FIRST Pacific Davies (FPD) in June restructured its operations in a bid to cut its heavy reliance on the property market. It established a new holding company, First Pacific Davies Holdings, which was organised to manage two separate streams of business: integrated property services and integrated business services.
Integrated business services, which includes transport and security through its 93-per cent controlled firm FPD Guardforce, now accounts for 75 per cent of its earnings.
In carving out an international name for itself, the real estate and services group, a unit of locally listed First Pacific Co, is going back to its property roots. Last month, it paid GBP17 million (about HK$212.45 million) for a 20 per cent stake in British company Savills, its first real-estate foothold outside Asia and Australia.
'It is increasingly important to have representation in other major markets,' First Pacific Davies Holdings managing director Godfrey Blott said. 'Many of our clients are multinational, so we felt we needed to be exposed to Europe and the US.' Besides giving it access to the British markets, the purchase also allows FPD to capitalise on the huge Asian interest in buying London real estate.
Overseas buyers, many from Hong Kong, credited with helping to lift the London property market out of a recession in the early 1990s, account for about 50 per cent of Savills' London business.
FPD is planning with Savills to buy an estate agency in the US.