CoStar Interview: Ryden's managing partner on preparing for expansion a year into landmark Lambert Smith Hampton tie-up

On 4 April 2025, Ryden, one of the most famous independent names in Scottish real estate advisory, announced it was partnering with LSH, better known for its work as a leading adviser south of the border, in a surprise move that saw LSH take an investment stake.

The deal was structured similarly to an investment made around the same time by LSH in Stiles Harold Williams, best known for its advisory work on the south coast of England.

Fresh from a London meeting with leaders at LSH and SHW, Ryden managing partner Alan Gilkison visited CoStar's London office to discuss the journey that led to the landmark transaction as well as how it has been working more than a year on.

He says the Edinburgh-headquartered firm has reported a 7% increase in profit year-on-year and exceeded its internal profit target by 23% during the partnership's first year, adding that this creates the foundations for more expansion across Scotland.

Part of the transaction saw Ryden add 15 LSH professionals to its Scottish offices in Edinburgh, Glasgow and Aberdeen alongside the transfer of its English offices to Lambert Smith Hampton. The combined 130-strong Scottish business has continued to trade as Ryden and remains an independent limited liability partnership. It has 43 partners.

Gilkison, who became managing partner at Ryden in 2022, says the tie-up between the three companies is working very well in practice. He says the deal emerged after a period of head-scratching about the best way forward for Ryden.

"A couple of years ago we were looking at ways to expand. I don't think it would be anything unfamiliar to people in terms of our thinking. We were looking at the top line which was relatively static. It was still growing, but it was pretty flat."

Gilkison jokes that in recent times "flat has been the new up" with Ryden still reporting good performance.

"That was the rough profile and at the same time costs march on and the level of compliance that's required in the property industry and all industries, the amount of regulation grows. So it was just, really, where's this going? How do we push on?"

Gilkison says part of his thinking revolved around how best to reward staff. "Ryden has a kind of characteristic that people, if they join Ryden, tend to stay, they don't tend to leave very much. And, you know, that period of time with people that stay, there was an age profile coming up, and that added to the question where are we going?"

Another decisive area that Gilkison was reviewing was the company's business in England. The partnership was founded in Scotland in 1959 and has been a major player in the country for decades, slowly moving to open operations in the north of England.

"We had been in England for over 25 years. There were a number of opportunities the company was looking at further south after establishing a solid foothold in the north of England.

"London's a difficult beast to crack, and even businesses that have offices in London, it seems to transpire that they do a lot of business everywhere but London. But certainly making money out of London was difficult, and therefore it was a service line that was profitable, but it stayed at quite a small scale.

"So it was a kind of an assessment of where we're going, and we sort of concluded that certainly business in Scotland was still very profitable, and we were still pushing ahead in that market, but we needed to do something in England. And the thought was that some form of acquisition or merger in England was on the cards."

With this in mind, Gilkison says acquisitions are difficult for a limited liability partnership to complete.

"LLPs have to distribute all of their profits every year. You get a range of people at different points in their career. So delivering growth through that route was difficult. You can recruit but it obviously takes a bit of time."

And as Ryden was looking at ways to grow, the business continued to get approaches "all the time", Gilkison says.

"Out of the blue, a former Ryden member of staff who had shifted over to LSH put in a word and said that it may be worth us having a chat. I came down to Wells Street [LSH's London headquarters] for a chat with the full anticipation of rejecting it and heading off to the British Museum to look at some art exhibit or sort of historical artefact and they had done quite a bit of research and came up with a kind of proposal that made a degree of sense."

That was that the LLP would remain independent, with LSH coming in as a corporate partner to assist.

"Very much the message was business as usual. We'll sit in the background, we'll help you out. And at the same time, they were in discussions with Stiles Harold Williams and it was badged up as a kind of tripartite agreement where the three businesses would work together to give a full UK coverage and push forward on that basis."

Gilkison says his partners have been "absolutely true to their word". "The three businesses are absolutely working together and I've just come from a meeting with representatives of the three businesses, comparing notes and experiences and trying to help each other. So that is the format. Ryden remains an independent LLP and headquartered in Scotland, but we now have one of the members as a corporate partner. They have taken a share of the business and with SHW obviously the transactions are very similar."

Gilkison says the LSH Scottish team folding into the Ryden name and brand sees that team consolidated into a single office at 33 Bothwell Street in Glasgow.

"The go-to-market, the messaging, business implementation, etc, all that is via Ryden. So I don't think there was ever any consideration of running two brands. So it's a different model from, say, CBRE or JLL, whereby it's like one brand, one business."

In practice the goal is to open up all of the businesses to shared skillsets and mandates on a national level.

"There are national mandates which LSH has secured, and there's a degree of subcontracting [that] goes on for the element that's in Scotland. It is a given that we still retain offices in Glasgow, Edinburgh and Aberdeen with a full coverage of Scotland, and they can pursue contracts that require that full coverage. Things you would never think about, like the Royal National Lifeboat Institute, we work on that because LSH also operates in Northern Ireland and therefore you can genuinely see we can cover all aspects with our personnel. There's a very strong go-to-market with the different brands."

LSH is owned by residential agency giant Connells and there are clear opportunities here too.

Gikison adds: "Connells via their spread of business in the residential market, have masses of data and one of the areas that we still want to push on is the residential market. We've, over the years, sold huge amounts of land for family housing, which hasn't really got an awful lot of coverage, and perhaps we're not that well known for it, but we still have a lot of land sales, and we've moved into the new living sectors.

