Q&A: Chris Harris on launching asset management firm Vedra
Launching your own company is no mean feat. For Chris Harris, the process has been “crazy in a good way”. The former John Lewis property director has set up asset management firm Vedra Real Estate Assets, and plans to bring his unique experience to shopping centres and retail parks.
He began his career at Chesterton International as a retail property agent before moving client-side to work at Blockbuster, Arcadia Group, and most recently, the John Lewis Partnership. His experience is not solely within the property sector, having spent time as operations director for Blockbuster and working in procurement during his time at both Arcadia and John Lewis. During his six year tenure at John Lewis, Harris worked on the ambitious build-to-rent (BTR) partnership with Abrdn, which looks to deliver 10,000 homes over the next decade.
Completely Retail News sat down with Harris to learn all about his new venture:
Tell us about Vedra Real Estate Assets – what strategies or approaches have you implemented to differentiate it from competitors?
“What is unique from our perspective is the retailer background. I, and others but I can’t say who yet, will come with significant retail experience, as well as real estate experience. Having worked for retailers and interacted with a number of asset managers over the last several decades, we can see – from a client’s side – what some of the challenges are in interacting with some of those asset managers.
That will be unique – but we’re also coming with a lot of experience in how to do these things as well.”
What motivated you to make the transition from John Lewis to start your own property company?
“I’ve always wanted to do my own business and I’ve now got the opportunity to do that. It feels like another big jump from working client-side, in-house, to operating your own business.
The other thing is – what I’ve experienced working on the retailer’s side – that you can see that there’s opportunity to do things in retail portfolios. We’ve done BTR, offices and the like. Doing it in our own business is the thing that really motivates me.
It’s just really exciting, talking to people, putting things together, creating opportunities, and it’s just very entrepreneurial and I’m really enjoying that.”
How do you see the property market evolving in the future, and what emerging opportunities do you anticipate to capitalise on?
“Coming into 2023 I think there was an expectation that there was going to be a short, sharp spike in interest rates, […] it was anticipated to go up and then back down very quickly following what was anticipated to happen with inflation.
But clearly as the year’s gone on, that’s changed, and that isn’t going to happen. So lesson there – forecasts aren’t usually right. What has happened is that we’ve seen a lower peak, but likely to be prolonged. Perhaps what I see in that is perhaps a bit of a return in our market to some normality.
My expectation is – come the new year – we’ll start to see a bit more movement again. I think the interesting thing about that is there’s now some value in retail. Partly because we’ve had the shock of online – the shift of retail from physical to online – and I don’t know that that’s at an end, but I think most of the impact of that now is baked into rents and into value.“
What are your long-term goals, and how do you envision Vedra Real Estate Assets shaping the industry?
“I’m really excited about the asset management side because I think we can create value through our knowledge, experience, contacts, et cetera. A lot of asset managers say that but I think we’ve got credibility in this space and I think that uniqueness will actually shine through.
I can see that we will help and support clients on both retail parks and shopping centres. I’m really keen on the right shopping centres because I can see some opportunity there through some diversification and other things that we’ll hopefully be able to bring some experience to.”
With the new year coming up – any big plans for Vedra in 2024?
“We’ve gotta get this company rockin’ and rollin’!
That’s the plan for 2024, I’m excited and hopeful that we’ll be announcing some deals that we’re involved in early in the new year, and we’ll be announcing people joining the business. It’s going to be a very exciting year for us.”
