Renewed optimism at MIPIM
MIPIM got underway in earnest yesterday and it appears this year’s gathering is significantly larger than in 2010. The Mayor of London was in Cannes to give the keynote speech and the “Boris effect” was clearly visible as delegates queued around the building to hear him speak. Boris, who himself said he was “banging the drum for London” at the international event, said he could detect a new air of confidence about property and anecdotal evidence of increased activity was everywhere.
Boris this week published his plans to turn the Olympic Park Legacy Company into a Mayoral development corporation centred on the Olympic Park, which he has described as “London’s single most important regeneration project for the next 25 years”.
As usual the bloggers and tweeters are out in force at MIPIM and the word “optimism” continually crops up in their commentaries. It seems the property industry is feeling a lot stronger this year and more ready to do deals. The lack of available finance, however, is still featuring heavily in conversations, as is the clear gap between the market in London and the rest of the UK. The UK is this year’s Country of Honour at MIPIM and thus firmly in the spotlight, with today’s schedule including events focusing on the City of London, Nine Elms, and Kings Cross, as well as the announcement of the winner of Meanwhile London, the competition to find uses for three brownfield sites and adjacent water in the capital’s Royal Docks and Canning Town.
This morning the sensational news of the arrest of the Tchenguiz brothers in connection with the SFO investigation into failed Icelandic bank Kaupthing, reported in the Financial Times, is sure to be causing a buzz in Cannes. One commentator has already noted wryly that this may merely reflect anxiety as to whether the brothers’ yacht party scheduled for tomorrow will still go ahead…
