Irish Estates has a new logo based on the seven geometric pieces of a centuries-old Chinese puzzle. The objective of the puzzle is to fit the pieces together, in order to make a regular shape. The company has even had stylish wooden puzzle sets carved, making it easier to demonstrate the myriad of shapes possible from a single starting point.
All quite apt for a company which has been successfully fitting together the various aspects of property management for 53 years. Now the top player in the business, Irish Estates is developing its facilities management (also known as FM) section in order to fit better with what it sees as the needs of the market-place.
Managing director Larry Kane, with help from newly-appointed head of facilities management, Paul Fitzgerald, explains where the differences lie. "Property management is where you work for the developer or owner," Kane says - "everything from collecting rents to opening the door in the morning to car-parking." Fitzgerald, clarifying, adds: "Maintaining their assets. In facilities management you work for the tenant, taking on all non-business jobs, the housekeeping if you like - seeing to everything from the tea lady to security.
"The aim is to free up the client to get on with the core job of the company. Given the speed of change and level of turmoil in the business world, facility management makes sense. It ensures everyone and everything's looked after in the working environment." But Kane assures that this new concentration does not mean "that the company is in any way minimising the property management sector".
In l980, Kane left a consulting engineering practice and came to Irish Estates, which is wholly owned by Irish Life. Fitzgerald joined in March of this year after time spent with Xerox and Intel. Together, the pair make running the company seem easy.
How big is Irish Estates in terms of the Irish property management business? "The biggest," Kane asserts. " As well as managing 72 per cent of the IFSC, we look after 15 per cent of Dublin's office market, do property management in London for Irish Life and recently got the contract for the management of First Active's branch network throughout the country. In all we manage 18 million square feet - and that's only commercial property. We also manage four million sq ft for the IDA in north Dublin, do some retail in the ILAC Centre and for Irish Life in Talbot Street and quite a bit of industrial stuff."
A look at Irish Estates' client list reveals names such as the Bank of Ireland, A & L Goodbody, Compaq, Dermot Desmond, ESAT Digifone, HM Customs and Excise Northern Ireland, IBEC and Temple Bar Properties.
A question about other players in the market provokes laughter from Kane. "What others?" - the question is not rhetorical. "Some of the agents, people like HOK and Lisney, do some property management but it's more in the nature of an add-on to their real business. They want to be kept in mind by the client when he comes to do a rent review. Rents are good business. Five years ago rental valuation was £14 per sq ft. Today it's £38 per sq ft.
"The vacancy rate in Dublin needs to be between 6 and 8 per cent to allow for movement. It's only about 2 per cent. At the moment, for instance, the IFSC is almost fully let." Then there are the problems presented by UK property mangagement companies, Fitzgerald explains. "A number of them have come and looked at things here but they forget we've a small population, that our entire population is about that of Birmingham."
Kane develops on this theme. "As an Irish company we're huge, but compared to a guy I met last week who runs Canary Wharf, we're small." The man in question had been talking about a four million sq ft letting for a client. "That's four times the size of the IFSC, which is our flagship property management job in Dublin."
A question about what they charge brings more laughter. "Not enough," says Fitzgerald, while Kane's responds that this "depends what services people want. We charge for everything they want done plus put a management fee on top of that. It's all very transparent. We prefer to work on a management fee basis, so as our clients always know what their bill will be at the end of the quarter. We look at each building separately, for its merits and needs. Clients benefit from our bulk buying capacity, which we pass on to them."
Not everything at the company is about making money. A few years ago Irish Estates built a small-scale hospital and shipped it to Ethiopia for relief agency GOAL. It's still in operation, while the container it travelled in acts as a dispensary and waiting room. "Our people have a range of skills - everything from plumbing to wiring," Kane explains. "We used all of our contacts to build and put it together."
Abroad, property management has a touch of futurism about it. In the USA they monitor humidity and temperature by remote control, while robots look after security and more at night. Will such developments come in here? "You'd need a building of half a million square feet to make any of this viable," Kane says, "we're just not big enough."
Facilities management itself is what the duo really want to talk about. "Companies could save themselves time and worry getting in facility management expertise to begin with," says Fitzgerald, "and they know it too. We're working more and more with owners and original design teams. As a general rule functionality and operational ability are not included in design of buildings. There's a tendency to move people in and then see how they work. We see FM as a case of nature and nurture."
What nurtures the two of them? Golf does, it seems, and family life. Larry Kane has three adult children - two daughters in Ireland and a son in Australia. He works endless hours but says he's not alone. "I come in about 7.30 a.m. but I'm not the first. I leave at about 6 p.m. and I'm not the last."
Fitzgerald, who has similar work habits, says it's been total immersion for him since joining Irish Estates. "I play golf and I've got a girl and a boy." His daughter is 13, his son "10 going on 17! I get in here at 7.30 a.m. and try to get out before 5 p.m. - otherwise I don't see the kids."
