Fisher German Annual Review 2020-21

fishergerman.co.uk

Annual Review

2020/21

Managing Partner’s introduction The past year at Fisher German has been like no other but I am wholeheartedly impressed (although not surprised) that our people have risen to the occasion and delivered a fantastic set of results. We should be very proud of how we have serviced our clients this year and while our robust governance and financial planning were tested with the first coronavirus lockdown, the technological investments we have made in recent years proved their worth in keeping the firm running, albeit remotely.

new opportunities to collaborate across our office network, enabling us to deliver an even better service to our valued clients.

By bringing the right people together to assess new legislation and monitor our finances against a strict Coronavirus Budget, we protected ourselves against the initial slump in new work and focused on the delivery of existing client work under lockdown restrictions. Any market scepticism quickly recovered and the residential market in particular saw record-breaking enquiries and activities in the second half of the year, exacerbated by the stamp duty extension.

I hope this report gives you a flavour of our business activities. If you would like to find out more, please don’t hesitate to get in touch.

If the pandemic had not been so widely reported, you might struggle to believe Fisher German was operating under lockdown for most of last year. In the summer we opened a new office in Exeter, and 18 new graduates joined our fold. A boom in infrastructure activity has seen us win new contracts with Anglian Water, Southern Water and UKPN Planning, meanwhile LinesearchbeforeUdig (LSBUD) has continued to see a sharp rise in activity – you can read more about this on pages 18-19. We have also had a successful year of competitive tendering including three new contracts with water suppliers, which you can read about on page 17.

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As we enter a new financial year, I am excited about what lies ahead for Fisher German. With the addition of 100 new colleagues and 10 offices from Vine Property Management (see page 11) we have a truly national presence from Glasgow to Exeter. We have recently aligned our internal structure to recognise this, moving away from regional reporting to focus on the operational delivery of our four key business areas: Advisory Services, Agency, Infrastructure Services, and Property Management & Consultancy. By doing so, we have already found

None of our success would be possible without the ambitious drive of our people, who continue to deliver above and beyond what is expected. We celebrate some of their successes on page 9 and you can read more about how they have adapted to the challenges of Covid-19 on page 12.

Andrew Bridge Managing Partner

Andrew.Bridge@fishergerman.co.uk

Contents 04 06 07 08 10

Business profile Chair’s Report Governance Promotions & accolades

12 14 16 18

Finance

+42

Employee Net Promoter Score

4,300+ Unique projects invoiced

20th Anniversary as Fisher German

People Operations Clients & markets ioneering by nature: P LinesearchbeforeUdig

100% APC pass rate

1

New office opened in Exeter

38%

increase in new visitors to the website on previous year

90

Colleagues onboarded from Vine Property Management

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Business profile Fisher German LLP was established in September 2000 after the merger of Fisher Hoggarth and Germans with a history going back to 1830.

Since then, we have grown at an impressive rate; 26 offices across the UK with around 600 employees and partners. The firm’s strength is demonstrated by continued growth throughout the recent economic downturn to an annual turnover of over £40 million (2019/20). We operate nationally advising and managing a wide range of client portfolios on behalf of blue-chip companies, pension funds, private landowners, utility companies, national charities, local authorities and government agencies.

We have a national visibility across all the six property market sectors; rural, commercial, development, residential, utilities & infrastructure and sustainable energy.

We have considerable resources to operate a localised approach to service delivery. We deliver a wide range of integrated chartered surveying, planning, consultancy and estate agency services across each of those sectors. We understand property and make it our priority to understand our clients and their needs. We help our clients to prosper by building long-term relationships, listening and delivering exceptional service. Many of our solutions are digitally led as we recognise the importance of ondemand services to our clients as their businesses grow.

Our vision: To always add maximum value through understanding, creativity and excellence Our values

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PIONEER

EXPERT

TRUST

DRIVEN

Find out how LSBUD has grown from an improvement project to fully fledged business on page 18.

The pandemic did not prevent us delivering expert services to clients and winning new contracts. Read more on page 16.

On page 12 you can find out how we put colleague wellbeing first to build a virtual environment of trust across Fisher German.

Read more about our driven and motivated colleagues and what they have achieved over the last 12 months on page 8.

