COMMENT: It’s that time of year again
THE evenings are getting lighter, the daffodils are starting to emerge and West Midlands football fans are looking nervously at the league tables. Spring is in the air.
And if renowned commercial property industry watering holes are a little on the quiet side it must mean that we are in MIPIM week.
MIPIM – the annual property development and inward investment show in Cannes, as I’m sure you know – has perhaps lost some of its ‘must attend’ appeal over the last year or two as the economic climate has reduced the available spend on events such as this and meaningful inward investment wins have become as rare as big name managers queuing up for the Wolves job.
But I’m convinced that Birmingham and Coventry are absolutely right to send out a decent-sized squad (just can’t shake those football analogies) to Cannes this year.
Cynics suggest that MIPIM is just a ‘jolly’ for those lucky enough to be sent there. Here I am sitting in the office on a miserable early March day whilst those lucky devils are sipping mojitos and watching the sun go down over a bevy of promenading French lovelies, the argument goes.
And the fact that the effort to raise the local profile in Cannes is public sector-led is guaranteed to bring out the frothing Daily Mail reader “waste of taxpayers’ money” instinct in even normally mild mannered individuals.
I’ve never really bought into this argument. The reality is that deals aren’t always done in dry, nondescript office boardrooms at home. They are often sealed over a large glass of white in Metro or a first class meal in Opus (and their equivalents in other cities).
This is the way the world works and if it is more likely that international decision-makers will attend a show of this kind in Cannes than one in Vladivostock or Milton Keynes are we really that surprised?
The point about MIPIM surely is that it is a great stage on which to announce – and seek interest in – the large projects that are giving your city momentum and both Birmingham and Coventry have plenty of schemes to talk about.
And if deals aren’t signed there and then, contacts are made that could lead to something happening down the road. You can’t sit at home and expect international property investors to turn up on your doorstep.
It will take just one deal to come to fruition in six months’ time, as a result of a contact made at MIPIM, to make the whole thing worthwhile.
Anyway, enough already. I’m off to Birmingham’s Alternative MIPIM event this lunchtime. Mine’s a mojito!
