‘Quality projects, good timetabling, business nous, relationships and a sense of what is right,’ Kevin McCabe outlines what is needed in the real estate industry

Kevin McCabe started out in the construction industry in the 1970s and from the very beginning realised that building relationships and remaining true to delivering quality projects was to be at the heart of his work.

McCabe owns global property Scarborough Group International, which has its headquarters in Leeds, and was the speaker at TheBusinessDesk.com’s Property Professionals Lunch on Friday. The event was attended by more than 140 people and sponsored by Bevan Brittan.

A native of the Steel city, he co-owns Sheffield United Football Club now and has enjoyed a “varied” career in property, real estate and sport. He said: “I was working class kid literally born on the side of Bramall Lane, hence why I had no alternative than to support the Blades. It was the kind of working class friendliness that gave you a happy upbringing and life.

“I left school at 16, with a reasonable education. I worked on a building site for two years and that was the turning point of what careers are all about.”

It was in that job that he met his “first mentor”, a general foreman; who told him he needed to get a profession. From his words of guidance, McCabe trained to be a quantity surveyor working for a contractor in Sheffield, while attending night school.  “I took readily to it with a determination to cease to work on a building site going forward,” he explained.

As a qualified surveyor, he transferred to the office. He said: “The fortune or opportunities that life created is where my career went from thereon.”

He worked for a company in Sheffield where he found his “principal” mentor, who inspired him to take up a career  into property development and construction. That firm was taken over by Bovis, which then split up into  construction and property divisions – he went to the property side of the business and moved to Edinburgh.

McCabe said: “That was the principal reason why career changed. It was a big move from Sheffield in 1972/73. I had my friends, family and all my relationships in Sheffield. But with the ingredients of qualification, education and determination; I had an instinct to move. It was an opportunity that couldn’t be missed.

“That was really the start of the beginning. I was working purely in property and begun to understand so much about leases, negotiating deals with tenants or to acquire or conditionally acquire or to sell. I also understood the benefits of the construction industry.

“On the property side, it took me ten years to instigate how to work with contractors – to try and get contractors to work with us as partners. In those days, it was different and it was about working with clients to make sure that they had longevity of not just one contract but five or six.”

McCabe since the mid-70s, it had always been his drive to look for people and relationships with who wanted to be a part of the whole process. He added: “This meant taking the rough with smooth with them common aim – quality , good timetabling and a sense of what is right.”

In Scotland, he worked on a forward funded 60,000 sq ft. site which was priced at  1.75 per sq ft, with a yield of 8%. He urged the audience to consider how different that was to the current real estate picture.

It was then that McCabe realised the importance of making business relationships and even now Scarborough Group International deal with the Scottish firms that he first established connections with in the early days.

In 1973, he moved to Teesland Developments to expaned his career – a business he ended up buying.

McCabe: “I learnt a lot very quickly. I saw that to be a good developer, who could see what they wanted to see and vision, – you need talents of architects and contractors around you.

“You also needed corporate knowldege and business nous – the complete package – to understand what you want to do to exploit projects.

“Then something in me said ‘I must go it alone.’ ”

McCabe then set up Scarborough International in Scarborough but quickly relocated the HQ to Leeds because he needed access to professional associations including architects, engineers, surveyors, lawyers and accountants.

“With various acquisitions, I was building a group that grew like topsy. I was in my mid-40s or 50s, before grasped myself the size and scale, of the group,” he added.

McCabe said relationships were key and he still had associations in Scotland to explore further development opportunities with. From there, the multi-million-pound turnover business went global and McCabe lived in Europe for a while. Three key projects in Leeds, Sheffield and Manchester currently being worked on by the group will in total provide 1.1m sq ft of business space and enable the delivery of up to 10,000 news homes, also generating around 18,000 new jobs in the different regions.

So where did owning a Championship football club come into it? McCabe dded: “Did I have the intention of owning the Sheffield United? No! My achilles heel is that I can’t resist opportunities. Somebody heard about me and asked me  to sponsor. From there, I got embroiled in Sheffield United.

“One of my other faults, some my say a strength, is that I can’t sit on the sidelines – I have got to get involved and make an impact. So I joined the board in 1995.

He was an active director who was involved in the process of taking Sheffield United public in 1997. McCabe said: “As a real estate guy wanting always to improve things, whether office block or piece of land for mixed use, when I got hold of Bramall Lane – I started to think about how  we could make it stadium fit for the next 50 years.

“How we can make into top-class football ground that is something special?”

McCabe bought the old forgemasters facility in Sheffield for the team to train. e added: “We are part of the very fabric of the city that we serve, and we never forget that.”

McCabe believe that both sport and real estate underpin the UK’s economy; but admits that his involvement in the football club has opened doors. He said: “When people meet me now, and we (SGI) have got great schemes underway, highly complicated with a great deal of time skill time, effort and risk – people talk to me about football.

“Indirectly, football has been a massive part of profiling our real estate activities.”

McCabe listed Teesland in 2002 and took the arm of the business to Europe by buying property in Frankfurt, Holland, Paris and Poland. McCabe added: “Football got me through doors, buying properties and buying business.

“But failure comes into it. To recognise that sometimes things go wrong is no shame. You have to sort out the mistake as best you are able to, then move on and learn.

“To make a solid businessman, you need failure. I know of a few people who experienced success but it had  not been hard earned. You have to learn the hardship of failure to make the best of circumstances in front of you.”

McCabe said that through his career. which has been varied, the recession of the 70s was incredibly tough, as was the financial crash.He said: ” I had not foreseen real banks going bankrupt – it never crossed my mind. Banks were something you could rely upon – an institution beyond institution.”

Now, SGI are looking to continue to develop major real estate schemes across the globe to drive the business forward and McCabe feels the market is in the right place in a “seven-year” cycle to make the best of the conditions.