Commercial property can help guide organisations through the Brexit maze

Corporate real estate (CRE) executives are ideally suited to guiding their corporations through Brexit, the 2016 vote by the United Kingdom to exit the European Union, according to a White Paper (registration needed) authored by René Buck, founder and CEO of Buck Consultants International, published to coincide with this week’s CoreNet Global Summit in London. Buck lays out several ways that corporate real estate executives can contribute to a robust Brexit strategy for their companies in the paper.

“Precisely how and when the United Kingdom will no longer be a member of the current EU-28 is still very unclear. It causes uncertainty for a lot of British companies but also for the thousands of American, Asian and European firms which have operations in the United Kingdom,” said René Buck. “European headquarters of US and Asian companies will reconsider the UK as the base for their regional headquarters for the simple reason that it would make sense to have their European activities inside the EU and not outside the single market.”

Buck identifies three steps to developing a robust Brexit Contingency Plan, and the key roles that CRE can play in each:

Brexit Impact Assessment

– Supplying accurate and actual information about size and quality of current real estate in the UK, leases, expiration dates, and other details to corporate working groups facing Brexit challenges.

European Footprint Scenarios

– Actively contributing to European Footprint Scenarios with analyses about opportunities and risks of various scenarios and locational strategies.

• Location Strategy Development and Implementation

– Co-leading with business operations the location search process, ensuring that all relevant information for a comprehensive, unbiased business case is available.

“With their extensive knowledge of opportunities and risks of various locational scenarios, corporate real estate executives should play an active role within their corporations by combining strategic insights with an operations perspective and by delivering well-thought location alternatives if necessary,” Buck said.