7:30am EST: Windsor Ballroom, Buckhead Intercontinental, Atlanta. Yay! Three days of mingling with GBH top brass at annual jamboree. Snagged a spot, thanks to Old Tom and Sporty Girl. Wham! Bam! My dynamic duo suckered a Chinese bicycle billionaire into cycling £51m into a tumbleweed resi site in Docklands. Result!
Team P win London Land Deal of the Year. Team leader alone gets to pick up company Oscar. Use points to upgrade to Business Class. Sucked up to boss in Delta’s Heathrow lounge. Worth every Air Mile. Good gossip. He said C&W is trying hard to buy GVA.
Anyway, here I am at 7:30 in the bloody morning slumped beside 1,200 of GBH’s finest. Head Honcho Wilbur Howard Ornstein (the universally feared Dr Who) hands down tablets of PowerPoint stone while we wait to step up and wave our plastic Oscars.
Strip out the corporate BS and Dr Who’s “Vision 2025” grinds down to this: GBH will never be CBRE. Keep stealing their best agents, fed up with bean-counter overview. Ditto C&W, while they are distracted by mopping up mid-rankers. GBH does not want to be JLL.
Biggest laugh came when Dr Who quoted JLL boss Christian Ulbrich’s desire to be a “tech company focused on real estate services”. What does GBH want to be? “A vulture among eagles,” I joked to my boss on the plane on the way home. Jesus! The look he gave me. Days of sucking up gone in a flash. Throw Oscar in bin. Internal awards are rubbish anyway.
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