Industry giant marks quarter century

Nick Hargreaves (left), John Cameron and John Church had something to celebrate. Photo / Supplied

Jones Lang LaSalle celebrated 25 years in practice in New Zealand at a birthday bash in Auckland this month, commemorating the official opening of the firm's doors as Jones Lang Wootton (JLW).

"While Jones Lang LaSalle's history spans 200 years, the JLW New Zealand business opened in July 1986 with 12 employees after an acquisition of two local companies that operated with registered valuers, a property-management business and a licensed real estate agency," said Nick Hargreaves, managing director for Jones Lang LaSalle in New Zealand.

John Cameron, chief executive of JLW at its birth, said the company was "the first international real estate business established in New Zealand" and introduced new ideas and attitudes to the industry here.

"We were able to provide new services such as tenant representation, buy-side roles and insolvency advice. The ability to assist both occupiers and investors with independence gave us a significant advantage over any other firm at the time," said Cameron, who is now chairman of Jones Lang LaSalle in New Zealand, and a regional director (Asia Pacific).

"Insolvency advice became an extremely important service post the October 1987 stock market crash. It has also been relevant in more recent times following the finance company debacle and the global financial crisis," Cameron said.

Hargreaves, who has been with the company since the early 1990s, said the company's milestones included winning the Best Property Consultancy Business in New Zealand and Asia Pacific at the Asia Pacific Property Awards 2011 in association with Bloomberg Television.

"Sales of a truly global nature have included the sale of 125 Queen St on behalf of the BNZ Officers' Provident Association (OPA) first to Morningside Asia in 1989 and then on to the Sultan of Brunei in 1991, which was the largest office deal in Auckland at the time.

"Jones Lang LaSalle also helped broker 28ha of the Ports of Auckland land to Viaduct Harbour Holdings in 1996, and the $1 billion redevelopment of 153ha of commercial land to Macquarie Goodman in 2004 which is now known as Highbrook Business Park."

Hargreaves said the company's leasing and investments sales business lines had completed more than one deal a day in the year to date.

"These include half-a-dozen design-and-build projects along with rebuilds such as one of the largest industrial redesigns in the market at 23,000sq m at Enterprise Park in Wiri for PMP and Goodman Property Trust.

"The Wellington office leasing team not only completed the most inner-CBD office leases in the market over the first quarter of 2011, but the largest office lease deal with LINZ [Land Information NZ) at 151 The Terrace.

"The retail sector is also a strong area of focus for Jones Lang LaSalle with a master agency at Albany for Argosy Property Trust, a sole provider in scouting the country for new sites for Wendy's, and a strategic advisory group with a significant retail masterplan project under way in Auckland."

Hargreaves said Jones Lang LaSalle had maintained all its base property services such as property and asset management, valuations and advisory, research and consulting, agency leasing and investments, but was backing those up with new business lines.

"We are now involved in corporate financing and asset-allocation expertise with Jones Lang LaSalle staff specialised in this field based around the Asia Pacific in deeper markets, where world trends appear early," Hargreaves said.

"Jones Lang LaSalle Hotels, LaSalle Investment Management and Jones Lang LaSalle International Capital Group (ICG) are global business lines that have been established to assist clients with international and cross-border expertise for specific asset purchases, management and global capital-flow information dissemination."

Hargreaves noted that Jones Lang LaSalle Hotels last year sold 75 per cent of Australasia's hotels worth more than $1.5 billion in transactions and recently sold about $100 million in hotel real estate, with more transactions in the pipeline including the Intercontinental in Wellington.

"Another recently established business line that provides our clients an added value is project and development services (P&DS) created in 2005 in New Zealand. P&DS provides fit-outs, reinstatements, renovation and refurbishments, landlord and tenancy make-good and new build services through technical advisory, management and monitoring.

"There has been significant growth in the P&DS business line in recent times with clients needing a service provider that will meet their objectives in a timely manner, understand budget constraints and provide a consistent standard of excellence."

Recently completed project management, base-build upgrades, fit-out and make-good provisions by P&DS include Asia Pacific's highest-category Data Centre, historic facade restoration and specialised fit-outs.

"The team have approximately 60,000sq m of work in the pipeline for the next 12 months in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch."

Hargreaves said Jones Lang LaSalle had also "recently pioneered the now-accepted sustainability rules" of property and asset management. "Our excellence in energy and sustainability services (ESS) is well documented. We currently have 10 Green Star professionals in New Zealand and we are working on having a 1000 of them in the Asia-Pacific region by 2012. This is one of the reasons why we manage over 90 per cent of the A-grade office sector in New Zealand and Australia."

Hargreaves said that Jones Lang LaSalle's facilities-management team had, through careful management and selection of a suitable recycling scheme, been able to reduce the amount of waste being sent to landfill from the AMP Centre in Auckland by 150 tonnes per annum.

The team is also looking at incorporating sustainability features into all of the 420,000sq m of property that Jones Lang LaSalle manages across the country.

"Buildings generate 40 per cent or more of greenhouse gas emissions in developed countries and we are helping to reduce emission levels significantly by taking a leadership position to promote change in our industry," said Hargreaves.

He said the valuation and advisory group, which holds about one third of the institutional market share in New Zealand, had grown significantly over the last year with a team of dedicated independent valuers in plant and machinery and in health and aged care.

"Plant and machinery valuation is such a specialised and experience-driven business that the Jones Lang LaSalle team often needs to travel overseas to locations like India, South America and China to undertake valuation work.

"Recently, they have been working on a wide range of projects domestically including the Pike River Mine and on a confidential project in Chile."

Looking to the future, Hargreaves says Jones Lang LaSalle has put in place an aggressive growth path to enhance its service provision and expand its product reach while maintaining its base of best-practice property services across the commercial property industry.