Fisher German LLP Governance Structure

David Brewin Chairman

Andrew Bridge Managing Partner

Strategy Group Andrew Bridge Stuart Flint George Simpson David Merton Matthew Barker Liberty Stones Rob Champion Richard Broome Jeremy Phillips Adrian Jones

Tim Shuldham Senior Partner

Governance Board

Leadership Team

David Brewin Andrew Bridge Tim Shuldham Clare Phillipson Ed Clark Adrian Jones Adrian Jones Finance Director

Stuart Flint Partner

George Simpson Partner

60 Partners

UKBS plc 5.56% Investment

LSBUD Ltd 50% Joint Venture

Fisher German Ltd 100% Subsidiary

Greencrete Ltd 20% Investment

FGP Ltd 50% Associate

Operations Team

Adrian Jones Finance Director

Divisional Managing Partners • Advisory Services: Richard Benson • Agency: Stuart Flint • Infrastructure Services: Clare Phillipson • Property Management & Consultancy: David Merton & James Rigby • Shared Services: Andrew Bridge

Sarah Hammond Chief Technology Officer

Maria Hawley HR Director

Jeremy Phillips Business Development Director

Divisions

Shared Services

Sectors

Services

• Advisory Services • Agency • Infrastructure Services • Property Management & Consultancy • Shared Services

• Business Development & Communications • Central Admin • Compliance & Audit • Customer Service • HR • IT/Technology • Key Account Management • Legal • Quality Management • Safety, Health and Environment

• Commercial • Development • Residential • Rural • Sustainable Energy • Utilities & Infrastructure

• Agency • Agribusiness • Building Consultancy • Compensation • Expert Witness & Dispute Resolution • Infrastructure Services • Landlord & Tenant • Planning • Property Management • Telecoms • Valuations

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Chair’s report The year to March 2021 was challenging for us all, we had to make some very difficult decisions against the background of unprecedented uncertainty. I have a huge sense of pride for what we were able to achieve in the year and for the way we all pulled together in line with our vision and values. It was a privilege to step into the Chair role in October 2020 after serving 18 months as a non-executive director and I would like to take this opportunity to thank Harry Cotterell for his five years of service to the firm.

David Brewin Chair

We should take huge pride from the way we handled these challenges. We acted with integrity and transparency both with colleagues and clients, I know this has been hugely appreciated and once again reflects our collective values. On pages 10 and 12 you can read more about the vital role the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme and other government backed schemes played in the early days of the pandemic, but the strength of our core business activities and ability to win new work in a tough market provided a basis for us to redeploy furloughed colleagues, with 82% returning to fulltime employment by the end of 2020.

Financially, we performed better than could be reasonably expected given the prevailing market, but more importantly we demonstrated the courage and vision to remain resolutely focused on

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our clients and our people, and build a strong foundation of confidence for the future. We are exceptionally well positioned to take advantage of opportunities as the market begins to stabilise. To support our market strategy we have reorganised our business into a divisional structure to enable us to more effectively deploy our specialised talent to where clients need it.

It would have been understandable if we had decided to defer the implementation of this new structure until after the pandemic had passed.

I am, however, in no doubt that proceeding with it was the right thing to do despite its attendant challenges.

It provides us with a tremendous platform to continue to deliver outstanding service to our clients and exceptional career opportunities for our people.

Finally I would like to say a huge thank you to all our people across the Fisher German family. It is often quoted that “a firm is only as good as its people” - that has never been more true than during this last year! I wish everyone a fun, interesting, challenging and stimulating next 12 months.

It is often quoted that ‘a firm is only as good as its people’ - that has never been more true than during this last year!

management have shown commitment to maintaining their reputation through consistent systems External Auditor

Governance

Clare Phillipson Partner We introduced the Governance Board into our formal business structure early in 2019 but over the last 12 months the scope of the board has really evolved.

We were pleased to offer the post of Chair to David Brewin in October 2020, as Harry Cotterell stepped down from the role after five years. David brings with him a wealth of experience from the professional services sector that had been invaluable in the prior months in his position as non-executive director.

The Covid-19 pandemic has had a huge impact on our business operations, which you can read more about throughout this report; nonetheless, our role as Governance Board is to look beyond our immediate challenges to the future of our firm.

This involves not only our financial matters and business strategy but also our level of risk – both in our existing services, and those we may wish to offer in the future – and our overall growth targets both for Fisher German and our interlinked businesses, including LSBUD, Fisher German Priestner and UKBS. Our focus continues to be around our key compliance areas as a RICS regulated business, and we successfully renewed our ISO certifications for 9001 and 14001 in November 2020. Credit is due to our compliance team and all involved in the process for successfully carrying out the six-day audit virtually. Our ambition now for 2021/22 is to also achieve ISO 27001, as a growing number of our clients and partners turn to this certification to evidence a rigorous approach to information security management.

