The fall and rise of Irvine Sellar

Former EG editor Peter Bill charts the rise of Shard developer Irvine Sellar, who died yesterday aged 82 I met Irvine Sellar at the Dorchester for lunch on 10 April 2002. He fussed over the suitability of the table; we were moved. The Shard of Glass, as it was then called, was on the discussion menu. Italian architect Renzo Piano had been appointed in July 2000 to “work with” the already assigned British firm Broadway Malyan. By 2002, the UK architects were no longer involved in the project: Sellar had signed an agreement with Piano giving the Italian the final say-so on design issues. The plans, which had been approved by Southwark Council the previous month, had since been called in by the secretary of state, John Prescott. A public inquiry was inevitable; English Heritage objected to the thousand-foot spike into the London sky. So Sellar needed to harden up the concept designs. A discussion on suitable cost consultants, project managers and engineers followed; I suggested a few that I thought operated in a higher league than those Sellar was already using. He was clearly asking around. In March 2003, new designs were unveiled for the tower. A public inquiry into the proposed scheme took place during April and May; Prescott granted approval in November. But that’s just a précis of what happened over nineteen months in the fourteen-year development saga of the Shard. It had all begun back in 1998 with Sellar buying the 24-storey offices occupied by PricewaterhouseCoopers. Sellar paid £71m to buy out the occupant’s long lease, and the accountants finally moved out of the building in 2007. Before this happened, however, there was a nasty legal battle with Simon Halabi, one of the original partners in the scheme. The venture nearly collapsed in 2008 and was saved only by the Qatari government taking a 95% stake. This left Sellar with just 5% of the equity, but 95% of the glory. He also ended up with a 20% stake in the company that will run the £2bn London Bridge Quarter, which includes the development of 600,000 sq ft at the base of the Shard. In 2012, the tower was completed amid much glory. Short and stocky, Irvine Sellar comes from the school of rough and tumble: a background conveyed by his cockney accent and reputation. He started work in 1955 with a firm of accountants, before moving into the fresh air to sell clothes from market stalls. His dealer’s instinct quickly moved him up the ladder in the rag trade. Sellar founded Mates, the first chain to sell both men’s and women’s clothes in the same store. He ended up as one of the kings of Carnaby Street in the 1960s, eventually owning a chain of 90 shops 
before moving his cash into property. The early 1990s crash took him back down to the bottom of the ladder. His property company, Ford Sellar Morris, went bust in 1991 with losses of £132m. But he began climbing again, building up the Sellar Property Group. On the way, he did the deal that will bring him immortality, buying the Shard site for £37.4m in 1998. I would see Sellar regularly at property events, and once or twice for dinner at Le Gavroche in Mayfair. He was always solicitous and listened more than he talked, both uncommon attributes among developers. Sellar arranged for me to visit Renzo Piano in Genoa in July 2008, after the Qataris had rescued the project. We met in Piano’s wonderful design studio, built like a large greenhouse on a steep slope overlooking the sea. What intrigued me was how the elegant and cultured architect got on with the former market trader. “I found him very interesting,” said Piano of Sellar. “He is a big character. I have known him now for nine years. He has never betrayed me. We always talk very frankly. If I have to tell him something, I tell him. If he has to tell me something, he does. And even in the difficult moments – and we did have difficult moments – he was very loyal. He has a desire to build this tower. You need that kind of desire.” The above article is an extract from Peter Bill’s book Planet Property SEE ALSO Property pays tribute to Irvine Sellar