黑洞社区

Dragons鈥� Den star James Caan is to use his year-old property company, HB Real Estate, to help property developers and entrepreneurs get London-based schemes off the ground by investing in projects he believes have potential.

His new initiative, which has a concept similar to Dragons鈥� Den but is aimed at the property sector, has been designed to stimulate the market all the way down the supply chain. It is understood he plans to invest about 拢50m in London residential schemes in the first instance, over the next few weeks.

Faisal Butt, associate director at Caan鈥檚 company Hamilton Bradshaw, helps oversee the group鈥檚 property arm. He said: 鈥淲e are looking at a new programme where we will help property entrepreneurs who don鈥檛 have funding to get their schemes off the ground. It鈥檚 a bit like Property Den.

鈥淲e have a number of fund raisings under way and expect to introduce our next fund in the prime London market in the coming months.鈥�

Butt added that the group would also consider investing in larger scale projects by moving into the commercial sector, too: 鈥淲e鈥檇 welcome joint ventures with firms that have a stronger focus on commercial than we do.鈥�

The thought process behind the programme is to kick start development, at least in central London, to stimulate the market in a way that will 鈥渢rickle all the way down the supply chain.鈥�

Caan, who is worth 拢85m, told 黑洞社区 that he set up his real estate business when everyone told him not to. He said: 鈥淚 decided to go for it when everyone else said 鈥檇on鈥檛鈥�. I have always believed in observing the masses and doing the opposite.鈥�

He added that over the next 12 months he will be looking to buy residential property in London鈥檚 golden postcode areas. He said:

鈥淚 won鈥檛 be aggressively buying but I am definitely more of a buyer than a seller, as I still think there are opportunities out there.鈥