Project Monitoring & Due Diligence
Everything that’s new – or changes – involves a risk. But risk means reward, whether financial or aesthetic. The Risk Management team at McBains Cooper ensures risk is recognised, avoided, managed, contained – so that whatever is just over the horizon is calculated risk rather than a surprise.
This capability takes property consultancy to an entirely higher plane – by providing bespoke, high-level, strategic assistance to a wide range of blue chip clients, whether funders of or stakeholders in real estate developments.
Focussing largely on strategic advice and technical due diligence in the development and financial services sectors, we take an holistic approach to property and infrastructure, providing high quality advice from project planning, procurement through to practical completion and disposal of an asset.
Development Monitoring
Our project monitoring services are tailored to the due care and diligence requirements of funders and investors in property - the specialist Risk Management team has a wealth of experience of development in many sectors: offices, hotels, healthcare, schools and colleges, shops, retail parks, student accommodation, residential developments, warehouses, cold stores and motor dealerships.
We provide advice and guidance to establish client security, to identify and manage risk throughout the development, giving our clients the protection necessary when making any property funding or investment decision. We act on behalf of many senior debt and mezzanine providers as well as investors with stakeholder interests in development schemes.
Typical commissions comprise a full risk appraisal and ongoing monitoring provided for all financial and technical aspects of the proposed development. This might involve assessment and commentary on financial, technical and legal documentation as well as ensuring that clients’ specific recommendations are implemented.
With expertise in negotiating with all types of deal or development participants to deliver the most secure position for our clients, enhanced by the wider construction disciplines at McBains Cooper, we are also well placed in the unlikely event that “step-in rights” are exercised.
Project Assessment & Recovery
The Risk Management team is also experienced in the assessment of development projects on behalf of stakeholders in the areas of project forensics, strategic planning and recovery management. We assist with re-structuring distressed or troubled development situations and can re-cast and significantly enhance projects at conceptual, planning or construction stage. We identify issues that are central to any project or development opportunity and provide diplomatic, constructive and collaborative support to achieve optimum benefit and results.
Forensics
Time, cost and quality are the foundation stones to project success. McBains Cooper carries out independent and impartial reviews of current projects – “health-checks” – to maintain understanding and control at every element of the development.
This includes design and procurement status, costs to date and cost certainty to completion, adherence and risks to critical path programme and alternative programme strategies, compliance with pre-determined specifications and statutory standards ,quality of construction on site and off-site security, re-assessment of tenders, contingencies and provisional sums ,review of project team, PI insurance, warranties and security, and quality and experience of the borrower’s construction and management control.
The forensic audit culminates with a risk rating for the project and recommended solutions where required.
Solutions
We advise on practical actions which can be employed to retrieve, mitigate and improve distressed projects.
This might involve programme delays or inadequacies, defective workmanship and construction, cost increases and uncertainty, procurement and resource issues, team and contractual matters, developer or contractor default – or management of bank step-in and build-outs.
Enhancement
McBains Cooper is often engaged to utilise its interdisciplinary skills from the wider business to add value to a variety of project situations.
This may involve assessing potential variations to planning consents and S106 Agreements to enhance viability, re-designing project concepts to improve marketability, providing impetus to development opportunities, improving project assembly and re-programming delivery to manage cashflow, even re-assessing feasibility or enhancing project strategies
Due Diligence Services
Our due diligence and pre-acquisition services combined with our interdisciplinary culture means we can provide the full range of services required to quantify risk during property acquisition, funding and investment – or disposal – as well as property development and refurbishment.
Our response is fast and flexible – because that’s the way business needs to be done –identify key issues early, get accurate information, provide clear advice so that informed decisions can be made quickly.
Our services include building, structural, services, drainage and topographical inspections, while our investigations team is expert in environmental, geotechnical and deleterious materials. General advice involves views on party wall, rights of light, statutory consents, Town and Country Planning, negotiation and sketch schemes, plus cost plans for pre- and post-acquisitions, and construction phases.
Development Advice
For as long as some of the buildings in your eyeline have been on the skyline, McBains Cooper has been appraising proposals, assessing the risks involved, structuring control parameters to ensure that things will happen as they should, and managing the development process under clients’ instruction.
We’ve been doing it for decades because we’re reliable, and we consistently provide clients with cost-saving or profit-generating advice. That means independent and impartial guidance on acquisition, investment, development and expansion programmes, based on providing due diligence and construction risk information on which sound decisions can be made.
That advice encompasses bid management, pre-acquisition services, development appraisals and evaluation service, procurement advice, construction services, disposal and FM advice.
Property Finance
Time wasted is money lost. Knowing the right processes, how to get things done and where to go, is key to making sure funding initiatives happen cost-efficiently.
McBains Cooper has an extensive knowledge and working practice of how to get things done in the world of property finance with simple efficiency and impressive control.
With an extensive network of contacts in the global financial sector, we can introduce those seeking funding to potential funding sources - equity participation, debt funding, mezzanine finance, and, potentially, rarely heard-of forms and processes of financing.
But if you want the investment, then you need to know what to say: the fact is, the skylines of the world would probably look very different without our in-depth knowledge of funding and due diligence processes, and our ability to provide solid guidance and practical assistance on preparing the most effective form of presentation to potential funders.
Engineering Services
Have you ever seen two property or construction projects that looked, were designed or constructed the same?
Our mechanical and electrical services engineering teams view and drive each project as a unique challenge, thereby creating cost-effective solutions for every engineering aspect of the project. There’s a vast array of issues that can influence the design, operation and maintenance of plant and equipment, and there are few we’ve not come across. But it we did, we’d know how to deal with them.
Crucial, though, is our commitment to the protection of our environment, and we incorporate into our service and solutions key energy and environmental initiatives while maintaining or improving service quality.