Auditor’s report The latest BM Trada Management Systems Certification Audit took place in November 2020 and returned 0 non-conformities for a third consecutive year. This resulted in the successful recertification of both ISO 90001:2015 and ISO 140001:2015 for quality management system and environmental management system respectively.

The auditor said: “There have been no adverse trends identified, indeed the management system has continued to be developed and communicated to all personnel. The quality and environmental management system has evolved over the period to take into account their internal management structural changes and office movements.

“The management systems have been consistent because the personnel managing the administration of the systems have been fairly consistent and the top management have shown commitment to maintaining their reputation through consistent systems. The whole quality and environmental management systems were sampled during the audit and the evidence found has all been compliant, which has confirmed continued conformity and effectiveness of their systems.”

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Promotions and accolades We began the 2020/21 year with the promotion of three long-serving senior colleagues to the Partnership. Luke Brafield, a major contributor to the success of our development agency activities; head of our agribusiness service line, David Kinnersley; and Mark Gilkes, who is an expert in acting for clients in Nationally Significant Infrastructure Projects and Development Consent Orders.

Tim Shuldham Senior Partner

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We also saw movement within the Partnership, with Richard Benson joining the Equity A Partnership, Hugh Maxfield and Richard Broome progressing to become B Partners, and Ben Marshalsay joining the Equity Partnership at C-level.

It has been my pleasure to announce a further 28 promotions across colleagues at all levels of the business between 1 April 2020 and 31 March 2021. As I write this, we are due to announce the promotion of a further 21 colleagues from 1 April 2021, which is a tribute to the quality and hard work of our colleagues, the strength of our client base and the robust foundations of our business both prior to the pandemic and now.

During the last year, Fisher German has maintained a seamless and quality service to our clients which we will continue to deliver going forward as we grow and strengthen the business further. Our graduate recruitment team has seen a particularly strong year and Fisher German was named in the top 10 undergraduate employers in the UK by the National Undergraduate Employability Awards. Equally impressive, we were shortlisted with well-established companies like TUI and HSBC for ‘Best Development Programme’, a reflection of the continued hard work of our graduate team. You can read more about our graduate recruitment activities on page 12.

The investment we make in our talent has been rewarded with another successive 100% pass rate for the Assessment of Professional Competence (APC), securing RICS chartership for 14 colleagues. In addition, three more colleagues passed their exams with the Central Association of Agricultural Valuers (CAAV). We have high expectations for the 18 graduates who joined our ranks in the past year.

While we welcome new faces to the business, it is always with sadness that we also say goodbye to those who have dedicated their careers to Fisher German. After 16 years at the firm, Kay Davies left the Partnership in 2020 on mutual terms and we wish her the very best in her future endeavours. On 31 March 2021, both myself and John Palmer, who have served the Partnership for many years, retired from the Equity A Partnership although continuing as Consultant Partners – and I am pleased to be continuing the role of Senior Partner until later in 2021.

Richard Sanders, who has been a part of Fisher German and its founding firms since 1985, has retired after serving as an Equity A Partner and then a Consultant Partner, leaving behind much wisdom and fond memories of those who worked with him in Market Harborough.

We also pay tribute to Andrew Jackson, who along with the late Henry Sale, co-founded the business we call Fisher German today. Andrew served 19 years as Managing Partner of the firm before stepping back from the role in 2019, and announcing his retirement from the Partnership in March 2021. Andrew will continue to work with Fisher German as a Consultant in respect of some long term projects and associated businesses.

Associate Director, Rachel Bridge, was appointed Midlands Chair of the Pipeline Industries Guild.

Luke Brafield, Mark Gilkes, and David Kinnersley were invited to join the Partnership following successful completion of the Pathway to Partnership scheme.

Scott O’Dell was appointed Chair of the RTPI East Midlands committee.

Ginny Banham, Isobel Lole and Ed Randell passed their exams to become fellows of the Central Association of Agricultural Valuers.

In January 2021, Tom Lockton joined Fisher German from Savills to head up our valuation team in the new Exeter office.

Fisher German’s development team were shortlisted for three awards in recognition of successful deals across the Midlands, including winning Agent of the Year at the Insider East Midlands Property Dinner 2020.

Head of Farms Agency, Richard Gadd, was promoted to Associate Director.

