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ALL BLACK TURNS BLUE Bluemantle host a private audience with Sale Sharks’ latest recruit, Luke McAlister at the Bubble Room in Alderley Edge >>MORE BLUEMANTLE’S STABLE DEALS Cheshire based investment and development company Bluemantle has completed a hat trick of deals >>MORE BLUEMANTLE £10 million deals in south manchester Bluemantle has completed £10 million worth of deals in three office schemes in Cheadle >>MORE IN THE SPOTLIGHT DISCRETION ABANDONED Bluemantle starts a new strategy of development >>MORE BLUEMANTLE SELLS LOMBARD Bluemantle has sold Lombard House in Cheadle to Pervaise Naveed for £2.3 million >>MORE BLUEMANTLE SHOWS NO SHAME North West based property development and investment company >>MORE A WELL KEPT SECRET Bluemantle looking to expand its profits by rebuilding >>MORE |
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26th September
2006 A well-kept secret worth over £115m by David Thame. A Business that began by dismantling old buildings is looking to expand its profits - by rebuilding them again. Bluemantle Properties was set up 20 years ago by Jim and Mark Caldwell and has been transformed from one of the industry's best-kept secrets to one of the region's biggest make-it-happen regeneration specialists. The firm, based in Alderley Edge, is a family run business established by Jim, 62, and his former city banker son Mark, 33. Originally an industrial break-up specialist company, it has now successfully diversified into all areas of property development, investment and management in office, retail, residential throughout the north west. Today the company is involved with a number of town centre regeneration schemes, including developments at Alderley Edge, Horwich and Disley, worth '100m. It says it is looking to double the existing size of its '115m investment portfolio. Bluemantle has also proved a risk taker. It has taken on several difficult sites for redevelopment purposes, including those in need of land remediation or with land assembly problems. This was the story at the Congleton Retail Park - a former waste disposal site - and at Centre Point in Trafford Park, a former ICI site which the duo successfully redeveloped and sold. Jim began business life - like his son - in banking. But he quickly showed his determination to make money by less traditional routes. After working in the world of finance until his early 20s, he tried his hand at a vast array of money-spinning ventures, including selling lamp-posts. He first began to take a serious interest in commercial property as a result of his insurance interests. Although he had been buying and refurbishing Manchester terraces since he was 23, he had never made it the focus of his business. But once he discovered the potential for redeveloping the old textile mills, there was no stopping him. He said: "We'd buy the mill, sell the machinery because scrap metal values were high, then break up or demolish the mill." Bruntwood In the mid-1970s he teamed up with developer Mike Oglesby, who went to found Bruntwood, which now controls one quarter of the Manchester city centre office market. Jim, a keen mountain climber who is not afraid of risks, confesses that by 1999 the business was coasting. But the arrival of his son Mark soon upped the stakes, with gross assets mushrooming from '25m to '115m in six years. He said: "I would have plodded along and sold out fairly soon if Mark hadn't come along." Mark spent the mid-1990s working for city bankers ING Barings, arriving just after the centuries-old firm crashed following Nick Leeson's rogue trading. He said: "After a while the 24-hour desk culture was getting wearing and I wasn't enjoying it anymore. I told Jim I'd like to come back up north." With Mark on board, the business is moving up a gear. New ventures include Wigan's Greenbank Business Park. Bluemantle acquired this site from Ingersoll Rand three years ago. Now the Caldwells aim to develop the site further with an area already marked out for industrial use. But Mark, a point-to-point jockey, says he is anxious not to take too many risks. He said: "Since I started back here it's felt very different - there's a sense of ownership and also enormous variety. One moment you're dealing with a worried tenant, the next negotiating a '10m deal. "But you have to know when to stop, when to turn back." Even so, a series of new relationships with business partners and a massive '250m development project will test Bluemantle's mettle.
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