Capital & Regional Founder to Launch New Property Investment Fund

Mr. Martin Barber – man, who used to be the co-founder and, as a consequence, former chief executive at Capital & Regional – a British specialist property investment company – said he intends to return on the UK market of commercial property as he now has significant US backing. Let us remind that Mr. Martin Barber was supposed to retire in 2008, but he left his company - Capital & Regional – in 2007, one year earlier. Now he says he is about to set up Zenith Estates – a venture specialising in the purchase of UK commercial property, backed by American institutional investors. As many British and foreign analysts claim that UK commercial property has already bottomed out, the Zenith Estates company seeks to invest into non-residential property before prices start to go uphill again. The move of Mr. Barber came as no surprise as a large number of other British and foreign investors, as well as fund managers, have already invested in UK commercial property in an effort to take advantage of low prices. Zenith Estates is expected to buy a number of commercial properties worth as much as £2-£3 billion in order to later convert the business into a property investment trust. As it has been already said, the launch of Zenith Estates was made possible due to essential equity backing from the United States; the company has already agreed £1 billion worth of property deals. According to Mr. Barber, Zenith Estate will specialise in retail as well as leisure properties because they have traditionally brought steady income; he added that the company also plans to negotiate with UK banks the opportunity of controlling some loan-backed properties that are currently in default. To stress his point, he mentioned several shopping centres situated in good locations, which now belong to banks and desperately need professional management. In the opinion of Mr. Barber, Zenith Estates can do both: put in equity and provide excellent asset management.