Fisher German’s graduate team was named in top 10 undergraduate employers in the National Undergraduate Employability Awards 2020.

Fisher German’s planning team was shortlisted for Planning Consultancy of the Year in the RTPI Planning Awards for Excellence 2020, after winning the regional category for the second time.

In October 2020 we bid farewell to Harry Cotterell after five years and welcomed non-executive director David Brewin as our new Chair.

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Finance

Adrian Jones Finance Director

The 12 months to the end of March 2021 have been an unprecedented year for Fisher German. In mid-March 2020, as we approached the end of the financial year, plans were being finalised for an ambitious budget and a series of key projects that would be progressed during the remainder of 2020. Of course, Covid-19 shifted the focus of these plans dramatically from how we could further develop the business, to simply protecting it from the impending contraction of the economy. Our first step was to try and assess the impact that Covid-19 would have on the firm’s fee income.

Gauging opinion from across the firm, the collective assessment was that we should expect a reduction in our top line of close to 25% against the new annual budget.

Our immediate business challenges were protecting the cash position (seasonally, balances are lowest at this point in the year) and assessing the cost base of the business to determine when cash commitments could be saved or deferred. Fortunately, in quick order, the Chancellor introduced the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme and tax deferment programmes, which immediately allowed us to protect jobs and preserve cash, and injected confidence into both the economy and the business.

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It was then necessary to plan our financial route through the deepening crisis. Quick decisions were made to cut investments in capital expenditure, marketing, business development, recruitment and numerous office-related costs that wouldn’t be needed for a while due to home working and the cancellation of events. Additionally, we recognised that the newly constructed budget was no longer fit for purpose; instead,

we implemented a forecasting process that would assess each month what the full year outcome might look like. This process actually continued through to March 2021 and produced invaluable intelligence to guide the firm’s decision-making processes into the new financial year.

These initial steps helped us navigate the first months of the pandemic and gain confidence that the foundations of the business remained strong.

Month by month, a pattern was developing as the mitigating actions began to take effect. Reported results were better than expected and each month’s forecast was stronger than the month before. Whilst revenue remained significantly impacted, fresh fee-earning opportunities emerged and a slow recovery commenced.

Aided by delivery of the identified savings in costs and investments, monthly reported profits remained steady throughout the year, to the extent that final figures will be reported at a level very similar to the original, ambitious budget target.

However, profit delivery is only one part of the financial performance.

Profits have always to be converted into cash and this is never so important as in an economic crisis.

So, it is pleasing to note that from a challenging position in March 2020, the firm was able to ringfence sufficient cash reserves, at an early stage in the year, to provide the foundations to move forward confidently. Aided by the tax deferral schemes, and by an internal focus on improving debt collection, our cash position has considerably strengthened during the year. The debtor ageing profile has improved and, of course, with a lower cost base, there has been less outward cashflow to suppliers.

George Simpson

James Rigby

Partner

Consultant Partner

We have prided ourselves since Fisher German’s inception on our continual investment in both our systems and processes, which have enabled us to remain at the forefront of latest technology and client needs. Our ability to do this rests heavily on the financial performance of the business, which has been underpinned by our many years of increasing fee income from a loyal client base and new business, and consistent profits.

The initial shock of the Covid-19 pandemic and the anticipated financial constraints forced us to initially reconsider this approach and to put on hold planned investments. This included the completion of the integration of the Vine businesses, the implementation of key system enhancements in our ERP and time-recording systems, along with a planned strategic reorganisation of our operational activities and financial reporting.

However we quickly recognised that the case for these investments was, if anything, stronger in the face of uncertain economic conditions and as confidence was gained in business performance during the second half of 2020, it became possible to restart the projects that were paused at the start of the pandemic. In the six months prior to 1 April 2021, our finance teams were able to begin work on merging the financial accounts of Vine Property Management with Fisher German and investing in a range of improvements to our ERP system to enable the restructure of our business into divisions.

Going into 2021, these advancements will offer huge benefits to our management information reporting, not least a transition to gross margin as our key reporting mechanism. By reporting on fee income, work in progress and debtors via national divisions, rather than regionally, we put ourselves in a stronger position to recognise trends within the markets in which we operate and respond to these swiftly. We will also be better able to make comparisons between the profitability of various services and set appropriate targets for our continuing growth. In addition, centralising our indirect costs will not only give us more clarity over our activities and internal investments, but bring greater efficiency in managing these costs against budget and forecasting accurately in future years.

