MIPIM 2011: Friday Update

Andrew Pryke on the final day of MIPIM 2011

Friday

Up at 6.30am. A quick breakfast, pack and a walk to the bus for Nice Airport. Streets are deserted. The bus is already waiting. I can see Rob Firth, our previous Head of Architecture in the distance. I'll try and catch up with him later. The bus fills up with MIPIM delegates. Heads are down, no one seems to want a conversation. Business appears to be over. The week has caught up with everyone!

I count the business cards I have collected this week (the exchange of cards is obligatory with everyone you meet here)...52. Not bad. A number of good leads and follow ups. I know my colleague, Norman Taylor will have more. He is Mr. MIPIM after all.

Check in at Nice Airport has it's moments. My bag has suddenly gained 4.5 kilos since departing Luton on Monday yet now has less in it (business collateral now gone). I pay the 25 euros. It's not worth arguing about and I don't feel like putting on five more shirts and three pairs of trousers (extra shoes are obviously out of the question). Security is no problem except when they insist on searching my bag (anyway do I look like a terrorist? A question that shouldn't be answered me thinks).
Ex-delegates are strewn across the departures lounge. David Young (Hurley Palmer Flatt) seems deep in thought..or asleep. Our own Cullan Riley, with red streak in his hair, wanders around looking for that last possible deal making opportunity. Our Head of Services, Neil Cartwright, hobbles in, the strain of walking up and down the Croisette has taken it's toll...or he has fallen over...best not ask! Mike Burton, Faber Maunsell - Aecom joins me. He's had a very good MIPIM. There are no stragglers or hangers on this year. Everyone is here to for a good reason. Jim (the shoes) Totton, our own structural engineer turns up....he hasn't been to bed and says he has gained some amazing info and leads....and he got married again last night!

A coffee and croissant and I decide to call my MIPIM Blog a day. There is only so much you can do on a Blackberry....and anyway, I would like the new I-Pad......Capita Symonds.....Pretty please?

Until next year....What will we be doing and where will the industry be then?

Click here to read an interactive magazine about MIPIM 2011 from Estates Gazette.

MIPIM 2011 update: Tuesday

Updates from Andrew Pryke and Mark Norris Executive Director, Real Estate, Capita Symonds at MIPIM.

Tuesday

Up early today for a breakfast meeting - with three beautiful ladies that would outshine anything the Krasnodar, Russia Pavilion could offer (their words once they knew I was doing this blog) - from Bespoke recruitment agents. Interesting to know that people are looking at opportunities to move ship now there is more optimism!

Dashed to the London Pavilion to man the Capita Symonds stand. Much cursing as no one knows how to fire up our beautiful Apple Mac computer. Panic over, networking commences in anger. I am sure you are meant to network with new contacts. However, we are visited by fellow consultants and agents. We do get introduced to a number of interested parties from Construction News and Project News (hope I didn't say anything I shouldn't have done - no doubt will be in the press before I get back if I did!).

My stint over, I explore the London Pavilion. Many London boroughs are exhibiting plus large masterplans for Earls Court, Kings Cross, etc. Croydon appears not to have such a major presence this year (have they reached their apsired vision - I'll attempt to find out). All the great and good have turned out - Terry Farrell, Ken Shuttleworth and Boris Johnson. I bump into Peter Rees, chief Planner for the City of London Corporation. He is always friendly and welcoming (have known him since my Number 1 Poultry days in the early 90's). He is looking forward to an entertaining presentation with Peter Finch tomorrow. He asks to be heckled to make it more lively. - make a note in my busy schedule to attend and heckle as requested.

Running late for lunch with Cyril Sweett at the Miramar Beach Restaurant. Get there, join in drinks to find it's not the right party (mine is on Thursday not Tuesday!). They offer for me to stay. I politely apologise having had a good chat to Peter Folwell of Plowman Craven regarding cycling. I get the host's business card, Martin Edwards partner and lawyer from Martineau. They are working in Germany, Birmingham and London. Many German businessmen. My German is not good and so I move on.

4.15pm the Cycle to Cannes arrive into Cannes (I did this two years ago, a great experience for those who like a casual bike ride). I am told that they had sunshine all the way down with no mishaps....surely not! Boris Johnson leads the peloton on a Boris Bike! Capita Symonds’ own John Rudge completes the ride and gets his photo with Boris (Boris didn't do the whole ride...and in a suit and tie? No, he joined a couple of miles back…)

Boris completes his photo shoot and rushes into the London Pavilion for his 5.00pm not before a obligatory photo with our own Frank Devoy in front of the Capita Symonds Stand. He is always happy to please.
Off to the Leeds Stand, down in the 'Bunker' for cocktails and more networking quickly followed by a chance meeting with Ray McAuley, BD Director of Morgan Sindall at Cafe Roma.

