Derek Penfold
interviews David Pearl 

David Pearl is the perfect example of the man who doesn’t want to run a public company; buy them to break up, yes, but running one -it would spoil so much of the fun he gets out of life and property, with nagging shareholders and daft rules. The grey fund managers would put a stop to a company which, for instance, bought a lake ”because we didn’t already have one”. 

Mind you, there’s a shrewd brain at work; he might even impress fund managers if he had put forward the logic of the lake purchase. But he doesn’t have to and it is difficult to fault the logic of the way he runs the businesses from the Angel, Islington headquarters.

There are two key companies – Structadene and Pearl & Coutts, the latter agents set up in l965 and now the day-to-day managers of the residential and commercial portfolio. Structadene, the investor, was founded in 1978. Both have grown hugely and seen their geographical spread reach far beyond the West End, north of Oxford Street, where it all started.

David lives in London, and enjoys life here; it would be difficult to picture him fishing that lake, taking long country walks, or perhaps bird-watching. Half of the portfolio is in central London and you can imagine him walking around his holdings. With or without binoculars. And he devotes much time, energy and his cash to charity. Property people are a charitable lot, of course, and David cares about his causes.

“Giving kids a chance” is his personal theme at the moment, so he is particularly keen on the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award and the National Youth Theatre. We are also going to see him on TV on 5th December when Channel 4’s The Secret Millionaire devotes a one-hour programme to the 10 days he spent as a volunteer in a Portsmouth hospital. “It’s about changing peoples’ lives, but in a simple way, like keeping an eye on people who didn’t get any visitors. It really opened my eyes.” At the end of the programme, David changes some peoples’ lives by sharing £50,000 of his own cash with them.

So there’ll be disappointed people in the programme, who don’t get a cheque? “Yes, but not as disappointed as I am, because the programme just doesn’t run long enough to credit all the people who are making a difference.” Will he get lots of begging letters after transmission? He doesn’t know, but he has featured high on the Estates Gazette’s Rich List for years (his personal wealth most recently put at £269m) and is only contacted by charities, rather than distressed individuals.

It would be easy to write a profile of David and his business just by trawling through the press cuttings, but nothing prepares you for a visit to his office. His glass-box room looks like a bric-a-brac shop, with the many forms of collectables he enjoys. The office outside his door is swarming with people, so much so that the company is presently converting another floor in the building for expansion. They already have two floors for the 100 or so who work there, who come and go for David’s signature, or quick judgement on a piece of paper, or just bearing gossip or coffee.

He has a team of six who are “the buying team” – they never seem to sell, and one of David’s mottoes is that he “looks for reasons to buy” rather than not. So he signs a lot of fee cheques for agents every week.

So what does he personally do? He is involved in everything, signing leases and cheques being only a small part of it. He’s chairman and chief executive but he’s there “to see things clearly. I only really know about real estate, so I don’t get confused, and its never dull here. I’m always optimistic.”

His honest and reliable business reputation is important to him – and he underlines the unstuffy approach by seriously dressed-down clothes and his bikes. For all his watching over the details of this huge business, everyone seems to be involved in it, not just “staff” with no room for initiative.

As the two companies have grown, David has been able to take on bigger and bigger spending on buildings, often jostling with the household names to clinch serious-money deals. “We can pay £50m for a deal, but I don’t lose any sleep. I am more worried about paying £80 on a pair of shoes.”

David doesn’t take politics too seriously, even though Property Week columnist Steven Norris last year suggested he run as Tory candidate for Mayor of London. And his time for Spurs is not as dedicated as it once was. He’s never had the thought of buying a trophy football club - many property people’s dream; he would have to love the club, and so it could only be Spurs. He bought Bournemouth FC, but that was a sale-and-leaseback of the grounds, and opened up the prospect of housing development there.

Deal sizes have grown, but so has the scope of his business – Structadene is not a developer, but in several development jvs, including housing with Galliard Homes. In Brightlingsea, they are creating a marina and 300 homes, two years into the building contract. David was also hoping to buy the ill-fated Dome, and work with Galliard on housing development, but he left the roll-call of potential bidders, deterred by the costs involved, not just the purchase deal, as with many “household name” developers.

The yields at which David will buy have changed dramatically too (but don’t ask what yields would be applied to some of those buildings just at the moment) – “but that’s the entry price for Soho, or the City of London”, he recalls, with a portfolio of eight freehold British Land buildings in Soho costing £26m on a yield of 3.7%. His favourite patch, “NoHo”, around Great Portland Street, is dear now, as everyone has spotted the opportunities as the rag trade is replaced, and there’s a wistfulness as he notes that NoHo and Bond Street are both London W1.

David speaks highly of Ereira Mendoza – “ nice boys; nice to do business with nice people”, he says. “They’re thorough, easy to talk to, no bullshit and honest.” The firm also tell him deals not to do, knowing him and his company well, and self-denial of fees is always impressive with so many agents wanting to talk to the company every day.

There may be a credit and confidence crisis going on, but David Pearl is far from down-hearted. He’s seen it all before, learned lessons, getting on with what he knows best. He has even taken a shine to another company acquisition – the kings of Chinatown, Shaftesbury. With no sign of tongue in cheek, he notes how their holdings would mesh nicely with his.

  Derek Penfold