The next year will no doubt be an important one for Fisher German as we look to retain the strong levels of profitability achieved in 2020/21 while reinvesting in our office spaces and rebuilding a social culture among our colleagues after more than a year of predominantly home working.

Fisher German welcomes Vine Property Management On 1 April 2021 we concluded the mutually beneficial merger of Fisher German and Vine Property Management by combining our operations and rebranding as Fisher German. The rationale behind the merger was simple: closely aligned values, a shared approach to client experience, great people and the drive for sustainable growth and excellence. As the UK’s leading specialist manager of multi-let commercial property Vine brings a national commercial network and client base to Fisher German, while Fisher German’s longstanding experience in commercial agency and complementary services are certain to be an asset to Vine’s clients.

Initially scheduled for April 2020, the merger was delayed for 12 months due to Covid-19, in order to avoid any additional disruption to our clients and colleagues.

We spent this interim period exploring joint opportunities and new service lines whilst assimilating our business practices. This ensured the smoothest of transitions at the end of the financial year culminating in a virtual event of more than 200 colleagues on 31 March to celebrate the next chapter for both our businesses. We look forward to the exciting opportunities that 2021/22 will bring.

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People

Maria Hawley

Ruth Ofield

HR Director

Partner & Head of Graduate Recruitment

The pandemic created many challenges for our people, but Fisher German has been humbled by the way they have risen to the challenge in support of the business. Like many firms, we made use of the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme early in the pandemic to preserve roles and were able to redeploy colleagues into other areas of the business. Whilst we did lose some positions early in 2020, the second half of the year by contrast has seen us recruit more roles than ever before due to high demand for our services.

As a committed Time to Change employer, our colleagues’ mental health and wellbeing has been at the forefront of our minds throughout the pandemic. Early on we invested in new ways to keep colleagues connected, including monthly live Zoom calls with the leadership team and Business Blend, an internal networking programme which pairs colleagues to ‘meet’ for a virtual coffee.

We also launched a virtual Wellness Wednesday programme including live yoga, guidance for sleeping well, resilience programmes and financial advice.

To thank colleagues for going above and beyond, we sent Christmas hampers and Valentine’s brownies, and closed the business for an additional day over the August Bank Holiday.

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It was our aim that these actions went some way to making home working more bearable. The feedback we’ve received has been phenomenal and our employee net promoter remains consistent with pre-Covid results.

Whilst the pandemic created numerous challenges in graduate recruitment, last year we attended more than 20 virtual recruitment events including presentations about our graduate offering, impression management, CV skills workshops, and technical panel discussions. Following a successful social media campaign, we were blown away with 300+ graduate and 40+ placement applications.

As a proud, people-centric business, we were naturally disappointed to hold our interviews online this year; nonetheless we saw 70 fantastic candidates over six days in January and made offers to 30 graduates and placement students – a record year!

We are also still recruiting graduate roles to support the firm’s relentless growth.

We have invested a lot of time in encouraging applications from more diverse educational backgrounds, across our early careers offering, so we were delighted to receive 600+ applications from a variety of universities for our 2021 summer placement scheme. As I write, we are set to launch our first Insight Programme, designed to introduce students from non-cognate degrees to the world of surveying through a virtual two-week experience.

This year we welcomed early careers talent expert Marie-Ange Ehrhart to the graduate team, along with Ben Minns who is an alumnus of our graduate scheme.

The team has overcome a myriad of challenges during this period and I extend my thanks to them and everyone across the firm who committed a significant amount of time to our early careers offering.

I started with Fisher German in August 2020 and was thrilled to be joining a company whose graduate development programme and emphasis on the individual was renowned. I have certainly experienced this first-hand, being exposed to a wide variety of work within the Commercial sector, primarily valuation, agency and property management. Colleagues have always been supportive, encouraging and happy to help.

The Graduate Team have ensured that graduates have had plenty of opportunities to interact and get to know one another, despite the Covid-19 pandemic. This has included induction and training days, providing a comprehensive overview of the APC, sector updates from colleagues across the business and external speakers. I have thoroughly enjoyed my time at Fisher German so far and I look forward to further developing my career here.

Jonathan Butler, Graduate Surveyor

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Operations

Sarah Hammond,

Stuart Flint,

Chief Technology Officer

Partner

There is always a silver lining to unexpected operational change and while Covid-19 brought its challenges, we also found opportunities to improve our systems along with our colleagues’ and clients’ digital literacy. The strength of our business continuity planning was evident in our ability to get every Fisher German laptop online from remote locations simultaneously – something many businesses failed to achieve. This was due to our ongoing commitment to technology investment including our existing high-performance network and high capacity VPN, ensuring fast, efficient and secure access to our systems and data pre- and post-pandemic.

