Bridging the investment gap

Rory Mepham, CEO, Newbridge: Historically we have been buying smaller scale retail parks which, with plots in the EUR 5–15 mln range, don’t tend to generate much press. Now that we have bought a bigger portfolio we are hoping that this has gone some way towards changing the perception of us – we are certainly getting phone calls from new people. It was a deliberate decision not to do much marketing until we had actually done a few deals – so the time has come to raise our profile a bit. You established Newbridge in 2015 and now UK-based Somerston Group is your main investor. Why did you get together with this company? I managed to get the Somerston Group onside very quickly, and they became our investor. The Somerston Group are essentially a large family investment business, originally based in Newcastle and focused on the shipping industry. In the last 50 years the group have been diversifying their investment– into such areas as real estate, for exampl