Innes England has been awarded a contract to handle property asset management work by The Co-operative Group.
The Derby property consultant has been awarded the contract after going through a formal pitch process. It will handle asset management work for more than 250 non-trading units (vacant and sub-let properties) across the group’s Central and Eastern region, which stretches from the West Midlands to North Nottinghamshire, across to the East Coast, south to the M25 and north-west along the M1 corridor.
The Co-operative is the UK’s largest mutual business, owned by over six million consumers, as oppose to private shareholders. It is the UK’s fifth biggest food retailer, the leading convenience store operator and a major financial services provider, operating The Co-operative Bank, Britannia and The Co-operative Insurance. Among its other businesses is the number one funeral services provider and Britain’s largest farming operation.
The group operates 4,800 retail trading outlets, employs more than 106,000 people and has an annual turnover of more than £13bn.
Simeon Hinchliffe, regional portfolio manager at The Co-operative Estates, said: “We were very pleased to retain Innes England’s services for this work. We have a strong in-house management team which takes care of the trading element of our property portfolio, but alongside this team, we really value the advice from Innes England for the non trading portfolio.”
Innes England will take on full management duties and other work will include rent collection, rent review and lease renewal work, along with strategic work looking at re-gears of leases and rent budgeting.
Gary Woodward, director of Innes England’s Derby office where the majority of the work will be handled, said: “We are proud of the strong relationship we have developed with The Co-operative over the last ten years and delighted to have been retained for this work.
“In the last year alone we collected over £5.5m in rent excluding service charges and insurance so our priority is to ensure we retain the excellent debt collection record we have managed to achieve. We have a strong team focused on taking away all of the issues and complexities that management work can involve, especially with the diverse types of properties involved in the group’s portfolio. We will also seek to maintain the excellent tenant profile with current tenants ranging from private individuals to national brands including Wilkinson, Hotel Chocolat, Poundstretcher and Savers.”
