Opportunity London believes London has all it takes to attract £100bn of capital investment across six strategic verticals over the next ten years, CEO Jace Tyrrell tells fDi as the organisation launches its first pipeline of projects across the city.

“London has a long history of being a liquid market, a market able to offer scalable projects,” Jace Tyrrell, chief executive of Opportunity London tells fDi. “Brexit and Covid-19 have created uncertainty, but investors see the long-term value in London.” 

Launched 18 months ago as a partnership between  the City of London, London Councils, the Mayor of London and other partners from the private and public sectors, Opportunity London “is 100% focused on attracting capital investment”, Mr Tyrrell says. 

Sovereign wealth funds, foreign public pension funds and major private asset managers are already associated with some of London’s most iconic regeneration projects. Among others, the Qatar Investment Authority, the SWF of the Gulf country, and Canadian asset manager Brookfield own Canary Wharf; a consortium of private and public Malaysian institutional investors led the regeneration of former power station at Battersea; and Australian Super, one of Australia’s biggest pension funds, owns the majority of the sprawling district of King’s Cross and is redeveloping the area of Canada Water in partnership with property company British Land. The fund announced another £8bn investment commitment to UK assets by 2030 on February 4. 

Opportunity London is now working to connect institutional investors with projects across six strategic asset classes: low carbon, life sciences, leisure and culture, logistics and light industrial, living and learning and institutions. 

“These funds are looking for long-term opportunities that span decades,” notes Mr Tyrrell. 

On March 5, Opportunity London launched its first London Investment Prospectus, which outlines a pipeline of nine projects seeking more than £9.5bn of immediate investment altogether. 

Beyond the cachet of its status, London can be a challenging market in which to develop big regeneration projects. Earlier this year, US entertainment powerhouse MSG Entertainment bitterly withdrew its proposals to build a £2bn London version of its iconic Sphere in Las Vegas after years of dealing with permit issues and political volatility. The project also faced major opposition and never secured buy-in from local stakeholders. 

Besides, London’s cost of doing business, which leaves little margin for error, combined with the sheer size of some of these schemes, has occasionally pulled under some of the developers. Canary Wharf went bankrupt in 1992 before relaunching a couple of years later. More recently, Chinese developer ABP went bankrupt and abandoned its ongoing redevelopment of an area of Royal Albert Dock. Besides, new ground-up redevelopments are facing mounting popular backlash as a ‘brownfield first’ approach emerges as the guiding principle for limiting the carbon emissions of such projects. 

Mr Tyrrell concedes capital is not an issue, but investors often raise issues around planning, regulation, procurement, political volatility and scalability and Opportunity London feeds back this intelligence to its partners. 

Ultimately, though, Mr Tyrell believes the opportunities outweigh the risk and is about to convey his message in a global roadshow at which Opportunity London will showcase its pipeline to international investors. 

Do you want more FDI stories delivered directly to your inbox? Subscribe to our newsletters.