SPR AGM, 9 November 2023
Welcoming members to the meeting, which was once again held online, Andrew Smith announced that he would be stepping down as President of the SPR. He said that with the Society now in such good shape, it had been a privilege to serve in this role over the last nine years. Noting that there were still major issues for the profession including data availability and the relationship between industry and academic research, he stressed that he remained ready to keep helping the Society in the future.
SPR Chair Alex Dunn thanked Andrew for his contribution to the Society, noting that membership had now reached 576, beating last year’s record. With Covid lockdowns firmly in the past, the SPR had organised many face-to-face technical events as had been promised at last year’s AGM, and members had given positive feedback on the topics and quality of the speakers. On the social side, the Annual Dinner had returned after three years’ absence, while there were also new wine tasting and Winter Drinks events, all of which proved successful and will be repeated this year. However, the proposed Treasure Hunt in the summer failed to attract much support and was cancelled.
Technical seminars proved to be well attended, with the balance shifting from online webinars compared to the previous year. The newly introduced Roundtables were also a big success in terms of attendance and quality and helped overcome the increasing difficulty of finding complementary venues at firms’ offices. There was also strong appetite for the four site visits organised during the year. In addition, the SPR’s new mentoring programme proved popular with 37 mentees signing up, and this should hopefully keep growing. Alex concluded by thanking the committee and event sponsors and hosts for their invaluable support over the year.
In a meeting that was big on goodbyes, SPR Treasurer Ben Russell announced that he would be leaving the committee. Presenting last year’s accounts, he noted that the balance had fallen somewhat from £105k to £98k, which was largely in line with expectations. Subscriptions income had increased, but there was a hit to job adverts, with just eight placed compared to 30 the previous year. More positively, expenditure items all came in on or below budget, a good outcome given the prevailing inflationary conditions.
Turning to the budget proposed for the year to come, Ben explained that expenditures were expected to rise due to an increasing emphasis on engagement with the membership and academia, as well as some inflationary impacts. This would mean a deficit of £12k for the year, but the committee had decided that it was important to keep pushing efforts to bring the membership together. The possibility of raising the membership fee had been considered, but it was decided to maintain the current level for the next year at least.
With the budget for the coming year approved by the meeting, Alex proceeded to introduce Yolande Barnes as the next President of the Society. Her biography stated that she spent 33 years researching property markets in the industry before joining UCL as Chair of the Bartlett Real Estate Institute in 2018. As head of World Research at Savills, she took a global, cross-sector view of real estate. At the meeting she briefly explained her long association with the SPR, having been a founding committee back in 1987 and enthused that now is an exciting time for the Society, with membership numbers rising and a chance to interact more closely with the academic community.
Yolande Barnes, Bartlett Real Estate Institute
Alex went on to introduce the new committee for the coming year and to thank those stepping down for the contribution. The members, with their positions, are:
Dr Yi Wu, University of Reading (Chair)
Matt Soffair, LGIM (Vice Chair)
Rad Radev, Carter Jonas (Junior Vice Chair)
Tim Francis, TPF Consulting (Hon. Treasurer)
Mhairi Thomson, BNP Paribas (Hon. Secretary)
Michael Caira, The Crown Estate (member)
Alex Dunn, Cromwell Property Group (past-Chair)
Chris Dunn, Colliers (member)
Cleo Folkes, Social Value Portal (member)
David Inskip, CBRE IM (member)
Will Laing, Savills (member)
Shehryar Qazi (member)
Hamish Smith, Savills IM (member)
Joanna Tano, Columbia Threadneedle Real Estate Partners (member)
Mark Stansfield, CoStar (member)
Mohamed Ali, Savills IM (co-opted member)
George Armitage, Oxford Economics (co-opted member)
Tom Berry, Brockton Everlast (co-opted member)
Laura Harris, Savills (co-opted member)
Sara Lindblom, Colliers (co-opted member)
Alex also gave particular thanks to Becci Williamson for ‘driving the society internally’ as Membership and Events Co-ordinator and said that he would miss their ‘almost daily’ phone calls.
Yi Wu, the incoming SPR Chair, introduced herself with the observation that in four years as an SPR member the Society become like her ‘family and friends’. She paid tribute to Alex Dunn, Hamish Smith, Lucy Greenwood and Cleo Folkes for their role in growing the membership to its current height, and also for their support and encouragement for her. She also thanked all committee members who worked behind-the-scenes to run the events successfully. Looking forward to this year, she promised a particular emphasis on collaboration across sectors and expertise, with the aim of sharing knowledge, expertise and skills. This should help members embrace the innovation that is set to impact real estate, particularly via events that would include a wider range of expertise from beyond the industry. This should strengthen the benefits to younger members in their career progression wherever they come from, by region, gender and background.
Dr Yi Wu, University of Reading
Priorities for the coming year would include working groups to build on the success of the SPR Roundtables, which could lead to further collaboration of their participants as they often represent the start of a conversation rather than the last word. Yi encouraged member to come forward with any ideas they might have for enhancing collaboration along these lines. SPR is happy to provide financial support for the working groups’ budgeted costs. The call for working group proposals will be announced after further discussion with the committee.
Support for younger members will continue to expand via the mentorship programme and the research course, as well as by refreshing the Research Summary. The improved research summary will give clearer signposts to the topics and sectors covered by each academic paper. This could involve providing more accessible ‘research snapshots’ that summarise the recommended reading to encourage better industry practice.
SPR is going to provide more diversified social activities, including a newly proposed game night, for members networking. Looking to widen the reach of the Society’s activities, the first regional SPR Roundtable is to be held in Manchester on infrastructure, a joint event with the IPF. Hopefully this will be the first of a wider regional offer.
Finally, Yi announced the finalists for the Ian Cullen Research Prize, renamed in honour of the founder of IPD who died earlier in the year.
The papers chosen as finalists for the under-30 prize are:
Semiconductors and the logistics sector by Andrew Blennerhasset, Savills
Ranking the US’ largest warehousing markets by Sam Hall, Capital Economics
The finalists for the open prize both focus on sustainability:
Next wave of physical climate risk by Alexey Zhukovskiy, Ismail Mejri, Irene Foss and Hans Vrensen, AEW
Accounting for climate transition risk in CRE required returns by Mark Unsworth, Oxford Economics
The winners will be announced at the SPR Annual Dinner.
Tim Horsey