Deloitte seeks to spread Manchester ‘secret sauce’ nationally
Deloitte’s North West planning and real estate team is looking to replicate the success in Manchester’s property advisory market by expanding to other UK cities.
Speaking to TheBusinessDesk.com this week, practice senior partner Andy Westbrook said: “The real estate team in Manchester under John Cooper is probably our highest profile team, it’s a huge bonus for us as a firm.
“We want to roll out the processes, the knowledge and experience into other regions and try and duplicate what we have here,” he said.
“If you look at city centre developments from a planning perspective we are by far and away the market leader by a country mile.
“As a firm we’re looking at how we take that secret sauce and spread it elsewhere.”
Big Four firm Deloitte broke the mould in professional services in 2010 when it acquired the planning consultancy Drivers Jonas, eventually integrating the practice fully as Deloitte Real Estate in 2013, pushing Manchester-based partners Cooper and Simon Bedford to the fore.
Last week Bedford launched the eye-catching Crane Survey and this week two complex and detailed planning applications come before Manchester City Council’s planning committee which were both advised by Deloitte. The clients are Bruntwood on a scheme in Didsbury while Trilogy Real Estate is looking to redevelop the Great Northern warehouse on Deansgate.
The firm has also recruited Vaqas Farooq, Wayne Nash, Lisa On-Iam and Dan Hargreaves, a team of property lawyers from Shoosmiths in Manchester to add a multi-disciplinary approach to the real estate practice.
As a whole, Deloitte in Manchester has expanded by 600 to 1370 since Westbrook took over as the practice senior partner in 2018. The total headcount comprises 55 partners, 104 directors and a recent graduate intake of 225 and contributes £155m of revenue to a UK total of £4.9bn.
Westbrook, a corporate finance partner by background, said the main expansion of the firm in the North West will continue to be consulting, including the Sports Advisory Business, Risk Advisory, technology and audit.
Westbrook said the ambition in the North West is to expand the Consulting North part of the business to a 500 strong team and to continue to recruit more graduates.
The drive for talent has also influenced the choice of building, he said.
A break clause in the lease at the offices in Spinningfields, just as Covid took hold and the country locked down, meant the firm’s property needs changed overnight and they left Hardman Street in early 2020.
Now based on the old Co-op estate near Victoria train station in a WeWork building the firm sees the move as temporary, and is moving to a “flagship development designed to meet our regional growth aspirations with a 64,000 square foot occupation from March 2024,” said Beech.
“It will have state of the art amenities with a dedicated entrance and hybrid working principles built into the design.”
“We’re a diverse business, the average age is in the 20s, and a lot of them don’t want to work in Spinningfields, they want somewhere a bit edgier and different. It’s also fair to say the central business district of Manchester is much more spread out now,” said Westbrook.
Beech added: “We’re trying to be a digital player and competing for talent with the likes of Google and GCHQ.”
A notable part of the Deloitte team in Manchester is Sir Howard Bernstein, former chief executive of Manchester City Council, who has been consulting on projects globally.
Speaking about the economic climate generally, Westbrook said: “It’s been a tough time for all of us and for a lot of our clients. Brexit, Covid, the effects of the war in Ukraine and higher inflation have all brought challenges. The interest rates edging up made things very tough in the debt markets. Hopefully now we’ll get some more certainty.
“But maybe I’m too much of an optimist. We talk ourselves down too often. How business has adapted to the challenges has been remarkable. Business deserves a lot of credit.”
