Trio launch property fund
A FUND has been launched to buy commercial property on behalf of its investors.
Tim Bryan, Andrew Coombe and Neil Turner have established Gravitas Property Fund which will buy, on behalf of its investors, commercial property including retail, industrial and office units throughout Yorkshire, the Humber and the Midlands.
The fund will pool the expertise of its chairman Tim Bryan, a Sheffield-based member of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors for more than 40 years, and his fellow directors Andrew Coombe, a chartered accountant and retired lawyer, and Neil Turner, chairman of Edward Turner and Son, which manufactures and markets industrial blades and ancillary products.
The trio will be assisted by Sheffield and Leeds-based chartered surveyors Hague Nicholls which provides specialist advice on the acquisition, disposal and asset management of commercial investment property to clients including institutions, property companies, property developers and manufacturing companies.
Mr Bryan said: “What makes this venture a little different is its thoroughly local nature. The directors are Sheffield area based and are all leading experts in their specific fields, with an extensive knowledge of the local scene covering a combination of skills across property investment, development, finance, asset management, fund management, law and accounting.
“We feel the venture is starting at the right time because there is a general return to confidence in the commercial property sector, which saw UK commercial property capital values fall by nearly half between their mid 2007 market peak and July 2009.”
The fund, structured as a limited partnership, will acquire properties in the £500,000 to £5m range, with monies being raised from eligible investors.
Mr Bryan joined Eadon Lockwood and Riddle in 1969, becoming an equity partner in 1976 and was one of the four vendor partners who sold the commercial arm of the firm to form the regional office of Lambert Smith Hampton where he remained a senior local director until 2002. He is currently a consultant with Mark Jenkinson and Son.
Mr Coombe was finance partner and head of corporate services at Keeble Hawson solicitors for nearly 20 years until his retirement in 2008. He has served as a trustee of several charitable trusts and until recently was chairman of St Luke’s Hospice.
Mr Turner, Sheffield’s Master Cutler in 2003-04, was deputy chairman of the Yorkshire and Humber Development Agency from 1989 to 1993 and deputy chairman of the Yorkshire and Humberside Regional Assembly from 1998 to 1999.
Other roles have included the presidencies of Sheffield Chamber of Commerce (1996- 97) and the Yorkshire and Humber Chambers of Commerce in 1997-98.
Chartered accountants and specialist business advisors Hawsons, of Sheffield, provided tax advice on the structure of the fund.