If ever the operational capabilities of a business were going to be tested, the Covid pandemic enforced measures of 2020/21 were the true test of resilience.

It was so gratifying to see our exceptional response to the challenges of the lockdown periods. We have always prided ourselves on our forward-thinking IT strategies and our depth of annual investment, and never has the reward for this been so evident than the almost instant, seamless mobilisation of our workforce to home working arrangements. As lockdown rules changed a number of times our operational tactics ensured that our infrastructure was Covid-secure and our client service delivery remained safe and uninterrupted.

As an early adopter of MS Teams, we were able to give colleagues immediate access to this worldclass collaboration enterprise, which has become a daily communication tool vital to the smooth operational running of our business. Combining video conferencing, telephony functionality, document collaboration and chat, we have no doubt its ongoing use beyond the Covid-19 pandemic will continue to add value to colleague and client projects alike.

Expediting projects including digital signature and mobile scanning software also removed our reliance on office-based processes that would otherwise have slowed our delivery while working remotely.

Additionally, this will reduce our printing output and improve the client experience for signing documents and contracts.

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Looking ahead, we are excited to continue our digital transformation journey and grow our in-house, expert teams whose capabilities have been critical in the success of this year’s operational achievements.

Looking forwards, there are so many exciting plans I could highlight for 2021/22. Prior to the pandemic, we started a detailed review of our working patterns and occupational needs to create the very best working environments for our colleagues. This year we commissioned a detailed study by a leading consultancy in this field, including in-depth survey and consultations with all our people, and have commenced work to react to these findings.

Our ‘Knowledge Portal’ project also moved to its development phase, with the creation of a ‘systems hub’ to deliver huge efficiencies to the business through enhanced connectivity and with collaboration augmented by a high-performing CRM system.

CASE STUDY

Fisher German extends service offer with E.ON Fisher German & Vine Property Management’s first joint venture as one firm has secured a new contract with long-standing client, E.ON.

Property Management. This includes a keyholding service, onsite security, maintenance, and service charge scheme.

The new instruction won last autumn is to manage the former Drakelow Power Station site near Burton-on-Trent in Staffordshire. The 470-acre site is being promoted as an energy park, with a tenant-led ‘Waste to Energy Scheme’ already under construction.

Senior Associate, Simon Tivey, said: “Bringing Vine Property Management on board has been hugely beneficial to clients looking for a full property management solution. While we have worked with E.ON for many years, our ability to provide a diverse range of services from one supplier has made our offer even more attractive for new instructions. Not only are we able to offer management services, we can also advise on environmental habitat management and are working to regularise wayleaves and easements across the site.”

Fisher German’s rural property management team has been involved in the site for several years, and this remit has now been extended to include a full management of the site with expertise from the commercial property management team at Vine

CASE STUDY

From home sales to home schooling A pioneering scheme initiated by Senior Associate Matthew Davis has raised more than £10,000 for local schools in the last financial year.

Building Communities was launched in 2019 as a way to give back and invest in the local communities in which our residential agency teams operate. Initiated by Fisher German’s Thame office, it has raised thousands of pounds for two local schools, Long Crendon School and Lord Williams’s School, by donating a fixed fee of every local house sale to the nearby schools.

Matthew said: “Building Communities is a really simple scheme but has provided much-needed funding for the two schools. The donations have been able to finance projects the schools don’t receive Government funding for, including new laptops for pupils learning from home during the pandemic, and improved sports and outdoor facilities to benefit children’s health and wellbeing.

We look forward to building on these partnerships in the next year and extending the scheme to more locations.”

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Clients & markets

Jeremy Phillips

Matthew Barker

Business Development Director

Partner

The changing needs of clients in response to the Covid-19 pandemic have driven our strategic approach through this period. Some clients faced adversity through loss of income, although thankfully many of our clients have balanced portfolios with less exposure to the hard-hit retail or leisure markets. It is extremely gratifying to see our teams deliver in this challenging period; whether that is a successful grant application for roof repairs on a historic house via Historic England’s Covid-19 Emergency Response Fund, or an 80%+ quarterly rent collection rate for our commercial property clients.

We are proud to have turned a crisis into a positive commercial year for both ourselves and our clients.

