September 17, 2021
Despite the difficulties the sector has faced over the past year, the Fiera Real Estate UK (“FRE UK”) network has had a huge amount of success.
Since the beginning of 2021, FRE UK and its network of eight Operating Partners have been shortlisted for over 19 awards!
After Investment Week announced the launch of their Women in Investment Awards, and the new extended list of categories, we were sure to nominate three of our leading women at FRE UK, all of which have been named as a finalist.
Emma Cullen, FRE UK’s Chief Operating Officer, has been with the firm since 2007, and has driven the company’s digital transformation and innovation adoption, as well driving our passion to be a sustainable business. Emma has also recently been (unanimously) appointed as the first female chair of the AREF Corporate Governance Committee following the creation of overarching principles to sit over the Code of Conduct and ensure its future fitness for a diverse and broader member base.
Our second nominee is Jessica Pilz, who joined the firm in 2020 to lead the company’s sustainability strategy. Over the last year, Jessica has quickly accelerated our ESG strategy and transitioned FRE UK into an asset manager that actively considers and integrates ESG into all investment decisions. The main highlights have included our core fund becoming a Real Living Wage Accredited employer, appointing a net zero carbon (NZC) partner to build our core fund’s NZC pathway and successfully implementing an automatic data harvesting project to collect tenant utility data.
Our third finalist for this year’s Women in Investment Awards is Minty Brown, Head of Marketing. Minty is responsible for delivering a multi-media marketing strategy to raise new capital for the firm and the wider global business. Since 2019, she has led and implemented a full company rebrand, launched a bi-lingual global website structure, managed the raising of over £100k for charity and, most importantly, relaunched the firms ESG marketing strategy. Urgent action is required from the real estate industry to counteract climate change and a key responsibility of Minty’s is to market the role we play as a firm in reducing our carbon impact. Check out our new ESG pages here to see our latest ESG activity.
On the project side of the business, FRE UK and our operating partners have been recognised as market leaders, evidenced by shortlistings for both regional and sector-specific titles.
Over the past year, Wrenbridge Land have received 9 nominations for their projects with FRE UK and other funders such as LaSalle Investment Management. Wrenbridge is a hugely active property developer, operating in London, East Anglia, Home Counties and the South East. Over the past year, they have completed the development/sale of over 435,000 sq ft, submitted planning for 1,680,000 sq ft of new space and are currently delivering 856,000 sq ft across 17 live projects with a combined GDV of £553m.
Another of our Operating Partners, Packaged Living, have also recently been recognised as a big player in the market, following four shortlistings across the EG and RESI Awards. Since Packaged Living’s inception in May 2018, it has contracted on over 2,000,000 sq ft of development with a pipeline of over 4,000 homes, spanning both multi-family and single-family rental. Some of the key projects to date include The Almere, the 294-apartment scheme in the heart of Milton Keynes, and The Castings, the 352-apartment scheme coming soon to Piccadilly East, Manchester.
With the rise in ESG awareness, Property Week introduced awards for both Health and Wellbeing and Best COVID Reponse, which secured us another three shortlistings. We have received a nomination for our COVID-19 Fundraiser, which we ran back in April and raised over £22,000 for Duty to Care, who provide NHS staff with therapy sessions to support their mental health. Almost 200 participants across the CRE sector took part and travelled over 5,000km to raise money for the charity.
Our second Property Week shortlisting is for Halo, which is set to be one of the greenest office buildings in the UK and the most sustainable outside London. Halo has achieved a BREEAM Outstanding accreditation to meet the toughest new sustainability assessment criteria, and it achieved the second best score to be awarded in the UK to date.
We have also been shortlisted for the Best COVID response award alongside our Operating Partner Angle Property. When the effects of the pandemic hit the UK in early 2020, the NHS was in desperate need of additional facilities to help to treat and rehabilitate those who had contracted the virus. Angle Property quickly contacted the NHS to offer the use of our former hospital building at Headley Court on an initial free-of-charge basis.
We have our fingers crossed for a few wins this year!