Rob Noel, the long-standing boss of Landsec who has overseen the creation of the Walkie Talkie tower skyscraper and Victoria’s new office cluster, on Thursday announced plans to step down from the property giant.
The 55-year-old, who earned £1.6 million last year, plans to leave the UK’s biggest developer in 2020, saying “it’s the right time for me to move on”. By then he will have been in charge for eight years.
Since the 2016 Brexit referendum, Noel has faced questions over Landsec’s three-year pause on speculative London office developments, with some industry experts pointing out there is now huge demand for new headquarters because of a squeeze on supply.
Noel today said he had no regrets about not committing to new projects unless tenants were lined up.
He said: “Building speculatively at a period when no one knew what the trading environment would be like struck us at being quite high-risk.”
The firm is now more confident about going ahead with speculative development, and plans to start work on 1 million sq ft of new offices this year. That should offset some pain in the firm’s retail property assets, which have suffered from the woes of the High Street.
Noel will continue until a successor is appointed. Landsec’s London chief Colette O’Shea is tipped as a contender by the industry.
