Tony Gilbertson, CEO of Signature Private Finance
Signature Private Finance
Heading to MIPIM will enable our Signature Private Finance team to meet the people who can help push us through our next important steps as we transform our offering.
I will be joined by Sales Director Jon Preston and Lending Manager Trevor Melly as part of the expected 33,000 delegates, with a packed calendar prepared well in advance for us to enjoy, including around 60 meetings and 20 events.
As we look ahead to a busy 2019, our big ambitions are to make contacts and boost our profile during MIPIM.
Coventry and Warwickshire has been at MIPIM since the show’s early days and we hope joining its very established partnership will add considerable weight to our presence and we are looking forward to making new contacts through that combined effort.
Last year’s event featured housing as a major theme, with a significant showing by Homes England, the UK government’s housing accelerator, who claim to have the appetite, influence, expertise and resources to drive positive change in the housing market.
By releasing more land to those developers ready to make a difference, it hopes to be part of the process creating the new homes England needs, helping improve neighbourhoods and grow communities along the way.
It offered support for the new ‘build-to-rent’ approach, where the large institutions are expected to invest billions of pounds in new properties, they can rent out to achieve stable income returns in the future.
With little sign of any reduction in the demand for affordable housing in the UK, there is every expectation a similar message will be delivered this year, with local authorities encouraged to review their planning guidelines and help ease the development process.
We will be looking to play a major role in this conversation and we have a lot to say on this constantly evolving subject.
We have some big plans for Signature Private Finance in 2019 and whilst we’re thinking big, we have established objectives, against which we can measure our success on our return.
It’s not just about the meetings we have in Cannes, but those we can arrange back in the UK with everyone involved in the property sector, including investors, developers, landlords and other professionals with the skills we need to grow our business.
We are aware the effort we expend in March, might not pay off for months or perhaps even years. But, one of the most important aspects of our trip to MIPIM will be visibility of our brand and our ambition.