With each lockdown we emerged in a stronger and more agile position, better able to support our clients and their needs, which largely remained constant despite our services often being delivered online.

While some markets have adapted to survive, in other sectors we have seen unprecedented demand for our services and our bid team has never been so busy with new work opportunities.

As we entered the new financial year on 1 April 2020, the number of clients procuring work via formal tender and informal proposal increased two-fold on the prior year with a focus on services that add value, reduce cost and a need for the best technology and innovation. We saw increased activity levels across all property sectors but in particular major infrastructure projects, much of which is being driven by the requirement for carbon neutrality.

We achieved a 53% bid win rate from 45+ submissions in this period, including three successive major new water contracts with Anglian Water, Southern Water and United Utilities.

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Another indicator of buoyant activity levels is the increased use of our website ‘shop window’ throughout the year which saw a 46% increase in blended key activity indicators year on year. Much of this was of course due to forced pandemic driven change in behaviour but it is nonetheless rewarding to see our investment in the site benefiting so many existing and potential buyers of our services.

Communication with our clients remains at the fore in all that we do; in building new and nurturing existing relationships, our drive to reinvigorate verbal communication has been highly valued by our clients.

By really listening to what our existing and potential clients desire, we exceed their expectations in line with our vision, to always add maximum value through understanding, creativity and excellence.

In most markets, we saw an astonishing bounce-back following the first lockdown, particularly in residential and rural markets. Farmland remained largely buoyant, inevitably due in part to capital taxation incentives. The strategic land market saw a slight blip, but developers and land promoters remained committed to gaining positions on sites, with good levels of premiums being paid. While commercial markets at times performed sporadically, we strongly believe stability will undoubtedly resume over time.

New opportunities have emerged including huge legislative changes impacting our clients, from the drive to Net Zero to the phasing out of Basic Payment Schemes and introduction of the Environmental Land Management schemes. Our recent launch of the Green Offset is just one example of the emerging opportunities that we are proud to be at the forefront of.

Finally, as I look out across the fields from my home office and see crops growing by the day, ‘sold’ signs fixed to half-built new homes, and offices being gradually repatriated, I feel therefore we have much to look forward to. All involved in the property sector have a moral duty and obligation to be positive in our outlook for what lies ahead.

CASE STUDY

Three successive water wins for infrastructure team

The Infrastructure Services division has won three successive competitive tenders for water companies to deliver property and surveying services.

Building on an already impressive portfolio of UK water assets, including a long-term relationship with Severn Trent Water, Fisher German has also won contracts with Southern Water, Anglian Water and United Utilities.

For Anglian Water, Fisher German will act as land agents on one of the largest strategic water infrastructure projects the UK has ever seen, delivering services to Anglian’s multi-million pound Totex programme. The five-year contract with Southern Water will see teams manage a property portfolio of c. 7,000 acres in the south east of England, stretching from Kent to Hampshire and the Isle of Wight. Fisher German is also the newest framework supplier to United Utilities, delivering land agency services across the regulated water and waste water network in North West England. This includes Cumbria, Greater Manchester, Lancashire, Merseyside, most of Cheshire and a small area of Derbyshire, which have a combined population of more than seven million people.

Associate Director Rachel Bridge said: “The success our infrastructure team has achieved over the past 12 months in the water industry demonstrates the growing appetite for comprehensive land agency, planning and surveying services that can be completed by a single supplier. With a network of offices across the UK, we are well placed to service these large property portfolios with experts in all areas, including planning, valuations, appraisals, dilapidations, rent reviews, disposals and specialist estate management.”

CASE STUDY

Farm’s hydrogen scheme first of its kind Fisher German has secured planning permission for an innovative new hydrogen energy scheme – the first of its kind in the UK. The project at Featherstone House Farm in Bilsthorpe is a new approach in generating fuel from sustainable and renewable sources, comprising a 1.25 megawatt electrolyser which will use energy from the existing solar farm and wind turbine to turn water into green hydrogen. Once generated, the fuel can be taken offsite for use, or may in future be used by the landowner to power farm vehicles with green fuel.

Partner Sarah DeRenzy-Tomson said: “This is a new area of technology and only a handful of planning applications have been approved for schemes of this nature. The development appears industrial in character which is not normally appropriate in an open countryside setting. However, the merits of locating the facility adjacent to the point at which the electricity was being generated by the solar and wind farm was understood by the local authority.

The district council also recognised the environmental benefits of the scheme as the Government looks to move towards a low carbon future.”

