spoof Challenge last night and where better to escape the grim autumnal weather than downstairs at Mulligans.  A gathering of some 60 or so retail warehouse specialists sought shelter from the wind and the rain for the annual quest to find the market’s biggest Spoofer.  Last years’ champion Mark Powell dealt easily with ESH’s rookie spoofer Dan Howie but then failed to get any further.  As the Guinness flowed and the competition progressed some of the spoofers seemed to forget the basics and played into their opponents hands.

After several hours, and even more pints, it was time for the finals.  In the plate David Hobden beat Mark Phelps in a match that was a lot closer than the 3-0 scoreline would suggest.  Then all eyes turned to the main final between Will Robertson, sporting a fine moustache and Paul Morris, recent winner of the world spoofing championships.  In a tightly fought contest Will thought he had victory but celebrated too early and under the ‘no gloating’ rule he was penalized a point so it came down to sudden death – and a victory for Paul Morris of Fletcher King.

After the presentations more Guinness flowed and there will be some sore heads in the West End on Friday morning. (Nov 2010)

Adam Patrick, Jamie Naughton and Jonathan Brown were in attendance at this month’s annual BCSC Event in central Manchester.

The event was extremely well attended by hundreds of retail professionals from both the shopping centre, in-town and Out of Town Retail markets.  The ESH team held a series of meetings with retailers and landlords alike to discuss clients’ opportunities on schemes as well as glean the latest retailer trends and requirements.  The mood was very positive with several fresh town requirements identified and key opportunities discussed in detail given the general air of optimism and despite the horrendous downpours throughout the event.

Retailers were out in force and seemingly keen to progress deals on several ESH-managed schemes, which bodes well going into the final part of 2010 as well as looking ahead into the New Year.

The marked increase in activity experienced earlier this year has begun to plateau in many cases, but the position is far more positive than this time last year.

There is growing caution from several retailers who, despite encouraging store acquisition targets and reasonably buoyant trading, are still choosing not to compete with rival offers or to pay premium rents because of the government’s austerity measures, a perceived squeeze on disposable incomes, limited availability of credit and job security.

Yet there are reasons to be optimistic.

On the better retail parks and stronger locations there has been a reduction in landlords’ incentives. This had led to improved net effective rents.

Among the new entrants to the retail warehouse market are Wren Kitchens. It has opened 19 stores and HomeSense, the TK Maxx homewares fascia, has committed itself to 25 stores and wants 10 to 15 more over the next 12 months. It has 75 target locations.

The established contenders that want to expand include John Lewis, Next Home and Liverpool-based Home Bargains, which has opened between 20 and 30 stores this year – no mean feat, because it sells branded food items and needs a planning consent that allows it to sell 30% food – and now wants to expand into the south of England Two other value retailers, Dunelm and the Range, are also acquiring stores. Dunelm is expanding by between 10 and 15 stores a year and the Range is trying to open in larger UK catchments and has six deals in lawyers’ hands at present.

Go Outdoors has opened six stores in the last year, to give it a chain of 23 camping and outdoor shops.

It hopes to open another six in the next 12 months.

The electrical sector is active, too, as traditional brands such as Currys, PC World and Comet combat the threat of Best Buy.

Acquisitions by these and other retailers mean that voids have reduced on better schemes in the last six months. Vacant space on weaker locations are likely to remain available for some time and may even revert to alternative higher-value use.

We are seeing the first signs of the development pipeline returning, because of improved yield profile over the past year and more stable retailer demand.

Nick Howe, Property Week  (October 2010)

ESH have been appointed by Nuffield Health and Wellbeing as their Property Management consultants.

ESH have been appointed by Nuffield Health and Wellbeing as their Property Management consultants. The company now advises on all aspects of property management affecting their 65 Health clubs together with their screening units and clinics. We receive and audit on the clients behalf all of their rent and service charge demands from their landlords and provide their property management database. The instruction commenced 1st October 2010.

Tim Hornor, partner at Edgerley Simpson Howe, argues that traditional in-town retailers have found out-of-town space relatively easy to adapt and stores cheap to downsize.

“Retailers such as John Lewis, Next and TK Maxx are all taking adapted bulky goods stores. It may not be the preferred option but at least it’s a new store rather than just dreaming about an in town opportunity”. He says. The fact is that out-of-town is there to be done, without lengthy planning battles. Its achievable, rather than waiting for planning to be granted on shopping centre developments and waiting for them to be built”.

Retail park space largely comprises location with bulky goods consent, which has allowed the mainly-furniture store formats offered by John Lewis and Next to grow out of town. For other in-town retailers, the tighter availability of open A1 consent could restrict ambitious growth plans.

And agents suggest that in-town retailers, which have been used to enviable rent concessions and packages over the past couple of years could find the comparatively expensive and competitive nature of the out-of-town market a challenge.

John Maddison, chairman of Accessible Retail, warns: “Some department store retailers have been used to {receiving} big chunks of money for anchoring schemes, but that has never been available out of town.”

So while appropriately sized in-town sites continue to evade the high street fashion giants, any significant move out of town could prove too costly.  But with retailers need to grow in an attempt to attract more of the spend from consumers’ ever dwindling cash piles the desire for spare space seems unstoppable.

Tim Hornor, Estates Gazette

Clients of Scottish Widows Investment Partnership (SWIP), advised by Edgerley Simpson Howe (ESH) have sold their Clifton Moor Retail Park (Phase 3) in York.

Clients of Scottish Widows Investment Partnership (SWIP), advised by Edgerley Simpson Howe (ESH) and Joiner Cummings have sold their Clifton Moor Retail Park (Phase 3), Hurricane Way in York to client’s of ING advised by CWM for £37.66 million, representing a net initial yield of 5.59%.

The 144,300 sq ft retail park is let to Toys R Us, Comet, JJB Sports, Mothercare, McDonalds, Argos, Currys, Maplin at rents ranging from £21 to £26 per sq ft and has been purchased by West Midlands Metropolitan Authority Pension Fund.

Jo Duffield of ESH said “The price achieved reflects the competition for this type of investment being an open consented park with a strong tenant line up. Clifton Moor is a significant out-of-town destination with two further retail parks, a VUE cinema and Tesco Extra adjacent.  The sale for SWIP’s client reflects their strategic investment criteria.”

Edgerley Simpson Howe advised Scottish Widows Investment Partnership..

(Sept 2010)