- Historic Cambridge-based property consultancy announces plan to double the size of its business by 2030.
- Bidwells aims to grow size and scope of its operations through expansion into different sectors and regions of the UK.
- Firm is looking to hire an additional 200-250 people over the next six years and inject a significant amount of capital to fund expansion.
- Focus will be on high-value markets – such as science and technology, operational living, natural capital, and renewable energy - in both new and existing locations.
Bidwells plans to hire an additional 200-250 people and inject significant investment into the business over the next six years. These funds will be used to diversify and deepen the firms service offering in sectors and regions in which it is already well-established, such as science and technology and the Oxford-Cambridge Arc. They will also be utilised to expand its provision in other high-value sectors such as natural capital, renewable energy, and operational living across the country.
Last month the firm announced the hire of BTR veteran Iain Murray and his former team at operational living agency Cortland Consult to kickstart its sector offering. The newly established division will be national in scope and offer a range of operational living consultancy services, from capital markets, fundraising support, and deal sourcing to development and project management, planning, and operations.
The firm also sees ample opportunity to expand in the renewable energy and natural capital markets - areas in which it already has an established presence. Bidwells’ Energy & Renewables team already has been involved in some the biggest energy projects in Scotland and Wales, and the firm intends to further build out this offering across the UK to tap into the worldwide growing demand for green energy. This will entail further investment into employees, new talent, and technology to deepen its capabilities across grid infrastructure, battery storage, and wind and solar power.
In natural capital, the firm will broaden its scope across the forestry, agriculture, and carbon sequestration markets as investors increasingly look towards the inflation-hedging characteristics of natural capital investment.
Sustainability will form a key facet of the firm’s growth plans – it recently announced that it achieved B Corp certification.
Nick Pettit, Senior Partner, Bidwells, said:
“We believe that now is the time to be ambitious as a business that has been historically unafraid of venturing into new and exciting areas. We helped to establish Europe’s first science park - Cambridge Science Park - in the 1970s.
More recently, we have invested heavily to double the size of our Energy & Renewables team over last two years to create one of the industry’s most sophisticated service offerings.
As such, this marks an exciting expansion into both new and existing areas for our business and will ensure we are well primed to capture growth in the built environment’s most high-value markets.”
Kelly Bream, COO, Bidwells, said:
“This is a new chapter for Bidwells as we seek to diversify and deepen our service offering across existing and new areas of the business. It is an ambitious but considered expansion, and one that taps into markets in the real assets landscape that offer the highest potential for upside for both the partnership and its clients. Our expansion into the operational living markets represents our conviction in the long-term structural and demographic tailwinds driving investor interest in the sector and will play a vital role in our growth strategy going forward.
As a certified B Corp, sustainability will be integrated into every facet of this growth and our operations as a business more generally. We believe that this is not only the right thing to do but will pay significant dividends for Bidwells in a commercial sense as well."
