At the recent Restaurant Property Advisors Society (RPAS) AGM, David Muslin of CBRE was elected Chairman for 2009/2010 taking over from Richard Negus of Fleurets after his year in the hot seat.

The AGM also saw the election of a new Committee for the coming year, with newcomers to the Committee being welcomed from the restaurant property world, Trevor Watson of DCL and Steve Bagatti of Selsian.

At the AGM, the Paul Benjamin Cup was awarded. Paul Benjamin was an active member of the Society and well known in restaurant property circles for many years until his death in 2007 after a battle with cancer. The trophy was donated by his family to be awarded on an annual basis in his memory for “restaurant deal of the year”. The award was voted on by the members at the AGM and was awarded to Alex Hill of The Leisure Partnership, who sold the Criterion Restaurant at 224 Piccadilly (previously Marco Pierre White’s restaurant) at a rent of £525,000 and a premium in excess of £1M. There was stiff competition for the award from two other transactions by Leslie Aarons and Seb Howard of CBRE.

The membership of the RPAS now stands at 95 members representing some 60 firms. New members during the year included:

Paul Bishton (Redleaf Ltd)
Samuel May (Brecker Grossmith)
Mark Calder (Restaurant Property)
Theo Fordham (Twentyretail)
Simon Jackaman (Penn Commercial)
Niall Sheridan (E A Shaw)
Neil Morgan (Christie & Co)
Paul Giligan (Kelion Sworn)

The AGM was part of a busy week for the RPAS with the society having held on Monday 20 April their annual industry event.

The 2009 event was a Question Time style forum – “Leisure Property - A Brave New World”, and saw a packed room debate with a panel of industry heavyweights questions such as:

“Are we at the bottom of the economic cycle or is there worse to come?"

"Are the banks really open for business or are businesses still finding that this is only 'window dressing'?"

"Has the leisure sector been damaged by the increasing numbers of pre-pack administrations?”

as well as a number of other hot topics from the Government to legal issues, the Olympics and future values.