‘The UK market is in a better place in 2020’

Chris Grigg, CEO British Land

The outlook for the UK real estate sector is extremely positive, even if there will still be Brexit issues and share price volatility to deal with, Chris Grigg, CEO, British Land, told The Real Estate Day. 

‘We are in a better place overall,’ he said. ‘Not all the political uncertainty that we saw last year has disappeared, but now we are in a better and a stronger position.’ 

Confidence is returning to the market and that points to a ‘pretty decent year ahead’, he said, with signs of strong demand from occupiers and more international investors deciding to return to the UK and to London in particular. 

‘We continue to see good demand from our occupiers, particularly in the London part of our business,’ Grigg said. ‘I think there is a decent chance that we will see more international investments in London this year than we saw in the last 12 months’. 

Brexit as a process is not ‘done’ and the seesaw that characterised the listed sector last year will continue, but will be much more muted. 

‘I think it will be an interesting year for the listed sector,’ he said. ‘No doubt there will be some volatility because we still have to go through the Brexit process and, if the history of the recent past is anything to go by, that will create some volatility in the share price, but it will be nothing compared to last year’.


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