Vanguard Real Estate becomes Osborne and Co
UK developer Vanguard Real Estate has rebranded as Osborne and Co as part of a restructuring process, and has set out a £5bn pipeline target.
The UK business will now operate under the same umbrella as its Middle Eastern partnership, Gulf Resources Development and Investment (GRDI), which recently completed HSBC’s new 650,000 sq ft headquarters in Dubai.
Vanguard operated as a jv between GRDI, property professional Jim Kelly and UK logistics developer Graftongate. In future, Kelly and Graftongate will be involved on a project-by-project basis.
UK developer Vanguard Real Estate has rebranded as Osborne and Co as part of a restructuring process, and has set out a £5bn pipeline target.
The UK business will now operate under the same umbrella as its Middle Eastern partnership, Gulf Resources Development and Investment (GRDI), which recently completed HSBC’s new 650,000 sq ft headquarters in Dubai.
Vanguard operated as a jv between GRDI, property professional Jim Kelly and UK logistics developer Graftongate. In future, Kelly and Graftongate will be involved on a project-by-project basis.
These projects include major office and mixed-use developments in Glasgow and Belfast with a GDV of £550m, as part of a real estate pipeline of around £1bn across UK locations.
The new entity, which is headquartered in London, will be led by founding directors Jim Osborne and Conor Osborne.
The new pipeline, which will have a gross development value of £5bn, will target new developments in Europe, the Middle East, India and South East Asia over the next three years.
These include new markets such as France, Denmark, Austria and Germany as well continued growth in India.
The group’s executive management team also comprises:
Chairman Chris Kane, previously head of workspace at the BBC;
Director Flan McNamara, previously Sellar Group’s construction director for The Shard;
Director Wade Cruickshanks, previously global head of retail and design and construction at Citigroup;
Development director Will Hean, who is heading Osborne’s Scottish operation.
To support this drive, the company has also announced a series of senior appointments to its executive management team.
Conor Osborne said: “This important announcement marks another positive step in a transformational period for our company.
“As our client base and investment activities have become more diversified, unifying our business structure will allow us to simplify how our tenant partners and local development partners interact with us.”
The group gained planning consent for the £50m first phase of a 1.7m sq ft placemaking development, The Waterside, in Belfast, last month.
It added that plans are progressing for a 285,000 sq ft office development on Argyle Street in Glasgow.
The partners of Osborne and Co have so far delivered projects totalling around £2.5bn, including a circa 1m sq ft office building for Citigroup in Manila, HSBC’s new 320,000 sq ft headquarters in Dubai and Standard Chartered’s Dubai HQ.
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