JLL’s Brooks retires

Senior Manchester industrial agent David Brooks will retire at the end of this week after 37 years in property.

Brooks, 58, head of Jones Lang LaSalle's North West industrial and logistics team, has been with the property consultancy firm for 20 years as a director and former partner with King Sturge where he was also head of its UK industrial and logistics team for 15 years.

Daniel Burn, director in the firm's Manchester office, will become head of the North West industrial and logistics team from 1 July.

Brooks, a respected and popular advisor in the regional property market for many years, said: "My approach has always been to try to be very professional and straightforward with clients. You are a long time in this job and there is no point falling out with people; you never know when you will have to work with them again."

He added: "I always tried to exceed a client's expectations and that way you get repeat business, and if they leave you and go elsewhere hopefully they will realise what they are missing and head back to you next time."

Brooks graduated from Reading University in 1976 and began his career at Jones Lang Wootton in the West End of London. He spent nine years at Dunlop Heywood before co-founding Colin Brooks & Partners, which merged with Chesterton in the early 1990s. Brooks joined the fledgling King Sturge office in Manchester in 1994, when the group turned over £20m. By 2007 UK turnover at King Sturge had reached £200m. King Sturge was acquired by Jones Lang LaSalle in May 2011.

Brooks continued: "As an industrial agent you are at the bottom of the food chain in terms of values and it is important to know the sectors above you because you will be expected to find value for the client, say in a retail element here or a residential corner of the site there."

Brooks cites sales to Costco in Chadderton and Ikea in Stockport, before it decided to open in Ashton-under-Lyne instead. Over the years he advised on some of the largest distribution and industrial schemes including Heywood Distribution Park, Ashton Moss, Birchwood Park and Trafford Park. As a significant deal maker he was involved in large lettings to Adidas and Office Depot and most recently he brokered the deal with Jaguar Land Rover to take a 400,000 sq ft logistics facility at Highcross's Phoenix warehouse in Ellesmere Port.

On the changing face of the agency world Brooks said: "We have seen a lot of [practice] names go through merger and being sold and the market now means you have to be either very big or very small. The mid-sized firms will continue to get squeezed.

"An agent's role has changed in so much as there is a lot more involved these days; the client wants research, development advice, more bang for their buck. Deal making is much more protracted because of the number of international concerns and more people in the decision."

The industrial team at JLL in Manchester will comprise four staff after Brooks departure, with one new arrival expected to be announced shortly. There are two industrial agents in Liverpool. Earlier this month Stuart Mair, director, resigned to move back to Birmingham as a director at CBRE but is not expected to depart until September.

David Lathwood, lead director North West region at Jones Lang LaSalle, said: "It has been a real privilege to work with David, largely as colleagues, for almost 25 years; he is a giant in the industrial property market. We thank him for his exceptional contribution to the business and wish him all the very best for the future.

"Fortunately his lasting legacy at Jones Lang LaSalle is to leave us with a very strong, market-leading team of industrial agents under the leadership of Daniel Burn. With a first-class client base and fantastic people, I have no doubt that the team will continue to prosper by delivering the highest standards of service which David set throughout his career."