Humble And Still The Best Annabel Harrison meets Charles Curran of Conster Capital Ventures, the new owner of Maskells, to talk about the company’s traditional values and being ahead of the game Conster Capital Ventures (CCV), a private investment company based in London, has recently purchased Maskells, a top-end estate agent specialising in the sale and lettings of high value properties in Kensington, Chelsea, Belgravia and Knightsbridge. Maskells was established in 1965 by Tim Maskell and has since built up a strong reputation in the surrounding area for providing a bespoke service and having excellent local knowledge. Managing director Stephen Copeman will stay with the company, having been at Maskells since 1970. Can you tell me about your own background, Charles? I was an investment bank bond salesman dealing in mortgage backed securities and structured credit, so I’ve come across a reasonable amount of property-related information over the last 15 years. I resigned from my last position because I wanted to spend more time with my family. I started running a small bank fund and hired a room in the Maskells office. I listened to what they were doing and I believed they could do both with a capital injection and some reorganisation. My investment company made an offer to buy the company which completed on 20 March. What new facets of the business can existing Maskells clients expect? We are taking the company back to its roots. Tim set up the firm with a view that the individual, and not just the transaction, was key to success and I believe that this facet has been lost somewhat by the industry. This view is shared by our staff who see Maskells as a family: each hire is vetted by the existing team so that we know that the members get on well with each other in and out of the office. This breeds the ‘Can-Do’ attitude we’re looking for. One of our key new facets to the business is the introduction of a bespoke, customer focused Lettings and Property Management department to help make Maskells a one stop shop for our existing and future clients. This is a fresh, ground-up department where everything has been designed around the Maskells ethos of providing the very best client service; it is a real custom-made operation. The lettings team is managed by Peter Hermon-Taylor who is an equity stakeholder, has more than ten years’ experience in the lettings business and is at the forefront of providing the Maskells experience to our customers. To bring it all together we have set up, independent from Maskells, a home focused luxury lifestyle company called White Circle Collection. We found that, as an estate agency, once you’ve completed a transaction, be it a sale or a letting, you have very little customer contact. So how do we maintain customer loyalty and continue the high service experience that we can offer through our firms? We felt that having a high end property focused luxury lifestyle business was a very good way of taking care of customers,
including foreigners relocating to London, who buy properties as homes but don’t necessarily want to manage them. However, White Circle Collection is not married to Maskells and the team already has its own customer base. Amelia Griffiths, who also set up Quintessentially Home, is co-owner and manages the firm: if a French family, for example, buys a property, White Circle Collection can organise their move, introduce the children to schools and integrate the family, and particularly the non-working partner, into the local area so that he or she can start building a social life. If you don’t know anybody it’s very hard to fit in. We can help with that process and make the whole transition much smoother. Can foreign customers speak to you in their own language? Yes, we speak multiple languages here within the Maskells family including French, Spanish, German, Dutch, Cantonese and Mandarin. What’s the idea behind the popular Hometel offering from White Circle Collection? You call us from JFK and say “I’m landing in 7 hours”. We mobilise and turn your London home into The Dorchester, put your favourite foods in the fridge, get everything ready, then you arrive and the home is immaculate. If you wanted a reservation for dinner we’d have a table booked and after you fly out, we make the house ready for your next arrival. We also look after the property while you’re not here so you don’t spend your time dealing with plumbers etc. So it’s literally what we call the home hotel, the Hometel. The great thing is that there’s no membership fee; you can pay by the hour and blocks of hours are cheaper. How has Maskells changed over the past few decades and what changes have you made since Conster Capital Ventures bought the company? Maskells is one of oldest independent firms within the Royal Borough. It has maintained a traditional, first class way of dealing with property that is very much relationship driven. When CCV bought the company it was very important to me that we maintain this ethos. Whilst renovating and increasing our internet presence, we’ve looked at other things we can do: for example, making much more use of the media, local charity sponsorship and even using our premises as a pop-up art gallery in the upcoming Brompton Design District Fair. We have also hired a professional communications company to manage this process for us. The key to our success, however, remains our personal connections and relationships and our ethos of being efficient, effective, reliable and, most importantly, humble. What was the thinking behind the office redesign and redecoration? We wanted to make it feel much more homely, but at the same time bigger. The idea is that you walk in and you’re not faced with a reception desk blocking you from the team. The concept is one of a sitting room where people can feel comfortable and have a chat.