Off to lunch with the king of trophy home sales – if anyone will know if this
downturn has ended, it’s Trevor Abrahmsohn. His business, Glentree Estates,
sells more multi-million-pound houses to the super rich in London than just
about any other firm. And if the whispers are right, the past 12 months have
been tough.
But hey, he’s buying me lunch, so things may be looking up. “Yup, the pipeline
is filling at the moment,” says Abrahmsohn, tucking his napkin into his
collar, as if ready for a feast. “There is some beautiful trophy stuff I am
very hopeful about.”
We are sitting in Mosimann’s, the Chelsea restaurant, at a private table near
the kitchen. Abrahmsohn looks as sleek as a seal, sporting extravagantly
bouffant grey hair. He insists I have the mushroom risotto, then worries
whether the fish cakes to follow will be fattening. In the end, he succumbs.
Before the crunch, Glentree was selling more than £400m of property a year,
making 2%-3% commission on sales, with just 25 employees. Then the recession
bit. For a period, buyers disappeared.
“The last year will be our worst since 1992,” says Abrahmsohn, with his faint
South African accent. “We’ve been hit hard. But I don’t think the property
market has much further to fall, 2%-3% at most. It will plateau and soon we
will see growth coming back again.” And the effect at the top end of the
market? “Well, a lot of properties sit on our books, or we let them out,” he
shrugs. “There’s no question that a number of our buyers have been injured
in the crunch. Even if they could afford these properties, they haven’t felt
as wealthy. But that is changing.”
What was the value of the biggest property he sold before the downturn? “About
£50m,” he says. “In fact, there have been a few. And there is one that would
trump everything else, but I can’t talk about it. I would have to shoot
myself and you would have to stand behind me so we can save on the bullets.”
He laughs gently. Abrahmsohn, 54, is a non-stop chatterer, used to winning
over difficult men with persistent flattery, but also, when he needs to be,
the soul of discretion. Born in Johannesburg, trained as a dentist in
London, he deserted his fellow students at Guy’s Hospital when he doubted
his vocation, and ended up selling property in St John’s Wood, north London,
for a schoolfriend’s parent. He later made nearby Hampstead his patch.
Thirty years on, few houses shift in the billionaire roads round Hampstead and
Highgate without Glentree. “We have the biggest selection of trophy homes in
the capital,” he says confidently.
The surprise is that Abrahmsohn has never moved beyond that parish. Despite
deals like the £50m sale of Hampstead’s Toprak Mansion to the Khazhak
billionairess Horelma Peramam last year, Glentree rarely challenges “the
bluebloods” – Abrahmsohn’s term for agents like Savills and Hamptons who
rule London’s other wealthy hotspots. Why’s that?
“Better to know a lot about a little – it’s the story of my life,” he says,
surveying the wine list. “For instance, I know a bit about bordeaux, not
about other wine.” Then he asks what I like and selects an Italian gavi.
He’s always anxious to please.
Despite the tight focus, Glentree’s grip on addresses like Winnington Road and
The Bishops Avenue gives it access to the elite of Britain’s business
community. Lakshmi Mittal, the steel billionaire, Sir Martin Sorrell, WPP
chief executive, Richard Caring, clothing tycoon, Richard Desmond, media
owner, and Alisher Usmanov, the Russian mogul, are all former clients.
So are several Middle Eastern families, various international presidents, Joan
Collins and Lulu, too. Mikhail Gorbachev was guest of honour at last year’s
party to celebrate Glentree’s 32 years in business. Surely, the former
Russian leader is not moving in? No, says Abrahmsohn sheepishly. Gorbachev’s
attendance was bought with a large donation to charity. Abrahmsohn is simply
a fan.
“Perhaps I am too flamboyant for British understatedness,” he sighs.
More likely he knows the value of good publicity. Now he thinks the expansion
of Glentree might be in order again. “I have a vision of a collaboration
between middle-to-upmarket agencies across London,” he says. “The
entrepreneurs would be heavily staked, no three-year earn-outs – the whole
idea is that they should believe in the cause.”
A partnership? A floated firm? He is not specific. When? He smiles. “When the
market is right.”
And that will be soon. “Don’t forget, why does an oligarch buy a place in
London? The answer is a mix: it’s a happening place, a centre of excellence,
somewhere to educate the children, a great investment. Those good solid
reasons are still here.”
But maybe he is just talking up the market? No, he says, it applies to
everyone, not just oligarchs. Now is the time that affluent parents should
help their children buy flats. Prices down 30%, cheaper mortgages, bottom of
the market possibly reached . . .
Abrahmsohn did have bigger ambitions before. He and others built Glentree into
a listed property group 20 years ago, renamed Union Square, with insurance
and development divisions bolted on. Then the 1987 crash knocked it
sideways. He bought his agency out of the group in 1992, and returned to his
old patch to lick his wounds.
