Place Capital acquires consultancy Fourth Street

The estate regeneration specialist, set up last month by property veterans David Smith-Milne and Peter Martin, has acquired a boutique development consultancy as part of its ‘buy-and-build’ growth strategy.

Place Capital Group snapped up Fourth Street Place Consultants for an undisclosed sum, it said this week. Fourth Street is a boutique advisory practice that works with local authorities and developers on place-led development strategies to unlock regeneration projects.

Under the terms of the deal, Fourth Street will retain its brand and management structure and continue to serve its existing clients, which include the developer Delancey, Brighton and Hove councils, and the London boroughs of Camden, Croydon, Southwark and Waltham Forest.

However, with the support and financial backing of Place Capital, the business is expected to grow and expand from its offices in London with a new presence in the North and additional recruitment to support its expansion.

Fourth Street will also support Place Capital on its projects, acting as the place-making advisor to Place Capital’s growing portfolio of partner contracts with councils and housing associations to regenerate the UK’s housing estates.

Fourth Street is headed by Dan Anderson and Jim Roberts and was set up in 2012 after the pair left agency Colliers International to establish their own outfit.

Place Capital was formed this year by Smith-Milne and Martin, the former founder and chair respectively of Salford-based regeneration specialist Placefirst, whose regional projects have included the 400-home Welsh Streets scheme in Toxteth, and Chatsworth Gardens in Morecambe.

Through a buy-and-build model – which involves purchasing a target company and making substantial additional acquisitions in the same sector to build up strength – Place Capital aims to improve the quality of housing across the country, by working with councils and landlords to unlock potential from neglected housing estates.

Place Capital chief executive Smith-Milne said: “The acquisition made perfect sense for Place Capital as the Fourth Street team is totally aligned to our vision to bring excellence and creativity to the regeneration of the UK’s forgotten housing estates.”

Martin, Place Capital’s chair, added: “Under the leadership of Dan and Jim, the business has developed some excellent long-term client relationships and significant repeat contracts.

“Its reputation as a first-class boutique advisory practice is based on it working on some of the most complex and challenging place-led development projects in the UK and overseas and unlocking really difficult projects through imaginative place-making.”

Fourth Street director Anderson said: “We were immediately drawn to the Place Capital concept – both its commercial structure and its ambitious and transformative vision to bring much needed, imaginative placemaking to housing estates across the UK.

“Through the deal, we retain all that is special and unique about Fourth Street but get the added benefit of being part of an ambitious, challenging and mission-led group structure that will introduce much needed new thinking to the UK’s housing problems.”

Law firms Pannone Corporate and Gunnercooke advised on the deal.