Ashley Blake has created the UK’s first leisure sector focused property investment company, Otium Real Estate.
Blake is the former head of retail portfolio at Land Securities. He resigned from Land Securities in March after five years running the £4bn retail and leisure portfolio. During his time, he led the REIT’s push into leisure to become the largest investor in the sector with over £750m of transactions and led the acquisition of the £570m X-Leisure fund.
Otium is targeting leisure stock such as leisure parks, cinemas, gyms and hotels and aims to be the leading leisure focused property investment company. The firm has targeted funders prepared to back a start-up and are working on their first potential transactions.
“Otium has the opportunity to fill a niche in the rapidly growing leisure sector. We believe that there is strong demand from investors for a property company focused in this area. The sector is really coming of age and will out-perform going forward,” said Blake.