Cushman & Wakefield, the world’s largest privately held commercial real estate services firm, has announced that James Meikle will transfer from its EMEA Corporate Occupier & Investor services team to head up Occupier Representation in the Firm’s City of London office, as part of the London Markets team, with effect from June 2012.
This ongoing investment by Cushman & Wakefield in its London Occupier Representation business commenced with the recruitment of George Roberts in November 2009 as a Partner to head up the London Occupier team. In 2011, Ben Cullen also transferred from C&W’s National Offices team to the London Markets team to focus specifically on occupiers in the West End.
The team has continued to grow steadily in response to strong client demand and is currently advising on over 1.5 million sq ft of occupier mandates across London. Recent highlights include advising on landmarks projects for Expedia (90,000 sq ft at the Angel Building) and Burberry (125,000 sq ft at 1a Page Street).
Working closely with George Roberts, James will specialise in advising occupiers in the City and Canary Wharf and will focus on leveraging the Firm’s existing strong occupier client base which includes JP Morgan, Thomson Reuters, Standard Bank, Old Mutual and Nasdaq. James has a strong track record in occupier representation, with 12 years’ experience of working with a wide range of corporate occupiers on a pan European basis.
James ran Cushman & Wakefield’s market-leading office leasing business in Milan, which saw record results in 2011, before relocating back to London at the end of last year to work with the EMEA Corporate Occupier & Investors services team. In addition to his new role, James will continue to advise Ernst & Young on its wider UK portfolio and will remain involved in a number of key client strategic projects across Europe.
George Roberts, head of London Occupier representation at Cushman & Wakefield said, “In line with our strategic growth plan, we have been steadily and successfully building our presence in London to be on a par with our leading position in New York and other major cities. Despite the tough economic climate, we continue to see strong demand for our services from occupier clients across all sectors and areas of London. We look forward to having James on board to help drive the growth of our occupier business in the City and Docklands.”
Cushman &Wakefield’s London Markets operations comprise agency, investment, property management and development functions and earlier this year Cushman & Wakefield appointed Digby Flower and Andrew Parker as head of London Markets and Head of City Agency respectively. Last month, Cushman & Wakefield hired Sharon French from CBRE as a Partner in its London Markets Property & Asset management team.