UK China Desk - Commercial

Investment services for Chinese investors across commercial property sectors in the UK

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中文

We ensure Chinese investors make well-informed and strategic decisions when it comes to the acquisition, disposal and management of commercial properties in London.

Our Strengths:

  • Experts in dealing with Chinese investors who are interested in the London market
  • Fluent in Mandarin and Cantonese
  • London market expertise
  • A seamless service covering all aspects of transactions by liaising with various specialist departments
  • We are actively involved in other international markets via our Global Capital Markets network

Acquisition Services

  • Access to central London landlord and off-market investment opportunity
  • Cater to personal/specific needs and requirements
  • In-depth understanding of the cultural differences and customer needs in China and the UK
  • Sourcing and previewing relevant properties, and assisting in negotiations
  • Properties are carefully selected based on investment objectives
  • Pre-market analysis, custom-made investment plans, bargaining, legal procedures, post-sales services
  • Detailed inspections and subsequent SWOT analysis
  • Liaison with vendors and their advisors
  • Advice on purchase mechanism and financing options
  • Full level due diligence, including all surveys and appraisals
  • Agreement and negotiation on Head of Terms
  • Recommendations on purchase price and finalisation of acquisition with full purchase report
  • Liaison with legal and professional teams throughout

Register your interest to receive off-market investment opportunities.

Strategic Asset Management 

We have a strong track record of providing this service to Greater China investors who do not have dedicated real estate staff. We act as a single point of contact and coordinate all advisors on your behalf.

We proactively identify and deliver strategies to maintain and enhance your investment value with the common objective to deliver long term sustainable income growth through cycles.

One of the main things that sets us apart from others is our dedicated asset management team made up of highly experienced, qualified property professionals.

Our asset management team look after over £2.5bn of assets in the UK. One of our portfolios is the top performing fund as measured by IPD (MSCI) having delivered total returns of over 15% per annum for over 20 years.

We coordinate a full professional team, including solicitors, accountants and, if appropriate, the full project team (architects, project managers, leasing, rating, quantity surveying and engineers).

We are experienced in devising and executing strategies that will enhance and deliver value to your assets and support you in achieving this. The key objective is always to maximise returns (rental and capital) and mitigate any non-recoverable expenditure.

The services which we will typically manage on your behalf include:

  • Portfolio Strategy
  • Annual business plans 
  • Asset plans with short, medium and long term objectives
  • Occupier relationships
  • Feasibility studies
  • Leasing, rent reviews, lease renewals 
  • Refurbishment/development analysis
  • Development management
  • Building Consultancy
  • Project Management
  • Financial reporting
  • Setting detailed asset or portfolio budgets, collecting rents and service charges where appropriate and monitoring all cash closely
  • Always seeking opportunities to add value 

Our approach has enabled us to deliver a consistent, high quality and customer focused asset management service across all the properties we look after.

Disposal Services

  • A network of global investors with a pool of over 300 investors from greater China
  • Consultation on financial modelling and selling
  • Pre-sales due diligence, including surveys and formal appraisals
  • Production of marketing materials and management of PR activity
  • Proactive targeting and marketing to a global investor database
  • Purchaser/agent negotiations
  • Reliable third-party services from our well-established strategic partnerships with relevant and trustworthy institutions in the UK, including law firms, accounting firms and financial management institutions
  • Liaison with legal and professional teams throughout

Knight Frank Investment Management (KFIM)

KFIM has a long and successful track record of providing investment and asset management services to a large variety of UK, European and Asian institutional investors, with over USD 4.4 billion of assets under management, located across the UK and Continental Europe.

With a management team comprising the ex CEO, CIO and CFO of ING Real Estate Investment Management UK, over 20 dedicated staff, and the support of Knight Frank, a specialist property services company, KFIM has the resource, expertise and financial stability of our larger competitors whilst still being able to offer the benefits of a niche investment manager. In addition, the business is not faced with the same degree of conflict as our larger competitors, which in some cases can be considerable.

The success of this approach is demonstrated by our strong performance track record (independently measured), as well as our ability to find and acquire assets, often off market, which meet the investment criteria of each individual client.

Critically, our independence means that we source stock not just from the Knight Frank brokerage network but from brokerage companies throughout the UK and Europe.

The KFIM business comprises a mixture of Segregated Accounts and, importantly, specialist Real Estate Fund structures. This allows us to offer our clients a variety of different services, ranging from directly owned assets through to unitised investment vehicles.

We provide our clients with a one-stop service throughout all stages of their ownership:

Stage One: Investment Criteria / Strategy

  • Critical to everything we do is to ensure that we fully understand each individual’s investment criteria: income or capital growth, target return, investment time period, attitude to risk, attitude to environmental issues etc…
  • Once we have established the client’s investment criteria, we look to create a strategy that has been designed to achieve those criteria.

Stage Two: Acquisition

  • Identifying assets to meet the investment criteria / strategic objectives: KFIM uses its market contacts to source stock both on and off market. Importantly, independence from the wider Group allows us to source assets from brokerage firms throughout the market, not just Knight Frank.
  • Cash flow appraisal and asset assessment on each potential target, with appropriate recommendation to the client.
  • Management of due diligence: clients receive best value by obtaining competitive tenders for all aspects of the Due Diligence, including physical DD, legal and offshore administration.
  • Tender and recommend the most appropriate tax advisor: this is critical to maximise the benefits of structuring for tax and administration efficiency.
  • Obtaining competitive terms for debt funding and agreeing the commercial terms of the facility agreement (working with the appointed legal advisor).
  • Creation of individual asset business plan – identifying risks, opportunities and asset management initiatives.

Stage Three: Ownership Period:

  • Added value through pro-active asset management: refurbishments, surrenders, tenant re-organisation etc… All initiatives are subject to a cost benefit assessment.
  • Rent collection, accounting and property management (outsourced but with responsibility retained by KFIM).
  • Quarterly reporting, including economic and property market updates.
  • Supporting the offshore administrators to ensure that the SPV’s are operated correctly, maintaining the SPV tax status. The risk associated with inadequate off-shore administration is high.
  • Debt covenant management and reporting to the lenders.

Stage Four: Sale

  • Recommendation as to timing of sale.
  • Ensuring that an asset is always “ready for sale”.
  • Management of the sale process; lawyers, sales agent, property managers.
  • Recommendation as to the bets / most appropriate purchaser.
  • Managing post sales activities: ensuring the liquidation of asset holding structures and post completion accounting activity.

Register your interest to receive a Chinese brochure for Knight Frank Investment Management.