‘Reverse takeover’ sees ex-King Sturge bosses seize control

Five out of the six people put on redundancy consultation in Jones Lang LaSalle's Manchester office last week came from the original JLL side of the business and only one from King Sturge.

JLL bought King Sturge in May this year for £197m, partly for the latter's strong regional network. JLL was run on national, so-called 'vertical', teams run from London. KS was based on regional centres controlled from the branch offices. King Sturge managers argued post-takeover that the regional strength would be best maintained along their structure and appear to have got their way.

The six being made redundant are: Andy Frost, director of planning; Ian Thomlinson, director of residential; Phil Morley, associate in industrial; David Law, valuations director; Trevor Sloan, director of office agency; and Andrew Gardiner, associate in office agency.

Only David Law was previously employed by King Sturge.

JLL staff moved from Chancery Place into King Sturge's larger office in One Piccadilly Gardens in September. The redundancy consultation is due to finish at the end of November. After the redundancies there will be around 130 staff employed at JLL Manchester.

All parties declined to comment.

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This is really surprising. Are JLL really that confident in those lads that remain? They are letting some seriously experienced operators go here. Suspect their game plan is to muddle through this slump with low profile professionals then rebuild when the good times return. Very risky in our view given some of the high value instructions the surplus guys were handling.

By Dan

And four directors in there too. That’s a lot of experience to send out of the door. What are Spinningfields going to say for a start, JLL have done the offices there from day one.

All very sad.

By Manna

I suppose that since JLL bought King Sturge for their ‘Regional Strength’, it’s no surprise that the casualties in what was probably their strongest region should be from the JLL side. King Sturge were much bigger in Manchester with the more established ‘faces’. It would be interesting to see how this is played out elsewhere in the UK. I do feel sorry for the individuals but it given the previous strength and power of the King Sturge team in Manchester, this outcome was almost inevitable since the moment JLL bought them.

By Manxman.

That’s the point though, the individuals left in the departments affected don’t have the experience. Everyone in the market is talking about more redundancies further down the line.

By Dan

Looking at the names in the article, it seems that JLL will still be left with the most experienced individuals in situ, all of whom seem to have been left un-affected by this, or is there another announcement somewhere with other names on it? Increasingly, this looks like a clear cut out of duplicate roles. Inevitable, since global corporate entities will not carry ‘double overheads’. My hunch is that they will continue to dominate the market in the region.

By manxman.

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