Property tycoon takes Aim at UK market
The property sector is set to see the first float of what has been a quite horrendous year, suggesting the worst of the turmoil maybe over for Britain's biggest developers.
Entrepreneur: Nick Leslau will debut Max Property on Aim
The debut of Max Property on Aim will also mark a return to public life for Nick Leslau, one of the country's wealthiest property entrepreneurs.
Leslau, who ran his first public company, Burford, aged 23, created Max to take advantage of the cheap prices in the bombed out market for bricks and mortar.
Backed by American investor Och-Ziff to the tune of £25m, he plans to float the firm for between £150m and £200m next week. Management will also match the amount put in by the hedge fund.
Max will be staffed by property veterans including chairman Aubrey Adams - a former chief executive of up-market estate agents Savills - and Mike Brown, the former deputy chief executive of property firm Helical Bar.
Leslau, who took his Prestbury property firm private nine years ago and vowed never to return to the public market, said conditions had changed so dramatically he wanted to seize on the obvious opportunities.
'We think we are somewhere very close to the bottom of the cycle,' he said. 'There is so much distress with values having fallen 50% peak to trough that there are countless opportunities for us to make money going forward.'
He also claimed: 'My desk is almost sagging under the weight of deals. 'We have more deals than we possibly can do and we need to be very disciplined in terms of what we buy.'
The company will buy offices, flats and retail developments over a five year period but will restrict itself to the UK. But he won't be getting into the speculative property ventures-that signalled the top of the last cycle.
'(We'll concentrate on) areas we know well from the past 25 years,' Leslau explained.
'With the management team's considerable experience, including acquiring and managing real estate through the last significant property downturn of the early 1990s, we are well positioned to source, obtain finance for, and structure real estate investments that will be resilient to further downturns.'
He said his Prestbury business had sold many of its investments at the top of the market in 2006 and 2007. A one-time owner of the rights to the Enid Blyton characters, Leslau still part-owns the Watford-based Saracens rugby club.
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