He has since developed a style more akin to merchant banking than estate
agency. He mainly represents sellers, “placing” property with likely buyers
selected from his Rolodex of the rich.
His own reputation is key. Property veteran Gerald Ronson, an old friend, says
Abrahmsohn usually gets the prices he promises – and that brings sellers
back.
“Yeah, Trevor can be irritating some times,” says Ronson. “He doesn’t listen
and he’s like a dog with a bone, but he’s been very clever.”
So clever that his staff-to-revenue ratio and his ownership of Glentree – one
other director has a stake – must make him a wealthy man. How wealthy?
Abrahmsohn waves that away, before finishing his fish cakes and ordering a
pot of breakfast tea. He never eats pudding. “Dentistry put me off sweet
things,” he smiles.
Why did he switch careers? Because he discovered he loved selling big houses,
he says. And after leaving dentistry, he had a point to prove.
His father was a dentist, his elder brother too. His mother worked as a
beautician. They had left South Africa to escape its apartheid regime when
he was seven, and had an immigrant family’s determination to make something
of themselves.
His early experience of English boarding school was not good, however. “I was
South African and Jewish – two reasons for everyone to hate you.” He only
recovered his confidence working in business.
“And when you sell some of the most notable property, and watch London become
the capital of capitals, it’s a thrill. But it’s complex – it’s chess not
draughts.”
Because the rich and powerful are difficult? Not always, he says, but because
there can be frictions, especially when business egos collide. His job is to
smooth the way like a diplomat, gently leading the participants to “fusion”.
He says he avoids heavy selling, preferring to stoke businessmen’s ambitions
with lines like “it’s time you had a grown-up property”.
Those who have felt the Abrahmsohn touch say he is a deft persuader. “It’s a
unique style, he sort of creeps up on you,” says Richard Caring, who bought
the palatial Spaniards Field through Glentree in 2000 for an undisclosed
sum. “It’s very much about relationships. He knows his marketplace well. He
gives you a lot of confidence, and he sticks to what he knows.”
Abrahmsohn also never allows the subjective to block a deal. Bad-taste décor?
“I screen it out,” laughs Abrahmsohn. Likewise people. “You can’t be at the
cutting edge in trophy homes and moralise against people.”
That sounds glib. However, he knows his Rolodex would thin if clients felt he
had crossed a line. As one tycoon warns: “If Trevor put President Mugabe
next to me, he’d swiftly lose my custom.”
Anyway, says Abrahmsohn, this recession has a way to run, but the property
market will recover. “Every time we are in the depths of despair, people
always have doubts. At the end of the 1980s, they said ‘you’ll never see
that greed again’. But it came back in spades.”
Does he ever wish he had done more development, and less selling? “Nah, it’s
another business – not easy.” He’s not a risk-taker, then. “You’re closer to
a psychologist than a journalist, aren’t you?” he answers, studying the
bill.
Maybe he is closer to a psychologist than an estate agent, too. He laughs
again. Or a West End hairdresser. Don’t worry – he’d like the joke. Clever
Trevor.
The life of Trevor Abrahmsohn
VITAL STATISTICS
Born: July 27, 1954
Marital status: married, two children
School: The Quintin School, St John’s Wood
University: Guy’s Hospital school of dentistry, London
First job: junior estate agent at Gilland & Co
Salary: £150,000. He also owns the majority of shares in the privately-owned
Glentree Estates but did not take a dividend last year
Home: Hampstead, north London
Car: silver Smart Brabus
Music: Claire de Lune, by Debussy
Film: Midnight Express
Book: Animal Farm, by George Orwell
Gadget: “Can I have two? My trusty Psion and my golf GPS ballfinder.”
Last holiday: Palm Beach, Florida
WORKING DAY
THE managing director of Glentree Estates wakes at his large home in
Hampstead, north London, at 7.30am. “I make a few calls to overseas clients
before I leave,” says Trevor Abrahmsohn. He then drives to Glentree’s base
in Finchley Road before 9am.
“We’ve just spent £750,000 on our HQ. It’s state of the art. It won’t help us
sell a single extra property but the staff deserve it.”
Abrahmsohn will focus more on customers than property. “I deal with specific
clients. At ‘fusion’ – when a deal is struck – is where I can make a
difference. I am always there for that.”
He finishes by 8.30pm and makes the short drive home. His wife Lisa runs her
own firm, Trellis Jewellery. “She often says I could be a minicab driver for
all she knows, as I never discuss business at home.”
DOWNTIME
“I AM a passionate golfer, handicap of 18, aspiring 14, and on Sundays, I am
proud to say, I always play with my 80-year-old mother.” He also jogs. “I am
The Thing on Hampstead Heath; I look like I’ve beamed down from Planet
Drongo when I’m running.” He has done three marathons so far, with a best
time of 4 hours 19 minutes. He says he has few extravagances apart from his
house. “I live in a very fine home. I couldn’t tell you what it’s worth but
it is my sanctuary.”