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Pioneering by nature: How LSBUD reached 3m enquiries a year In spite of Covid-19, LinesearchbeforeUdig (LSBUD) has seen another record-breaking year for enquiries. We handled more than 3 million enquiries last year – that’s one every 10 seconds - and gained 11 new members, including Portsmouth Water, Jurassic Fibre, Gas Networks Ireland and SSE Renewables.

Annual LSBUD enquiries 3,000,000

2,000,000

Richard Broome Fisher German Partner and Managing Director, LSBUD

1,000,000

0

2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021

Like most businesses, we saw an inevitable dip in activity in April 2020 as the nation ground to a halt, with all non-essential work being placed on hold. This soon recovered and by May we were seeing above-average enquiries with a total year-on-year increase of 9% on 2019. Although the majority of searches are still from the utility, highways and construction

What is LSBUD? LSBUD is a joint venture between Fisher German and PelicanCorp which was established in 2012. On behalf of its members, LSBUD runs a free enquiry service which anyone can use to identify assets in a location where works might be taking place – from erecting a fence in your garden to rerouting a major pipeline.

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LSBUD’s aims: • T o reduce injuries and deaths due to asset strikes • T o ensure a prompt and accurate response to all enquiries • T o increase members’ knowledge of proposed works near their assets • T o promote LSBUD as a key enquiry service in the UK

sectors, we have seen an increase in public enquiries for home and garden improvement projects which can be jointly attributed to both the home renovation trends influenced by lockdown periods, and our public campaign work to promote safe digging.

Last year we invested in wider-reaching press coverage, including features in Design & Build UK, Health & Safety International, Total Telecom, Highways Today, World Pipelines and the British Safety Council. Our target audience is broad, so we remain committed to adopting new approaches to promote LSBUD wherever it is needed.

Perhaps a silver lining of the pandemic was seeing an increase in local newspapers’ reporting of strikes, as a result of more people working from home. The utility connections serving our homes have never been so important, supporting millions not just working and operating businesses from home but also home schooling.

Although, total strike avoidance in

Average no. enquiries per working day by month 2017

the first place would of course be preferable!

LSBUD has always been pioneering by nature. Starting off as an internal improvement project at Fisher German, we set out to build a database of known assets to reduce damage to our network of pipelines and cables, and therefore reduce the cost for our clients to maintain them. Now 13 years on it is a successful business in its own right, supporting more than 90 members and protecting hundreds of thousands of kilometres of both underground and overhead pipelines and cables.

2018

reaching a global audience and presenting on safety matters as far away as New Zealand. In light of the pandemic, we took National Safe Digging Week online with a social media campaign and collaborated with Linewatch to design a free eLearning course for safe digging accessible to everyone via our website.

Not willing to rest on our laurels, we have also invested in ways we can make LSBUD more accessible with

2019

2020

2021

Looking ahead to 2021/22, we remain committed to promoting the ‘Search Before You Dig’ message in the public forum and attracting more infrastructure and construction firms around the UK to join the largest UK network of searchable assets publicly available. Our new LSBUD Governance Group, made up of members and users, will guide us on current topics and ensure the business continues to act in the best interests of the industry.

With this growth, our mission has expanded to reflect the pivotal role we can play in influencing strike avoidance across the UK. Safety is our number one aim – not only are we in the privileged position to have a substantial impact on reducing injuries and deaths associated with asset strikes; promoting safe digging also benefits everyone involved in the construction process. By avoiding asset strikes, we reduce the cost of maintenance (both to our members and the general public) and reduce downtime on essential utilities like broadband and electricity.

Now in its fourth edition, our annual Digging Up Britain report is widely respected in the sector and often quoted in industry press. Together with our closely aligned work with the Utility Strike Avoidance Group (USAG), including the annual Damage Prevention Conference, we are now

the introduction of Recite Me within our website, aimed at helping the one in five people in the UK who have a disability. The innovative tool enables read aloud throughout our website, allows users to change the font size and colour, can translate text into more than 100 different languages and even comes with a built-in dictionary and thesaurus. We hope this will help even more users to search before they dig.

We estimate that 77% of all excavation work that took place in 2020 was preceded by a search through LSBUD. Our ambition now is to close that gap towards 100% and make searching before digging second nature for all involved in the process.

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fishergerman.co.uk

Head Office

Ivanhoe Office Park, Ivanhoe Park Way, Ashby de la Zouch, LE65 2AB