On Top of Our Game

Keeping up with the activity in different market sectors is quite a challenge but it is vitally important if we are to stay on top of our game as tax advisers and provide proactive advice to our clients. This is particularly important for our real estate tax team where we attend key industry conferences, review press comment and property journals, online articles and blogs and look out for real estate activity on twitter.

Invariably there is a story that catches my eye, often about one of our clients or failing that, something that might be of direct relevance to them. Almacantar has been getting a lot of coverage in Estates Gazette recently with their exciting plans for the development around their Centre Point office building and last week I noticed that Chinese pension fund, Ping An, had made an offer of £260m for the Lloyds building at One Lime Street from our longstanding client Commerzleasing.

My next task is to see how we can best engage the incoming wave of Chinese investors and provide them with our top class tax compliance services. With Cantonese and Mandarin speakers in the office we should be an attractive alternative to the big four – but how to make them aware of our expertise in real estate tax is the next marketing challenge.

PJW