The Return: Property & Investment Podcast Anna Clare Harper

If you work in sustainable investing, you probably already know the ‘Bridges Spectrum of Capital’. 



I discovered and loved it when I was researching my book on Sustainable Residential Investing, so I was especially excited to chat with Michele Giddens OBE, Co-CEO of Bridges Fund Management, which she Co-Founded alongside Philip Newborough and Sir Ronald Cohen - who gets described as "the father of British venture capital".



Michele has 30 years experience in sustainable investing and international development finance, from chairing the Community Development Finance Association, the UK National Advisory Board on Impact Investing, and a Global Working Group on Policy for the G7 Impact Investment Taskforce to running pioneer Bridges Fund Management. So she is the perfect guest to talk about sustainable investing, pioneering new strategies and making financial and social returns from retrofit.



We covered:


The thesis behind Bridges and the Spectrum of Capital which ‘went a bit viral’ !


How to pioneer: what we can learn from prolific pioneers about the process of bringing innovative ideas to market, for example carbon optioneering


How to create attractive financial returns alongside social and environmental impacts in Article 9 funds


Example investments such as retrofitting an old vinyl factory with cross-laminated timber to the material health benefits for residents from assisted living schemes





Guest website: https://www.bridgesfundmanagement.com/

Guest LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michele-giddens-ab6b63145/

Host LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/annaclareharper/

Host website: https://www.greenresi.com/

I chatted to Ian Fletcher, Director of Policy at the British Property Federation about how to influence housing policy.



I found it fascinating to hear about:


The latest on hot topics like Renters Reform Leasehold Reform and the up-coming election 


How policy-making actually works, from consultations with Civil Servants to lobbying Members of Parliament


What next for housing policy



Guest website: https://bpf.org.uk/

Guest LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ian-fletcher-15a57341⁠

Host LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/annaclareharper/

Host website: GreenResi.com

Deepa Deb is Head of International Real Estate Investment at law firm Watson Farley & Williams, with accolades including regularly being ranked in Chambers & Partners as a leading lawyer in real estate and being rated as one of the Hot 100 most influential lawyers (The Lawyer).



We chatted on the podcast about:


What innovations (in particular the use of AI) can improve efficiency and reliability of legal work in transactions


What UK residential can learn from other parts of real estate and from other countries about transactions


Career advice for aspiring lawyers



Guest website: https://www.wfw.com/

Guest LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/deepa-deb/

Host LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/annaclareharper/

Host website: https://www.greenresi.com/

I had the chance to chat with Katherine Russell, Director of Build to Rent at the John Lewis Partnership about retail, real estate and Build to Rent.



Topics included:


The journey that the John Lewis Partnership - better known for homewares than housing - has been on with real estate generally, and residential property specifically, from owning ‘tops above shops’ to Build to Rent


Lessons learned through John Lewis’s Real Estate Portfolio, the New West End Company’s (a partnership of 600 West End-based businesses) Advisory Board and Dolphin Living (an independent charity with an endowment of £120m to provide affordable homes for Londoners)


What next for Build to Rent and the UK Private Rental Sector



Guest website: https://www.jlpjobs.com/

Guest LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/katherine-russell-simmonds-73206933/

Host LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/annaclareharper/

Host website: https://www.greenresi.com/

My good friend Andrew Teacher grilled me in my capacity as CEO of GreenResi on unlocking responsible UK residential investment at scale.



Topics include:


The residential market opportunity: scale, growing income and resilience underpinned by demographics


How to deploy rapidly at scale: acquiring granular existing rentals for faster, less risky, less carbon intensive access to residential vs Build to Rent


How processes can be optimised to improve efficiency and reliability throughout the deal lifecycle 





Anna Clare Harper LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/annaclareharper/

Anna Clare Harper website: https://www.greenresi.com/

Andrew Teacher website: ⁠https://montfort.london/⁠

Andrew Teacher LinkedIn: ⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrewteacher/⁠

I loved chatting to Cath Webster, CEO of Thriving Investments, the fund manager with a social conscience backed by Places for People, the UK's leading Social Enterprise which owns or manages over 240,000 homes for 500,000 Customers across the UK.



We covered:


The different segments in residential such as Affordable Rented, Social Rented and Private Rented


How Build to Rent has evolved, from ‘Gen1’ to today, including the rise and fall of amenities


Investment yield valuations, why liquidity is so low in Build to Rent and what this means for BtR players.



Guest website: https://www.thrivinginvestments.co.uk/

Guest LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/526783/

Host LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/annaclareharper/

Host website: https://www.greenresi.com/