In Conversation with Bill Hughes, LGIM
Friday 11 June 2021

Researchers as insight providers

In a wide-ranging discussion of his career and the role of research in the real estate business, Bill Hughes, Head of Real Assets at Legal & General Investment Management, proposed that property researchers should aim to provide actionable insights for their organisations ensuring that the analysis and insights they produce create the impact the work deserves.

Probed by SPR Chair Lucy Greenwood, he suggested that researchers sometimes suffered from a lack of communications skills, which could lead to them being ‘underprofiled’ and their work to gather dust.  It’s crucial that they provide a clear message, he said, or otherwise people in the organisation will want to know ‘so what?’

Having said this, Bill doesn’t believe that there’s any such thing as an ideal researcher, although besides being articulate, researchers do also need curiosity, numeracy and a logical mind-set.  Yet for firms like Legal & General, it’s more important to have a diverse range of thinking, which can only come from a broad mix of age, gender, ethnicity and background in the research team.

Bill explained that his career began as an economic development consultant at DP3 after studying Geography at Edinburgh University.  But it was when he joined DTZ in 1991 and then the fund management arm of Jones Lang Wootton that he was grounded as a property researcher.  At these firms he learnt the importance of integrity in research, the need to be objective whatever the wider firm wants to hear.  He recognised and warned that at broker organisations there is always pressure for research messages to help support a higher volume of transactions, but that needs to be resisted.

Moving next to Schroders as head of property research, he appreciated being at a firm where research was highly valued, an approach that he has continued to follow as an industry leader.  Research has been an important input to broad strategic decisions at L&G Real Assets, for example in their move into build-to-rent (BTR).

Asked what aspects of real estate now excite him, Bill cited not just BTR but also many other areas beyond the limits of the ‘conventional’ sectors, including social housing and life sciences.  He also mentioned L&G’s ambition to help reinvent towns and cities as a joint endeavour with local government, for the benefit of all who live there.  And then there’s the transition to net zero, with the emphasis on investing in the right assets to decarbonise.

Clearly, research can take you in many different directions.  Apart from the quest for accuracy and validity, he also stressed the importance of researchers being ‘unbounded’ in their thinking and in the sources that they call upon to answer different questions.  He gave the example of a ‘Pret à Manger’ index developed by his L&G colleague Bill Page as a tool for measuring the recovery of city centres emerging from the pandemic.

Is he ever tempted to try and influence his researcher colleagues’ work, given his background and continuing enthusiasm for the subject?  It’s difficult, he suggested, but he has to be disciplined and not get heavily involved – a minor irritation of being in a leadership role now (Head of Real Assets at Legal & General Investment Management).  

Tim Horsey