Richard Peskin, one of the property industry’s grandees, is to step down as chairman of Great Portland Estates (GPE) next year after 41 years with the West End landowner. His annual contract will not be renewed when it expires next March, marking the end of a lifelong involvement with the company that he inherited from a family friend.

Basil Samuel, the founder of Great Portland, left Basil & Howard Samuel to Mr Peskin in his will, drawn up in 1983. The management company looked after all of Great Portland’s properties, which contains a lot of the estate developed by the Dukes of Portland.

The Peskin-Samuel link goes back to the day that Mr Peskin’s parents married, which was also the wedding day of Basil Samuel and his first wife. The couples met on their honeymoon and were to become lifelong friends.

Mr Peskin was offered a job by Basil Samuel when he left Cambridge and joined the company in 1967.

He was groomed to succeed Mr Samuel, which he did in February 1986. The tycoon treated Mr Peskin like the son he never had and favoured him over his daughters in his will.

The first two bequests were to him: the gift of Basil & Howard Samuel and the waiving of outstanding loans periodically made to Peskin.

The unusual arrangement, through which GPE was managed, was brought to an end in 1993 as it breached corporate governance rules.

Mr Peskin was forced to abandon the controversial arrangement by which he was paid - through the management company that was wholly owned by him, for looking after all of Great Portland's properties.

When Mr Peskin stepped down from the role of chief executive in 2002, Toby Courtauld, one of the FTSE 250’s youngest chief executives, took over the reins.

Since 2000, the company has been rationalising its portfolio, with the aim of selling all of its nonLondon properties and returning cash to shareholders. This month, the company was named property company of the year and the latest valuation of its estate puts the net asset value of the company at £1.7 billion, down 4.1 per cent on the previous year.

The firm is thought to be much better insulated from the economic meltdown that is hitting other commercial property companies because it operates only in prime Central London locations. About 80 per cent of its assets are located around Oxford Street.

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