New signs of life as funds look to invest in the North

In an interview with the Yorkshire Post, John Weir said a bubble has formed in the investment market, inflated by "a weight of money", as funds look for assets in the North away from the overheated South-East.

Mr Weir, a director at Drivers Jonas Deloitte, the new commercial property and business advisory firm, was speaking ahead of his team's move into the Leeds office of Deloitte

following the merger earlier

this year.

"It's fair to say the continued absence of debt funding is having a fairly material impact on people's ability to do much," he said.

But he added that the revival of the Wellington Place and Trinity schemes in Leeds gave him hope that more projects will be "dusted off" towards the end of 2010.

"We may see cogs in the planning process start to turn again in respect of commercial schemes," said Mr Weir. "That's a long way from funding schemes or putting spades in the ground."

The commercial property market has been hammered by the withdrawal of funding following the credit crunch, with the only significant schemes of the last year taking place with public funding in the health and education sectors. The food sector market is proving a robust exception to the rule though, said Mr Weir.

"Leeds is not alone," he added. "If you go across the hills, south or north, there's nothing much happening." But he said: "Relative to where we were in 2008 and 2009, where people couldn't see the way ahead, you can't help but see some increase in confidence."

He said the investment market has been "extraordinarily high", with funds racing to place money over the last 18 months. The last month has seen a fall-off in activity, however.

Deloitte, the big four accountancy firm, and Drivers Jonas announced the merger in January. It creates a property business with annual sales of 110m and 700 staff. Deloitte owns the new trading company.

Twenty staff from Drivers Jonas are relocating to the Leeds office of Deloitte in early June.

Meanwhile, property consultancy Colliers CRE is also undergoing a transformation after changing its company name to Colliers International UK.

The Colliers CRE group, which includes Colliers Robert Barry, Colliers Godfrey Vaughan and Colliers Jackson-Stops, will now all trade as Colliers International.

The restructuring makes Colliers International the third largest property advisory organisation in the world, with revenues of 1.2bn.

It is currently the fifth largest advisory outfit in Leeds, with in excess of 50 staff, but aims to become number three in the city with a series of changes.

Andrew Watt, head of the Leeds office of Colliers International UK said: "In the UK, we are the same team, with the same enterprising personality, committed to delivering client solutions of the highest calibre. The rebranding means we will be acting as a single entity rather than a network of offices.

"We are, however, recruiting some impressive new talent and have recently appointed six new directors in key positions throughout the UK business.

He added: "We are already investing in international opportunities, strengthening teams and bringing in new services, such as insolvency."

Colliers is currently recruiting a team for the new insolvency division, which will give property advice to banks.

Mr Watt said: "We see the Leeds market, from a property point of view, as a dynamic market at the moment. We have already seen an upturn in inquiries, which we hope will lead to an upturn in deals in

the middle to latter part of this year.

He added: "We have had an extremely busy first five months of the financial year. We do a lot of acquisition work for Sainsbury's, we won a pitch for Vodafone and we have been busy in the pub sector for Mitchells and Butlers and Marston's."

A world force

The rebranding of Colliers CRE came after FirstService Real Estate Advisors bought a major stake in the firm last year and subsequently merged with Colliers International to become the world's third largest property services firm.

The Canadian company, which invested 8.9m into Colliers CRE last October, said that it had increased its stake in Colliers International to 70 per cent

FirstService REA, which is a subsidiary of FirstService Corporation, said it was transforming Colliers International from a network of offices to a centrally-owned and operated firm.

Colliers International has 480 offices in 61 countries around the world.