Grosvenor, an international organisation whose activities span urban property, food & agtech, rural estate management and support for philanthropic initiatives, announces a new long-term strategy for its international property development, management and investment business whose track record goes back over 340 years.

Mark Preston, Grosvenor’s Executive Trustee and Chief Executive comments: 

“The world is a very different place compared to just a couple of years ago. The pandemic, external geopolitical turmoil, technological disruption, climate change and social change are forcing us to reconsider our assumptions of consumer needs and trends, business models and growth projections.

In response, we are setting a confident and ambitious long-term growth strategy for our property business which will focus our efforts and capital allocation on two main priorities – both of which we believe will help us to better deliver lasting commercial, social and environmental benefit. 

Our UK and North American property businesses will further expand their focus on places that are dynamic, diverse and well connected. We see these as more resilient through cycles, better able to evolve to meet the needs of customers and ideal platforms from which to diversify our rental income and sectoral mix.

Second, we want to build on the success of our Diversified Property Investments business which has proven the success of our third-party co-investment model, where we invest with specialist managers via joint ventures and funds. Over the past 10 years this has delivered consistently high returns, through investments in Europe, North and South America, Sub-Saharan Africa and Australia. This has given us access to new markets and sectors offering growth and diversification opportunity and, as a result, we wish to increase the amount of capital we commit to this activity. Among our current investments are student accommodation in Brazil, medical facilities in the US and logistics facilities in Poland and Australia.

This shift in strategy means not only a revised approach in our capital allocation decisions but also revisions to our investment models in Europe and Asia - where our portfolios are largely made up of directly managed assets - from direct investment to indirect investment. We remain very much committed to investing in both regions with new investments being led by our Diversified Property Investments business from now on. In parallel, we intend to reshape our Asian and European property portfolios. Regrettably, our local teams will be reduced in line with the reshaping of the portfolios and the adoption of an indirect investment model, which will require a relatively small team to operate effectively.  

We are deeply grateful for the many achievements and significant progress that our Asia and Europe teams have helped deliver over recent years. They have met both the financial and non-financial outcomes that our strategies to date asked of them and their continued support and dedication in managing this transition is especially valued. 

Finally, I would also like to express my specific gratitude to GPAsia CEO Benjamin Cha and GPEurope CEO Sara Lucas for their outstanding leadership over recent years and for their continued support and dedication in managing this process.

At Grosvenor we take the responsibility of living up to our values of Respect, Integrity and Trust very seriously, which is why we will manage all individual circumstances sensitively, responsibly and appropriately”.