Robust performance readies Ryden for more market challenges
25 November 2010
Commercial property consultant Ryden has posted full year results to 30 April 2010 showing a 39% increase in profit before partners’ remuneration to £4.0m. This was off a £10.6m turnover – up by 6% on 2009.
In good shape financially, the firm’s reduced cost base has delivered a strong balance sheet with no external debt, and unlike many of the other big players in the Scottish commercial property market this year, Ryden hasn’t made any redundancies.
Better than expected results were reported in Ryden’s transactional business despite extremely challenging conditions in the property sector. The firm was at the centre of some of the largest deals across Scotland and the North of England including the multi-million pound sales of Broadway in Glasgow and Acergy in Aberdeen. Ryden also advised on the purchase of Edinburgh’s The Bridge development and handled Leeds’ biggest office deal in five years at Livingstone House.
Managing partner Fiona Morton said that the firm had weathered the storm because of a number of factors:
“Ryden is a diverse business, so when agency experiences a slowdown, our non-transactional service lines bolster our performance. Activity in agency has been steady because our experienced teams work tirelessly to win instructions and deliver results for clients. We capitalised on the investment rebound in late 2009/early 2010 which made a significant contribution to overall fee levels.”
On business strategy, she added:
“We have put in place a strategy to take the challenging market head-on and by doing this have maintained a market-leading position. We cut costs and retained our staff so client care was unaffected. We redeployed staff to the busiest departments and grew our public sector client base through our expertise in helping them extract value from their assets and make savings. Our input is making a real difference: adding income, constraining costs and enhancing value for clients.”
Morton said that the property market and wider economy face yet more challenges through 2011 but that Ryden was prepared for it and at a competitive advantage: “Being independent means that we are able to quickly respond to changing market dynamics by making our own decisions to control our own destiny.”