"But that's been a struggle over recent years because of the housing bill and various other government actions. Yet it still is a huge part of the UK property market, so we really should have a greater residential exposure. So, I do see great opportunities to make use of data that will be flowing through from Connells and their exposure to the market in terms of residential sales and other information that they gather. I see a transfer of information that would help the business. As part of a bigger group, ultimately, if you see a project that you want to back and you think will be transformational, as an LLP we have found it quite difficult to push forward and come up with structures to do that. It is easier to make the case to make this investment as a larger group."

In terms of wider aspirations, Gilkison says there are a variety of exciting areas to target.

"We all see the way that the property market is shifting and the changes in it, and I think that diversification is required. I'm very keen to secure more regular income, so expanding things such as the management side, the non-transactional bits of the business, really expanding our planning offer, building consultancy, fit-out, interior design, all of those bits that just incrementally push us forward.

"We're still a strong presence in the agency markets. Industrial remains strong. I don't think there's anything further we can do in industrial. We've got a big team. that are really capitalising on the market. The thing that I think we need to do is to work with LSH, who are also a strong team, particularly in the south, and possibly help and bolster things in the middle of the country."

In office agency, the UK remains a challenge, Gilkison says.

"I think we're getting a very good share of the market that is out there. We've got a great team, but we're always looking to bring younger talent into that. So there's lots of fairly mundane, ordinary, incremental ways of pushing the business on. But there are sectors where we've been a bit slow to get involved, such as renewables, given Scotland's potential for renewables, rural land agency and other advice in the renewables market. We are getting involved from a planning perspective and there are a number of projects which are expanding our knowledge and profile on that. But we would look to push forward further services in the renewables market."

Ryden is also becoming more involved in the data centre market, a hot topic in Scotland at the moment as the Scottish government debates a moratorium on new development.

"There's a bit of noise begun to develop in this, which began in the States against data centres. We are speaking to specialists in that market and they would say that there are an awful lot of myths out there about data centres in terms of things like water usage in comparison to other users. I don't think they would deny that they are massive power users. But yes there's a bit of heat coming into that market and I think there needs to be a proper discussion about this. Scotland does have access to a large amount of renewable energy. Scotland does have a relatively low density of population and sites that would be suitable for it. So I think to say no entirely it's possibly misguided, but I support a debate on it."

Gilkison thinks that across the UK more and more regulation is being introduced and "we are becoming very, very slow at implementing things".

"Everyone's crying out for growth, but we're fundamentally becoming quite poor as a nation at actually delivering large infrastructure projects and delivering new industries. We've become very, very cautious."

As part of the group's diversified approach Ryden is considering opening in other parts of Scotland.

"We would look again at our geographical coverage. There's a lot going on around the Inverness area, given renewables and freeports. Things are changing, and the way to generate revenue out of these markets has changed a bit. So, that's something to look at, whether we need a presence elsewhere."

Equally, Gilkison says ,Ryden is focused on providing assistance to LSH in the north of England in whatever format that could take. "You could have a sectoral specialism where the team's based in Edinburgh and they are in the best place to deliver that to clients elsewhere. So I do envisage there'll be a bit of a crossover in the future."

The other key element in Ryden and LSH joining forces was cultural similarities, something Gilkison says has played out.

"You know, you've got to get along with people. I've been struck by a number of similarities. Certainly, absolutely similarities with SHW because they were an LLP partnership and the way they went about business. But LSH as well, although they are a corporate, I wouldn't say they're a corporate-corporate. They do operate to some degree like a big partnership. They've got a lot of great people, very friendly, very welcoming and accommodating. So the culture's a good match. And I sit on the operational board, as does the managing partner for SHW. It's a very collaborative environment. There's a lot of sharing. I've not had a 'could you leave the room, Alan?' yet moment. So there's definitely trust in both directions."

In terms of the changes Gilkison has seen during his real estate career, it is clear the great financial crisis was the outstanding event.

He adds he has learned to look at what's going on and have a level of concern, but not to catastrophise and to focus on the way through it. "The sun does have a remarkable habit of coming up every day."

Gilkison says it is important to take a wider view of the business and the business world.

"You can take a slightly wider approach and help colleagues through it and give them reassurance. In terms of things learned, it is despite challenges that are coming through and concerns around AI and all manner of other issues, property remains a people business, and that is the best thing about property, and it's the relationships with your colleagues and with clients and with people you meet. That's what makes the job enjoyable, is meeting people and working with people.

"And I think AI will have lots of benefits in terms of research and grinding through lots of the data, but you know, I'm pretty hopeful it will throw up the answer or points for consideration that will allow a person to go on and implement it and go and engage with another person to make something happen."

Gilkison says that as a partner in the business it is impossible to not feel a responsibility as a custodian. "You're handing it on to someone else, and therefore, when this opportunity came up, it was a serious amount of soul searching and basically asking that question that, are you acting in the interest of the business?

"And I believe that we did. I think we've started on the road to setting the business up for its next phase and I think it's a good partnership that we've established and that we will be able to deliver growth. But ultimately, I want to improve the business, I want to improve the type of work that we do. I've had the real privilege of working with an early careers group who are just a real kind of positive thing for the business and we get a great deal out of speaking to them and it's taking responsibility for creating careers and opportunities for them such that we continue to have a business that people see their careers with and stay with [us]. We've got a lot of people that have been with Ryden a long time and that is becoming more unusual, I think."