In a company such as Atterbury Europe that is also a developer, at what point of the development process does the asset manager’s role kick in?

Although the building only gets handed over to the asset-management team for management upon opening of the mall/office, input from the team is already considered throughout the development phase. Knowledge gained from managing existing assets are also taken into account in the development process when considering the placement of key tenants as well as initiatives that can be implemented during the development to ensure buildings can be managed in the most cost efficient manner.

What exactly does the asset manager’s role and responsibilities entail – and are these different on retail vs office vs mixed use developments?

Our asset managers ensure the buildings are managed cost efficiently and also makes sure the assets reach and maintain the optimal value. This is not a once-off activity, but involves constantly ensuring that we have the right tenants in the right locations, and creating an environment for our tenants to also perform well. This, together with initiatives such as green energy solutions to manage the cost of electricity for our tenants and our common areas, organising events at the mall to attract more people for the benefit of all tenants, creating additional income from kiosks and outdoor advertising to name a few, all contribute to adding value to our assets.

There must be particular challenges in the case where a company is operational in a foreign territory – can you elaborate on what makes the job challenging in these circumstances are and what strategies Atterbury Europe’s asset managers use to get round these?

On a monthly basis our asset managers look at key ratios of all tenants, such as trading densities (turnover of the tenants), cost of occupation as a percentage of the tenant’s turnover, cost of utilities and so on, and this, together with the experience our teams have in these areas along with market knowledge, allow us to understand the performance and make decisions accordingly.

Following on from above, do the three territories in which Atterbury Europe operates require different approaches when it comes to asset management, or is it essentially a similar job, just with different partners?

The basics stay the same, but our local partners always have valuable contributions when it comes to understanding the culture of the tenants and shoppers, as well as also being able to place specific tenants which might be popular in a certain country or region. The opposite is also true where our asset-management team has also been able to take initiatives that works in one jurisdiction and have been able to implement it the other jurisdictions we operate in.

What makes for a good asset manager – if you were to advise a youngster about the best educational path to take to equip them for the job, and the required personality traits and experience, what insights would you offer?

It is important for our asset managers to have a good understanding of business, but equally important to be able to manage people and get the best from the management teams at the assets, as well as have the personality to deal with difficult tenants. Educational backgrounds differ and we have chartered accountants, people with financial management degrees, and others who have MBAs, but asset management is an area where one needs to constantly grow and learn on the job given the dynamic nature of the industry.