CASE STUDY: Strengthening Waypoint Asset Management’s property management through strategic retendering
WHAT: A strategic review and retendering process to assess and improve third-party property management arrangements across two distinct retail portfolios
WHY: To consolidate management, address service shortcomings, and ensure fees remained competitive within the market
WHEN: 2015–2016
A specialist in retail property investment advice
Waypoint Asset Management is a UK-based real estate advisor and co-investor operating across the UK and mainland Europe. While historically focused on retail, Waypoint now applies its investment expertise across a broader range of traditional and alternative property sectors.
In 2015, Waypoint launched a new investment platform in partnership with New Frontier Properties, targeting large-scale retail assets such as shopping centres. The move prompted a strategic review of the property management arrangements in place and led to a decision to retender for external property management services.
Reassessing the management landscape
Waypoint's decision to initiate a retender process was driven by three main factors.
“Firstly, we were not happy with the performance of the existing managing agent,” explains Chris Moulden, Director, Waypoint Asset Management. “We had been with them for over a decade and felt that their performance was declining, particularly with regards to their accounting services.”
“Secondly, we had picked up incumbent managing agents when we acquired new shopping centres, so wanted to consolidate the management. Thirdly, we wanted to make sure that the fees we were paying were still at the market rate as we had not retendered for a while.”
Appointing Remit to lead the process
Waypoint brought in Remit Consulting to bring structure, insight and capacity to the process.
“Remit has a good overview of the property management market and understand what managing agents are required to do,” says Chris. “Also, we did not have sufficient resourcing internally to liaise with multiple managing agents and pull the specification together. If we had carried out the tendering ourselves it would probably have been slightly more disorganised! We wanted Remit to bring some organisation to the process for us.”
Remit’s brief included:
Reviewing the property management market
Developing refreshed and detailed specifications for third-party services
Managing the tendering process
Undertaking a comparative analysis of submissions
Two portfolios, two specifications
Waypoint’s property assets were divided into two distinct portfolios: larger shopping centres and smaller local retail sites. These had differing management requirements, meaning a one-size-fits-all approach would not suffice.
Remit developed two comprehensive service specifications to reflect the different operational demands of the portfolios and initiated separate tenders for each.
“The specifications were very comprehensive,” says Chris. “They ran to about 60 pages and covered everything we needed an external property managing agent to do, from accounting and health and safety to tenant liaison.”
He adds: “Before, our managing contracts were vague, and while they set out the services to provide, they did not specify the level of performance we expected in terms of KPIs and SLAs. The process that Remit managed took our definitions a stage further. A great part of the value we derived lies in having gone through the process of creating the specifications, because it made us look at every area in detail.”
Managing the tenders
With detailed specifications in place, the next step involved pulling together asset information and launching two parallel tenders—one for shopping centres and one for local retail properties. Some agents were invited to tender for one or both, depending on their specialisms.
Following a structured longlisting and shortlisting process, four agents were invited to submit full proposals. Remit provided Waypoint with side-by-side comparisons of each submission, enabling a clear evaluation process.
“Remit guided us throughout the entire process,” Chris comments. “They acted as the front line for dealing with agents, which made it easier for us to stand back and be objective about what each agent could deliver.”
A surprising outcome
Despite expectations of a change, the result of the retender was a renewed partnership with the incumbent property manager.
“When it came to making the decision, it was down to us,” says Chris. “In fact, we ended up retaining our incumbent managing agent. The process showed us that there was no real variance in fees, and some of the agents were larger organisations, so we would have been a relatively small client for them and might not have got such good service.”
The six-month process proved to be a catalyst for positive change. The incumbent agent responded proactively, addressing accounting issues and improving overall service delivery.
A dual-purpose exercise
Reflecting on the experience, Chris highlights the broader organisational benefits of the process.
“I would definitely recommend Remit to other client-side organisations. A tender exercise has a lot more to it than you might envisage, and Remit brings organisation and structure to the whole process.”
“As much as it is about tendering and finding a suitable managing agent, it is also about forcing you to look at your own internal systems. If you are thinking of carrying out a similar exercise, I would recommend that you do not look at it simply as finding a new managing agent. It is a dual-purpose exercise. It is a really good way to review your own internal systems as well as what you require externally. You can get a lot more out of this kind of process than you initially expect.”
For further information, please contact Andrew Waller.