‘Exciting’ new vision emerges for landmark business park

The company, established in 1980 by Sheffield United chairman Kevin McCabe, said it is in the early stages of working on a new plan for Thorpe Park in Leeds, a 270-acre site where 4,000 people already work.

Simon McCabe, a director at Scarborough Group and one of Kevin’s two sons in the business, declined to reveal further details but told the Yorkshire Post: “It’s very exciting for Leeds as a city and also will really bring Thorpe Park forward.”

Separately, Thorpe Park has been identified by Leeds City Council as one of the five possible locations for an advanced medical park in the city.

Meanwhile, Scarborough also hopes to start on-site on at least two projects in the summer – a supermarket-led scheme anchored by Morrisons in Congleton in Cheshire, and an office block in Wales.

Mr McCabe said: “Our development side is going to slightly buck the trend in the market in the months ahead because we are signing up tenants on one or two of our sites and we will be starting on site in the summer.”

Scarborough Group, which has offices in Leeds, Scarborough, London and Edinburgh, is a group of independent businesses with real estate, investment and leisure interests in the UK and overseas. It has global assets – both investments and development projects – worth £450m-£500m.

Mr McCabe said the UK business had grown “significantly” in the last two years.

In 2010, Scarborough Group International invested £37m in eight sites, mostly supermarket developments, from the collapsed Modus portfolio.

In November 2011, Santander provided a £43m loan to enable Scarborough to buy a 21.3-acre brownfield development site in Salford, and to buy the remaining 50 per cent of its joint venture at Digital Campus in Sheffield.

In addition, its serviced office provider, Forsyth, has grown to 24 centres and plans to open at least two more in 2012.

Scott McCabe, Simon’s brother and director of Forsyth, said he expected the serviced offices firm to be “fairly strong” this year, boosted by its London operations. “London is going very well, with on average more than 90 per cent occupancy,” he said.

“Elsewhere in the UK it’s 70-ish per cent so there’s a big difference.”

Looking ahead to the prospects for the UK property industry, Simon McCabe said: “Central London is still very buoyant and I can see that continuing. If you’re not best in class in the regions, then you’ve already been hit really hard. I think it will be more of the same until the financial world starts to do more sensible lending again.”

Scarborough Group employs around 260 full-time staff. A further 145 staff are employed part-time at Sheffield United.

A lot of Scarborough’s growth in recent years, following the sale of a number of its subsidiaries to Australian group Valad for £865m in 2007, has been international, particularly in China.

Mr McCabe said: “When we sold to Valad, we really started to pick up the pace on overseas expansion, which saw the group build a significant property portfolio in the Far East and Asian markets.”

Investments include minority interests in department store chain Rainbow stores and property developer Top Spring International.

Last year, the group joined forces with AVIC Trading, which controls the 50-strong Rainbow chain, to create ScarVic Retail Management, a ‘one stop shop’ to help British and European brand retailers set up in China.

ScarVic recently signed a deal with Spanish fashion retailer Grupo Cortefiel to launch the company into China. It eventually aims to open some 800 outlets for its Pedro del Hierro and Springfield brands.

Mr McCabe said the first two stores would open in Shenzhen and Shanghai in the summer. ScarVic is also in discussions with up to four other brands which want to break into the Chinese market.

“Historically, these brands have been wary of China because of the red tape, the political problems, finding the right partner, and the black market,” said Mr McCabe.

“Now the Western world has hit turbulent times so retailers have had to look at different areas for growth. The obvious place to look is China.”

He added: “We will invest a significant amount in China going forward because we think it’s a good buoyant market.”

Further overseas activity includes the former Ritz Carlton hotel site in Double Bay, Sydney, Australia, which it acquired two years ago and is now marketing for sale after acquiring planning permission for a residential scheme.

It has also moved into the Canadian market after investing in industrial sites in Toronto with a Canadian partner.

“It’s a market we quite like because it’s not suffered the same downturn as the majority of the western world,” said Mr McCabe.

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