ROOF Blog

Deloitte, Britain’s second-biggest professional services group, is to seize a foothold in the £2 billion commercial property consulting market by acquiring one of Britain’s oldest real estate firms. The ‘big four’ accountant will merge its real estate practice with Drivers Jonas, the UK’s eighth-biggest commercial property adviser. The new unit will have revenue of £110 million and 700 staff, but John Connolly, Deloitte’s chief executive, who forged the deal, said that fee income is expected to more than double to £250 million within three years. Mr Connolly said that Deloitte identified Drivers Jonas as the most attractive target in the commercial property market because of its size, profitability and reputation.

A member of the Bank of England’s interest rate setting committee has called for the introduction of a tax on housing that would act as an ‘automatic stabiliser’ to help avoid real estate bubbles like the one that helped to cause the financial crisis.

Adam Posen, an American academic and external member of the Monetary Policy Committee, countered suggestions that central banks should have been quicker to raise rates in the run up to the crisis, arguing that tighter monetary policy would have had little effect in halting bubbles.

Citing the greater damage caused by housing slumps than by collapses in prices of other assets such as equities or commercial property following booms, Mr Posen proposed that new tools need to be created in order to target the residential real estate market in particular.