GVA GRIMLEY

GVA Grimley’s roots go back 190 years to H.N Grimley & Son who were first recorded as “House and Estate Agents of 13, Bennett’s Hill, Birmingham” in White’s Directory. Since this time, the company has undergone several makeovers and is now unrecognisable from its original form.

The UK firm adopted the name GVA Grimley in 1998. The expansion of GVA Grimley continued with the merger of Saxon Law and Second London Wall in 2003, Chapman Swabey in 2004, ACR in 2005 and Osmond Tricks and Lamb & Edge in 2006 and most recently, the acquisition of Glasgow office agency Alan Watt and rights of lights experts, Schatunowski Brooks in January 2008.

In November 2007, the firm secured £40m investment from Lloyds Development Capital and converted from a Limited Liability Partnership to a Limited Company as part of a restructuring that prepared the business for its next stage of strategic growth.

Today, GVA Grimley is one of the largest commercial property advisors in the UK, providing a multi-disciplinary national consultancy approach to a broad client base. It has a national structure of six trading divisions (Planning, Development & Regeneration, Building, Project Management & Consultancy, Valuation Services, Capital Markets, Agency and Business Rates) and a regional network of 12 UK offices providing a full range of property services nationwide and had a fee income of £136m in 2007/08.

In February 2009, all twelve offices and all six trading divisions were accredited to the ISO 14001 standard.

Recent instructions include the Ministry of Defence, to provide global estate management services, re-appointment to the OGC Buying Solutions Estates Property Services panel to provide a wide range of services to public sector clients including planning, valuation, building surveying, agency, property management and landlord & tenant advice.

Other high profile projects include the Mary Rose Trust where the firm provided project management of the Heritage Lottery Fund supported museum and visitor attraction, built over the existing dry-dock which houses King Henry VIII’s flagship; the Mary Rose.

Other key instructions include property management consultancy on the Snow Hill scheme; a major mixed use development in Birmingham. This includes 600,000 sq ft of Grade A offices, a 5 star hotel, 332 luxury apartments, health spa, leisure uses and public realm. Previously the firm provided planning advice.

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