Humility is not a word one would naturally associate with modern professional rugby. Admittedly, rugby has historically been viewed as something of a gentleman’s sport compared with its nearest sibling, soccer, but modern players bathe in the limelight their aptitude with a rugby ball affords. Yet, humility and modesty are two defining characteristics of Lions legend and commercial property consultant, Fergus Slattery.
As initial introductions flow in the lobby of Dublin’s Conrad hotel over camomile tea, I am immediately struck by Slattery’s serene disposition. As he speaks in hushed tones, I order him a latte before getting down to business.
Slattery is most famous for representing Ireland as flanker in a career spanning 14 years from 1970, during which time he earned 61 caps, 18 as captain, and scored three tries. In 1974 he was a member of the British and Irish Lions squad that was known as The Invincibles, playing in all four tests and captaining the side for two provincial matches. He was also sporting the captain’s armband for the most successful Irish touring side ever in 1979, which won seven of its eight matches in Australia. Slattery’s contribution to the sport was recognised in 2007 when he was inducted into the International Rugby Hall of Fame.
International rugby players of today’s ilk can be found partying in the most exclusive, and expensive, London nightclubs, living in the most salubrious of surroundings and sporting car collections Bernie Ecclestone would be proud of. But back in Slattery’s glory days, rugby was still an amateur sport and most players had day jobs to support themselves. Slattery was no exception. After graduating from University College Dublin in 1970, Slattery began working in commercial property consultancy, an area in which he has remained ever since, while simultaneously completing training and tours for his national rugby team.
“The problem was, as amateurs, when you went on a Lions tour, you were away for three and a half months and you didn’t get paid. Some people paid you and other people didn’t,” he explains matter-of-factly. Time pressures were also an issue, although by all accounts, Slattery took it in his stride. “You just did it; you worked around it. All the training was done in the evenings, playing was always at the weekends so it didn’t really interfere with your day job.”
Although upon first glance, rugby and commercial property are worlds apart, there are clear parallels between the sports field and the boardroom, says Slattery. “The skills you need in business and in sport are the same. Having a team of people where all of the ideals and objectives are the same is crucial. They also both require the need to adapt, change and improve and to bring new ideas to the table,” he explains. “Rugby has all the parallels of business – the skills you need to succeed in business you need to succeed in sport and vice versa.”
Away from the rugby field, the flanker formed a reputation as a learned expert in commercial property consultancy, covering remits such as commercial and industrial property acquisition and a whole range of professional services. While his rugby career rarely interrupted his property work, Slattery has often found his workload shifted in direction depending on market conditions.
“There are any number of tracks in property, what I call business lines, and what I would always have done is jumped off the lines that are becoming redundant and gone on to lines where there was life or there was business,” he explains quietly. “For instance, in a depression or a recession, I would have gone straight into insolvency. That’s a big business when markets are down and we’re in a recession. A lot of that would be on the industrial side, plant, all that kind of stuff.”
“In the good times everything works – retail, industrial and investment. It’s when you get into a recession that those things dry up. Professional services are reasonably steady; people just become more price conscious. The trick in business is not to be going down a dead end, you’ve got to stay on the tracks that work,” he reveals.
Having been in the commercial property business for near on four decades, Slattery has witnessed the peaks and troughs of a shifting economy. So how does today’s market differ from what he has seen before? “It’s worse than it’s ever been,” he laments. “It’s not even an opinion any more, it’s a fact. Ireland has suffered on two sides. Firstly, there was the property bubble here that has imploded and also the international banking crisis, so we’ve had two darts at the same time.”
What is the effect of this double whammy on the property market? I ask. “Unfortunately, demand is continuing to weaken,” he replies. In 2008, the price of commercial property effectively halved. 2009 will be the year that rents will soften and will continue to soften right till the end. There have been dramatic falls in value, unprecedented.”
Added to which, Slattery, like many of his peers, doesn’t hold out much hope of recovery in the near future. Nobody knows when the worst has passed because we haven’t yet seen ‘the bottom,’ he says. “The bottom might be in 2010, because the world economy is still continuing to deteriorate and what I call the denial period has been going on for about eight months and will go on for another 12 months. While you have denial, people are not facing up to the challenges.”
The longer it takes for people to take stock of the real issues facing the Irish economy, the longer it will take to get it back on its feet, says the silver-haired consultant. “The worrying thing about that is, the longer it takes, the worse things get. The recovery road is long so we need to get to that sooner rather than later. The banks aren’t lending properly and people still aren’t buying.”
Despite the fact a huge amount of wealth remains within the Emerald Isle, the question is where? “There’s a lot of money still in Ireland,” he asserts. “The property bubble in Ireland was created by Irish people, for Irish people. It was never outsiders. So it means that all the money is still here, essentially. Somebody has it. That gentleman over there,” he jokes, nodding at a fellow Conrad guest. “The people who have it are doing nothing with it in terms of property. They are staying out of the property market until they feel they can see the bottom. Also, it’s going to take time, at least a couple of years, for supply absorption, at least.”
The picture Slattery paints is not a positive one. He estimates that just 10 per cent of the planned openings this year will go ahead. Furthermore, it is not just schemes in planning stages that are going to suffer. Recently opened retail developments are likely to be feeling the pinch too, he says. “Any shopping centre that’s opened in Ireland in the past three years will be struggling. This is because we’re over capacity: we’ve too many shops and in certain places we have too high a concentration of shops.”
So what, if anything, can landlords be doing to help floundering tenants keep their heads above water? “Shopping centre landlords have to recognise the plight of their tenants,” he says. “What we’re recommending is an adjustment period for 12 months and that the situation is reviewed again in 12 months time. I wouldn’t expect a landlord to give a reduction in rent unless he was satisfied that the tenant was making reductions right across the board, including staff.”
Slattery also makes the point that it is in the landlord’s interests to help sustain the tenant. “If the tenant goes pear-shaped and the landlord’s got an empty unit for over a year they’re going to lose all the rent,” he argues. Equally, there may be cases where efforts to save them may prove futile. “Some tenants are so close [to collapse] there’s no point in trying to save them – when they’re too far beneath the water, that’s a different situation. It’s the living that need the care.”
However grey the forecast, Slattery says there is some blue sky on the horizon. “The whole thing about an economy in a recession is that it creates opportunity and there’s no question that there’s going to be enormous opportunity over the next few years, for everybody.” Once that time comes and the Irish economy is buoyant once more, does Slattery think there will be lessons learnt so the same pitfalls can be avoided? “Absolutely not,” he declares. “It won’t happen exactly the same way, but it will happen again.”
Fergus Slattery will be the guest host at the SCEPTRE Awards 2009 held at London’s Dorchester Hotel on June 24th. SCEPTRE Awards supports the Wooden Spoon charity (www.woodenspoon.com)
