British Land

John Bright, Richard Cobden, and Sir Josiah Walmsley set up the National Freehold Society as a means of circumventing restrictions on voting to landholders. British Land Company is established as legal owner of the Society's properties. British Land Company pays off its debt to National Freehold Society and becomes an independent company. John Ritblat and Neville Conrad establish Conrad Ritblat property agency, which is subsequently acquired by Union Property Company. British Land acquires Union Property, in a reverse takeover that places Ritblat at the head of the group as chairman and managing director. British Land begins acquiring supermarket and other retail properties, reaching joint venture agreements with Sainsbury and Gateway. British Land completes the acquisition of Broadgate; Meadowhall shopping complex in Sheffield is acquired for £1.17 billion. The company announces a plan to split the chairman and CEO positions after Ritblat's retirement, expected for 2003. Although British Land traced its origins to the mid-19th century, the development of the modern company stemmed primarily from the arrival of John Ritblat as its chairman and CEO in the 1970s. Until then, the British Land Company, as it was called, was a sleepy, small-sized property group, with assets of just £27 million. The society, which later became known as the National Building Society and which ultimately became Abbey National, one of the United Kingdom's largest building societies, was not, however, legally allowed to own land. In 1856, Cobden and Bright established the British Land Company for this purpose. By 1878, British Land had paid off its debt to the National Building Society and become an independent and, eventually, publicly listed company. When universal suffrage was later granted in the United Kingdom, the need for British Land as an enfranchisement vehicle was eliminated. Nevertheless, the company remained in existence, gathering a modest, conservatively held property portfolio into the middle of the 20th century. The rising economy in the post-World War II era led British Land to begin acquiring new properties in the 1950s and 1960s. The company remained, however, a small concern. In 1970, however, British Land acquired another company, the Union Property Group, in what was, in fact, a reverse takeover that placed Union Property's John Ritblat in place as British Land's chairman and managing director by 1971. Ritblat had entered business at the age of 17, working as an apprentice to property surveyor Edward Erdman. After earning his surveyor's license, Ritblat, then 23, left Erdman to found his own property agency, joining with partner Neville Conrad to establish the Conrad Ritblat company in 1959. Conrad Ritblat quickly specialized in the growing retail property segment, particularly the country's high street urban shopping districts. Ritblat gained added expertise in that area during a stint as director of the property operations of the Debenhams department store group. By the end of the 1960s, however, Conrad Ritblat had been acquired by the Union Property Group. John Ritblat quickly became the rising star of that company; at the same time, the Conrad Ritblat company continued operations--with Ritblat as its head as well. The reverse takeover of British Land gave Ritblat access to the booming British property development market, which had been expanding steadily through the 1960s and into the early 1970s. In 1971, the company made its first expansion move, acquiring two companies, Haleybridge Investment Trust Ltd. and Regis Property Holdings Ltd., which gave British Land control of London's Plantation House. The acquisition nearly tripled the company's asset base, to some £78 million. While that purchase proved a relatively long-term one--remaining a key piece of the group's portfolio into the next century--the spirit of the times tended especially toward short-term, rapid-turnover investments. This trend was in part resp