John Slade recounts the deals that defined London’s boom years – and why the city always bounces back

John Slade, now a consultant to major real estate players, was a defining figure in the 1980s and 1990s property investment cycles. He would go on to lead BNP Paribas Real Estate and hold senior roles at CBRE and DTZ – but his career in property began with a chance meeting at a game of cricket.

“I played for Sun Alliance Insurance one Sunday,” he recalls. “The chairman, Jeffrey Bowler was playing. I scored 50 or 60 runs for him, and the next week he offered me a job.”

But, according to Slade, it wasn’t particularly glamorous: “I sat in the basement of Wellington house recording leases, noting rent reviews. Management surveying wasn’t really my want, but it was a bloody good experience.”

Luckily, and continuing the sporting theme, rugby opened the next door. “One of my prop forwards when I was playing hooker at Rugby was head of investment sales at Richard Ellis,” he says, referring to the company that would eventually be merged to form CBRE. “He persuaded me to join the firm. This meant I skipped the graduate scheme and went straight in as an investment salesman.”

After a spell at Fletcher King, one of the first estate agencies to go public, Slade returned to Richard Ellis to head its City office.

“That’s where it really took off,” he remembers. “We were doing major City investments and handling international money. It was the late eighties – the Japanese, the Germans, and the big institutions were all piling into London,” he says, describing the influx of capital during what then Chancellor Nigel Lawson described as ‘the big bang’.

It was those boom years that forged his reputation. “The Japanese were the great clients,” he recalls. “They were spending 100 or 200 million on a single building. The fees were huge, the travel was exciting, and the scale was unbelievable.”

With his Japanese colleague Taiko Oliver, Slade executed six of the seven major Japanese life company deals in London. “We dominated the market,” he says.

“I was recognised by the Ministry of Finance as an authority on London property,” he adds – which was undoubtedly an enviable position when dealing in trophy assets across the city.

Not all the deals aged well, however. Slade recalls: “We bought at £70 a foot and under four percent yield in 1991. The yen strengthened, values fell, and the investor who couldn’t hedge lost twice, on the building and the currency.”

When the early 1990s crash hit, it was brutal. “Our City investment turnover dropped from three million to eight hundred thousand overnight,” he says.

Despite this, Slade is keen to make the point that “if you keep undercutting fees, you’re committing suicide.”

He goes on to applaud the major firms that adapted during this period. “CBRE and JLL have gone into facilities management, data collection and have embraced a digital approach more generally,” Slade notes. “It’s labour intensive, but it’s recurring. Investors value that much more than one-off deals.”

Looking at today’s market, Slade still analyses numbers like a trader, putting together a compelling case for the sector.

“Property isn’t badly priced right now,” he argues. “You can buy at 5.5 percent yield; gilts are around four. Add rental growth, and you could be at seven percent within two or three years.”

But at the same time, he warns against complacency, saying that: “You’ve got capex and an income gap while you refurbish. You can’t look at initial yield alone; you have to run an IRR [Internal Rate of Return].”

For Slade, timing remains everything – a maxim that many in property would still agree with. “Some Asian investors came in at four percent yields before the market slowed,” he notes. “They bought at the wrong time.”

Many investors, he says, were seduced by the prestige of owning in London: “They wanted the flag, not the building. They didn’t take enough advice.”

Again looking to the present, Slade laments the loss of a central data engine in property. “There needs to be more independence and more obvious data,” he says. “But if you know your market, you can still find the real net effective rent.”

He insists research should not be treated as disposable: “The big houses produce strong research. It’s valuable and they should monetise it. My Japanese clients used to say research used to be like water, free for everyone. It shouldn’t be.”

Slade underlines the respect he has for the firms that built modern brands, arguing that “great marketing people come in and say you’re more like a merchant bank than an investment broker. It’s perception and positioning.”

But marketing alone doesn’t sustain a business: “You need big clients who stick with you. That lets you hire the best people and ride out the quiet years.”

He points to DTRE as an example, which he describes as “starting small, focused on logistics, then building relationships, then scaling when the sector exploded. They were smart, but they also had timing and momentum.”

Currently, Slade believes the industry lacks bold leadership, stating: “We’re far too woke for our own good. People are scared to make decisions. They shy away from taking responsibility.”

He wants firms to promote leaders who drive growth, not just manage risk, noting: “You need characters who are bold, entrepreneurial and driven.”

Crucially, Slade separates politics from performance, making the point that “London is strong. People like investing in London and will continue to do so. The mayor isn’t promoting London the way Ken or Boris did. Khan seems to be doing his best to break most of the businesses that back London.”

Slade’s advice for agents is shaped by four decades of hard-won experience and a sharp understanding of market cycles. He believes that every successful firm must strike a balance between the “glamour of deal-making and the discipline of steady income”.

Before going on to talk about plans for the future and where the country is going, he is keen to point out Tottenham Hotspurs’ success this season, praising the club’s former chairman Daniel Levy – who while a controversial figure in some fan circles is substantially more popular in the land of real estate. His visionary ‘New White Hart Lane’ has drawn a lot of admiration, and is an especially impressive achievement given how developers feel about the planning environment. An achievement however, that will feel secondary to the success of Thomas Frank this year, who so far seems to be the real deal according to Slade.

He then grins, before moving on to a topic many would shy away from: the rise of Reform as a political party.

Acknowledging the country is experiencing a wave of populism, he questions the party’s popularity, asking: “For all these people who back reform, how many really understand what reform stands for? I don’t think they do, particularly the young people”.

At the same time, Slade is not an alarmist, a characteristic perhaps borne of his survival of punishing market cycles. He believes that Reform will struggle to get power without what he describes as a “core of politicians who’ve got some track record”.

Ultimately, however, Slade’s hope is that “a Macron-like figure will emerge”, referring to the French president known for his centrism and technocratic approach.

He finishes the podcast by making it very clear that he has no plans to step back from the world of business, saying: “I’ve found money for people and done the deals. I’ve built companies and improved strategies. I want to keep doing that.”

Crucially, his loyalty to London is undimmed: “It’s dynamic, it moves quickly, and values hold over the long term. For all the cycles, London remains the best place in the world to invest in property.”

It’s a ringing endorsement of our capital city, and one that suggests there are adventures yet to be had for Slade.