PARTNERS IN PROPERTY

Ben Woodhams, head of Knight Frank’s Global Diplomatic Service Line has endless energy and enthusiasm for his work. Their core clients include the US Department of State Bureau of Overseas Buildings Operations, which is the real estate division of the US government, the FCDO, plus the Canadian and Netherlands Ministries of Foreign Affairs. “We are on a panel of service providers for those four countries, to whom they outsource all the real estate consultancy that they require around the world. Whether it is the sale of an ambassador's residence or the valuation of a chancery building, Knight Frank is on hand to establish strategies for their property portfolios, and then to assist rolling these out.”

Knight Frank understands the importance of the buildings itself; the company has pride in the knowledge they have when sourcing a property specifically for diplomats to work and live in. “An embassy or high commission building acts as an ambassador. The structure must show the country in its best light to inspire partnerships, plus attract investment and tourism,” Ben clarifies. “A property that is in poor condition would reflect badly on the country itself, just like it would for a corporate that wouldn't want to damage their brand. As real estate consultants, we understand that diplomats don't want to be somewhere that would cast their country in a bad light.”

Ben has observed a large shift in the process of governments housing their diplomats. Previously, he explains, embassy staff were often provided with government owned property to live in when they arrived at a new post, but now it’s becoming more common that diplomats are offered a housing allowance and told to go and find themselves somewhere to live. “That’s where my colleague Nathalie Stocker in diplomatic relocations comes in; she finds properties for diplomats newly arriving in London.” Knight Frank have recognised that embassies want to retain the flexibility that comes with their diplomats leasing properties rather tying up huge amounts of money buying property all around the world. “Of course, staff would often rather live somewhere they can integrate into the local community rather than living in an embassy compound.”

“An embassy or high commission building acts as an ambassador. The structure must show the country in its best light to inspire partnerships, plus attract investment and tourism”

Governments, however, still do own properties and continue to buy new ones all over the world. But Ben highlights that the property requirements of foreign ministries are always changing, and this is where the Global Diplomatic Service Line comes in. “As relationships between countries develop, real estate requirements evolve. For example, a government may decide that now the UK is no longer in the EU, that some of their functions will be better placed in Brussels; so, they'll start to have more staff there and less in the UK, and their real estate requirements change again.” He proposes: “A government may decide that it needs a stronger, longer-term presence in another location, so rather than renting floors in an office building, they would prefer to buy a building.” Governments must also adapt to changing economic environments, for example downsizing as the cost-of-living increases.

He explains that Knight Frank are currently in the process of evaluating the entire global real estate portfolio of an African country to formulate a strategy of how to deal with their property going forward. “We are looking at efficiency, whether their buildings around the world are in the right locations, their condition and maintenance, and also advising them what they should dispose of and what they should keep. Once we have established a strategy, we will help them formulate a team to implement it, who will be based in their capital. That’s a quite a succinct example of what we can do, with the aim of saving time and money.”

“The reason why we are so good at this is because Knight Frank has this amazing presence globally, with offices in Africa, the Americas, Asia, Europe and the Middle East”

Knight Frank is the largest real estate consultancy in the world that's still privately owned. Its first office outside of the UK was in Lagos, Nigeria, which opened in 1965. The company is unique in having a diplomatic service line, but this is due to their impressive global footprint. “The reason why we are so good at this is because Knight Frank has this amazing presence globally, with offices in Africa, the Americas, Asia, Europe and the Middle East. But we also have teams around the world that can be parachuted into the locations where we don't have offices, so we can go almost anywhere.” Knight Frank’s Global Diplomatic Consultancy has an impressive track record in emerging markets, because “we can go to areas of the world that other organisations might find difficult. For example, in Africa, we've been to 50 of the 54 countries in the last three years.”

How did Ben find himself in this role? Ben is more than qualified as a chartered surveyor. He’s been working in emerging and frontier markets since 1999, which has been a natural fit after a childhood in Kenya. Following school and university in the UK he seized an opportunity to go to Tanzania with Knight Frank, where he stayed for four years before continuing his work in Kenya for another 19 years. He came back to the UK in the summer of 2022 to run the Diplomatic Service Line.

Knight Frank’s Global Diplomatic Consultancy have many cases of successful collaboration. One western government, for example, needed a valuation of a plot of land located next to their embassy in Beirut, as they wanted to purchase it to expand their current Chancery. Knight Frank was asked to aid them with their business preparation and purchase transaction, and then had detailed discussions with the landowners, lawyers, government officials and planning officers to give them the best idea of what the deal would look like. They also researched similar plots of lands nearby for comparison. The client was provided with detailed explanations, which allowed them to subsequently start serious discussions to purchase the plot using Knight Frank’s well-rounded findings as negotiation.

His division is currently working on 30 separate jobs for various government clients. “That is anything from looking for a new ambassador’s residence in Rome, to valuing a property in Banjul in the Gambia and selling a house in Hampstead, here in London. We also have ongoing projects in: Burkina Faso, Bangladesh, Senegal, Turkey, Pakistan, Trinidad, Tobago, Kenya, Thailand, Angola, Bangladesh, Spain, Singapore and Suriname, among other places. We have this huge knowledge base and resource of personnel to get into these markets.”

Aside from Knight Frank’s long history of working around the world, they also have specialist knowledge on diplomatic needs. “Within a residence, we understand how the head of mission’s entertainment areas and their private lives must be separated within the property. For example, an ambassador needs a formal dining room for entertaining, and when they are in that dining room with their guests, they doesn't want to hear their children running around upstairs. We will only show appropriate properties, rather than clients having to wade through lists of properties just because they've asked for a five-bedroom house in a certain neighbourhood.”

The Global Diplomatic Consultancy can also help avoid costly mistakes. Ben poses an example scenario: “The central heating breaks down in the ambassador’s house and they require 30,000 euros to fix it, but they struggle to get these funds approved from their capital. So, the ambassador might move out of that property because it is cold and rent somewhere else for 5,000 euros a month. In addition to this obvious waste of money, the original property may fall into disrepair, and in extreme cases may possibly even start to become dilapidated.” He continues, “We have instances of embassies receiving letters from the local government stating that if they don’t refurbish the property, they will revoke its diplomatic status, and in some extreme cases can be lost altogether.”

He is frank: “We understand how this happens. A government doesn’t have a strategy, and therefore back in the capital nobody wants to write such a large cheque in case it’s the wrong decision. Often an embassy or residence refurbishment urgently needs to be done, but when a head of mission is only here for four years, it’s often left to the next candidate to handle, and so on. Rental commitments are easy to approve, but capital expenditure is not. In this scenario Knight Frank can come in and advise as an independent real estate consultant. Centralised decision making is a good idea to avoid having these expensive mistakes.”

Knight Frank’s overall aim to make diplomats lives easier. “Ultimately,” he says, “the message is that we have this service line which is specifically tailored for diplomats. We are happy to help you with your requirements within London, and also we would love to have the opportunity to talk to your ministry of foreign affairs about helping you formulate a strategy for your property globally, like we're doing for governments that range from one of the largest in the world to one of the smallest in Africa. And we can go anywhere in the world to help you do that.”

Written by Venetia van Kuffeler and Katie McCormick