Sirius Real Estate has appointed industrial property stalwart Ian Watson to the company’s board as an independent non-executive director and a member of the nomination committee, with immediate effect.
Watson co-founded the multi-let industrial property business Ashtenne Holdings with Morgan Jones in 1989 and they floated the business in 1997 on the main market of the London Stock Exchange. Over the next eight years, they built up a portfolio worth around £750m before selling it to Warner Estates and Anglo Irish Bank in 2005.
Watson and Jones subsequently co-founded and floated Hansteen Holdings on the AIM market in 2005 and listed on the main market of the LSE in 2009. They built a portfolio of European industrial properties worth around €2bn, before selling assets in German and the Netherlands for €1.28bn in 2017 and selling the then primarily UK-focused listed business in 2020 for £500m.
Watson said: “Sirius is a business which I have long admired and is one of the most dynamic property companies operating in the industrial and business parks space. The company has an enviable track record of consistently delivering shareholder value through its highly effective platform and has strong ambitions to continue to grow. I am therefore delighted to be joining the board and working with my new colleagues to help them achieve that goal.”
Daniel Kitchen, chair of Sirius Real Estate, added: “I would like to welcome Ian as a non-executive director and am very much looking forward to working with him. Sirius will benefit from his wealth of experience in industrial real estate across the geographies in which we operate, as well as over 30 years’ experience of building and managing two very successful public companies in this sector. His insights will be invaluable as we continue to execute our strategy to grow our portfolios both in Germany and the UK.”
