Simon Knights, one of the London West End’s most prominent office advisers, has joined boutique real estate advisory firm EiA Real Estate, CoStar News can reveal.
Following a 43-year career leading the West End office teams at Strutt & Parker and BNP Paribas Real Estate, Knights will now provide strategic, bespoke counsel to a select portfolio of private real estate clients.
EIA said the move strengthens its core focus on high-value central London assets.
Headquartered in Mayfair, the boutique firm manages instructions across key locations like One Curzon Street, Berkeley Square House, 33 Cavendish Square, 7 Old Park Lane and 50 Stratton Street.
The group said the appointment marks a shift from corporate agency leadership to a "highly specialised, entrepreneurial advisory role" alongside Maxim Vane Percy, Alex Kirk and the EiA team.
Vane Percy said in a statement: "We are thrilled to welcome Simon to the team. His track record in the West End is unmatched, and his deep understanding of high-value real estate will be invaluable to our private clients who require discreet, expert guidance."
Simon Knights added: “Property came into my life at the age of eight, accompanying my father on a viewing, and it has never left it. I am immensely proud of what I have achieved over the last 43 years in the London West End – the toughest, most aggressive, and highest-value market in the world. I have worked hard, brought in high-profile global clients, negotiated eye-watering rents and gone toe-to-toe with the sharpest brokers in the business.
"But I have always believed in a fuller life. Alongside the day job, setting up the Microscope Ball for Muscular Dystrophy – which 40 years later has raised over £3 million net – remains a proud achievement. Joining Maxim and the team at EiA allows me to ignore the corporate script and focus entirely on what I love: providing adventurous, uncompromised real estate advice to private clients. Life is not about arriving safely; it is about skidding in broadsides, thoroughly used up, with a smile on your face.”
Vane Percy, a former partner in Montagu Evans' West End leasing team, and Alex Kirk, a former associate, set up EiA Real Estate in 2022, focusing particularly on prime assets in London's Mayfair and St James’s. They recruited Gavin Brent and Mathew Jackson, two experienced and well-known practitioners in the fields of hospitality and lease advisory respectively in 2023.