Knight Frank Hits Record Highs, Real Estate To Follow

Real Estate giant Knight Frank has reported a record turnover and profit for the year ended 31 March 2014, predicting the next few years to be real estate’s most exciting.

After announcing a record £392.7m turnover and £136.6m profit, group chairman and senior partner of Knight Frank Alistair Elliot said: “[The] combination of weight of money, growing occupier demand and the resultant pressure on rents promises one of the most exciting periods in real estate for a decade”.

“Key global cities and alternative sectors will feature heavily on investors’ radars for the remainder of 2014 and the majority of 2015.

“Value for money will increasingly be found outside traditional centres, where higher yields can be achieved and we expect a growing trend towards development. In addition, occupier markets are now much more dynamic with far greater depth and breadth than we have seen for several years.”

Knight Frank attributes its success to a number of factors:

• Opening offices in Ireland, Germany, South Africa, Taiwan and Malaysia;
• Growing their North American commercial footprint in partnership with Newmark Grubb Knight Frank which has acquired Cornish and Carey, one of the West Coast’s leading real estate firms;
• Expanding into South America with new offices in Colombia, Peru, Chile, Argentina and Brazil;
• Launching a new residential real estate alliance with Douglas Elliman in the US. Together, they will jointly market 1,700 prime and super-prime properties priced at $1.5 million or more to the global market, via eight offices across New York, South Florida and Los Angeles;
• Emphasising strategic recruitment, with exceptional results in India, International Project Marketing, Capital Markets, and London, a trend expected to continue;
• Developing Knight Frank’s UK residential footprint significantly with seven new offices to be opened in London and the South East in the next six months; and
• The Australian business had equally a good year with a significant up lift in revenue and profit; notably in sales and project management/building consultancy.

Mr Elliot said: “In this environment, I believe Knight Frank is poised for what will be the most exciting stage of growth in its recent history combining residential, commercial and international expertise with effective collaboration amongst our teams. Our businesses in India, Australia and the Middle East have, over the past 12 months particularly, increased momentum.

“Our priorities for the coming year are to build on what we have achieved, continue to recruit more exceptional people, expand in the Nordic region, grow our German platform, develop our foundation in China and continue to expand the partnership’s residential network in London.”