Stephen Down

Background

About Stephen Down

I am one of Central London's most experienced Commercial Investment advisors in the market with over 40 years of transaction activity in the Capital. My current responsibilities include running one of the largest and most successful Investment teams in the market place and I am an executive director and Chairman of the Central London Capital Markets and Agency Division at Savills Plc. I started my career in the late 1970s working in the management team of a niche West End agency, DE & J Levy, with specific focus on two London estates in the West End and Kings Cross. I subsequently left to complete a full time degree in Urban Estate Management at Westminster University and three years later joined Debenham Tewson Chinnocks (Cushman and Wakefield) where I worked within the asset management department with specific responsibility for the extensive Mayfair estate then owned by the BP Pension Fund. After moving to the City I was recruited into the investment team at Richard Ellis (CBRE). After qualifying as a General Practice chartered surveyor several years later I left Richard Ellis for Savills where I led a small team acting for UK funds plus Japanese and Swedish investors active in the London market. A subsequent move to the investment advisors Wright Oliphant led to a role as Managing Director of a niche advisory business in Tokyo, Japan at Hambros Bank when Wright Oliphant was bought by the Hambros group. When in Japan I acted as advisor to a wide range of Japanese investors seeking advice on assets owned in Central London. Whilst in Japan I learned the language and become conversant with the unique business culture that continues to assist me today in my dealings with an extensive Japanese clientele. I returned to the the UK and the City of London as an investment specialist in 1993 and worked for Colliers before being recruited by Richard Ellis again in the late 1990s to run their City investment team. In 2003 I decided to set up a new niche advisory business with two other colleagues called Hargreaves Goswell Down which was backed by one of Sweden's wealthiest families. A few years later I took over the company and renamed it Gresham Down Capital Partners and then in 2012 I sold the business to Savills Plc. As Chairman of the Central London and International Investment Division at Savills Plc I retain oversight on the future strategy of the division as well as day to day responsibility for maintaining high level client contact and working on major investment and development projects.