It's a quick change at the Hotel and then out for the first Capita Symonds Dinner event at the L'Auberge in the Old Town. An oversubscribed table made up of developers, agents and hotel operators. The atmosphere is lively and the conversation focusses on the day's events. My guest, James Buckley of Estates Gazette, is getting concerned that he may not have enough news for his editorial deadline. A quick run around the table and we don't appear to be able to (or unwilling to reveal) give him any help. Hotel development and office refurb is a key topic and the way forward for 2011 (I am not really going to reveal any gossip or 'dish the dirt' am I?).

It's 11.30am and we all walk to the Carlton Hotel to catch the end of the MIPIM 2011 launch party. It's finished and we've missed it. A few vocal Spanish delegates are singing....Barcelona 3 - Arsenal 1...oh well.

Capita Symonds’ Jim Totton arrives fresh from the Irish delegates night at the Morrisons Bar. He says he has just got married on the beach? Apparently it's a tradition at this event for a couple (previously unattached and unknown to each other) to get married and all the delegates to be the wedding guests. I assume he has not really got married…

Time to call it a night...there are still two official days to go!

Mark Norris, Executive Director, Real Estate, Capita Symonds

Tuesday at MIPIM - Many familiar faces at the London Pavilion – Capita Symonds stand right next to the London cityscape model giving us a great profile. Amazing how many fantastic buildings are coming out of the ground across London – and we are involved (or will be) in quite a few of them.


Interviewed by EG TV who were looking for a Scottish Property Expert to comment on the market and development in Edinburgh. I am of course Scottish and do know a bit about property but probably know more about the London and International real estate markets at the moment than what’s happening back home! However a pre-interview briefing by Stuart Agnew in our Edinburgh office provided some great insight – and hopefully I got the message across! Oh and also got a word in about Edinburgh Council’s property services outsourcing – where we are down to the last two…

MIPIM 2011 update: Monday

Capita Symonds' Andrew Pryke reports back from MIPIM 2011

An early 5.30am start from home on Monday commences my 2011 MIPIM. A 30 minute journey to Luton Airport in sub zero temperatures - am greeted with a crowded terminal full of familiar faces. Amongst the five or six Capita Symonds co-MiPIMiers, the Aecom engineers are amongst the many queues.

A 1 hour 50 minute flight to Nice sees a change in temperature and a bright sunny day.

More queues for the bus to Cannes reminds me that people don't queue here and it's every man and woman for himself to attempt to get that precious double seat and space for themselves. I get a call from David Matthews from Building magazine, he is flying in tonight and would like to meet up. I will try and get him on the number of lunches and dinners Capita Symonds is hosting. Fingers crossed, we are already over subscribed!

However the journey is quick and painless.

A quick check in at my hotel, and change and out for lunch at a Beach Bistro with my Capita Symonds colleagues. There is much calm before the storm, with the Croisette virtually empty. The locals enjoying a day amongst one of two weeks in the year when an event is not happening in Cannes.

Walking to Cafe Roma, the much frequented cafe/ bar opposite the conference centre, is quiet. Not the place it will be from tomorrow onward.

Work is going on in the conference centre. This will go on through the night to prepare Cannes for its busiest week of the year. It is rumoured that more champagne is drunk (to secure deals!) at MIPIM than at any other time. I believe that this is the myth of better times long time gone.



Registration is painless and after dealing with e-mails the evening beckons.

Cafe Roma is the central meeting place for the number of Capita Symonds architects, structural engineers, services and agents to meet. MIPIM is very much a place for chance meetings. Exquisite collisions with key industry leaders that could never happen back in the UK. People are more relaxed at MIPIM and that person you have been trying to meet for months suddenly has time to talk.

Today is no exception for chance meetings. I bump into two architects from my Stirling Wilford days, whom I haven't seen for about ten years - Chris Dyson and Iain Clavedetcher. Both with their own practices and still surviving.

Dinner is with Capita Symonds. A small restaurant in the old town. As the restaurant begins to fill up, there is much anticipation this year. The commercial market appears to be optimistic. All delegates appear to be going through their rehearsals for the oncoming event. Like Olympic athletes, they are limbering up and going through their last minute routines before the race for that crucial deal, the win that will make their 2011 season.

Returning to the hotel I am grabbed by Richard Payne with his Turner and Townsend colleagues who accuses me of stalking them! Very rich as everywhere I have been they seem to follow later! They offer a drink and a review of their campaign.

Things are looking good for the forthcoming week...