Savills Singapore bags two accolades at the SBR Management Excellence Awards

The firm took home awards for Executive of the Year, Real Estate and Team of the Year, Real Estate Investment.

Chris Marriott has always had real estate in his blood, which might explain his sterling record in the business since he started at one of the UK’s largest real estate firms before moving to Savills a few years later, where he has spent the bulk of his career.  

During his time in Savills, Chris has focused on building teams and businesses, and integrating technology and best practices into all aspects of the operations he runs.

With plans to build a comprehensive and sustainable business in Singapore, he oversaw the acquisition of CKH Strata Management. This was the first major step in a longer-term plan to build a strong recurrent income base in property and facilities management. Now the largest international firm in the strata management business by buildings and units under management, the property management company provides a significant recurring income base for Savills with close to 200 MCST projects (comprising about 60,000 units) under its management.

Chris also led Savills Property Management’s collaboration with HomeClick to implement a tech-driven solution in buildings through iCondo, a simple smartphone or tablet app that allows owners and residents to interface with the building, the facilities, and the manager. This app not only makes the management of a building more efficient but goes a long way to build a sense of community. In collaboration with iCondo, Savills Singapore has rolled out the platform to over 100 residential condominiums buildings that it manages. The online platform, in total, manages over 40,000 residential units, processes 350,000 facility bookings annually, and sends 5 million push notifications monthly, with property managers managing 10,000 feedback tickets on the platform per month.

Chris worked with Savills’ local CEO, Marcus Loo, on the recent acquisition of Absolute Maintenance Services Pte Ltd and its sister company, Solute Pte Ltd (together, AMS), created an integrated facilities management platform that consolidated Savills’ broader range of services and end-to-end solutions, targeting government, institutional, corporate, and private clients. This acquisition is in line with Savills' corporate strategy: to build a robust business model that balances high-value recurring income with high-margin transactional agency income, creating a business that will thrive and survive under all economic circumstances.

Integrating technology, and more efficient processes has been at the heart of the business, and Chris has often personally sponsored the many digitalisation initiatives the firm is pursuing. This was seen in the pivotal role he played leading the restructuring and merger of SoReal Prop (backed by shareholders including Savills, ERA, Huttons, and PropNex) with Real Estate Analytics, which offers specially tailored real estate analytics, information, and solutions to customers looking to stay on the cutting edge of technology, to build market intelligence and improve their decision-making processes in the real estate market.

Working with a diverse team of digital marketeers, agents and tech developers, Chris also saw the opportunity to transform and simplify the traditional residential leasing journey by initiating the development of Livethere.com, a buy-to-let digital platform, specifically targeting both tenants and landlords. This was done by incorporating the latest in Customer Relationship Management, digital marketing, and digital transaction management tools.

On the people side, Chris believes in empowering staff to back themselves and the decisions they make, whilst giving them the tools and support structure to understand the risks and rewards of their decisions. He believes that individuals need to own the challenges they face, encouraging them to share their plans and discuss the challenges and opportunities, and in doing so be humble enough to accept that others may have ideas that could support their initiatives. He encourages his colleagues to be entrepreneurial, challenge the norm and constantly learn about the new technologies available that may enhance the delivery or even disrupt the business.

Because of his drive and achievements, Chris was named the Real Estate - Executive of the Year at the SBR Management Excellence Awards.

The A team

In 2022, the Savills Investment Sales and Capital Markets team closed sales worth $2.788b. The team is headed by Jeremy Lake, Managing Director and includes Deputy Managing Director, Galven Tan, Senior Director, Yap Hui Yee, Sophia Lim (Associate Director), Nick Chan, (Manager) and Dayna Ang (Assistant Manager).

Despite the property market facing many challenges in 2022, the team brokered the sale of the House of Tan Yeok Nee, a national monument and the last of four traditional Teochew-style mansions in Singapore, for $85m.

The sale of Suntec Tower 2 was also closed at $41.14m, translating to $3,350 per square foot, setting the record for the highest per-square-foot at the time for an entire floor in Suntec City.

Tanglin Shopping Centre was the largest commercial collective sale in 2022 at $868m.

The Savills Investment Sales & Capital Markets team is also the leading market player in the Singapore shophouse scene. Since 2021, the team has demonstrated an extensive transaction track record of approximately $800m in the commercial shophouse market.

With extensive experience and an established reputation, they have been instrumental in providing real estate capital markets, investment advisory and transaction services across the various property sectors (i.e. shophouses, commercial buildings, strata office, Good Class Bungalows` and collective sales) to institutional investors, private equity funds, developers, family offices and High Net Worth Individuals.

With these stellar successes, Savills Singapore also took home the Real Estate - Investment Team of the Year award.

All in all, with an entrepreneurial value-embracing approach, Savills Singapore is well on its way towards innovative and cutting-edge real estate solutions, keeping their clientele at the heart of their business.

For more information on Savills Singapore, please visit https://www.savills.com.sg/

The SBR Management Excellence Awards is presented by Singapore Business Review Magazine. To view the full list of winners, click here. If you want to join the 2023 awards programme and be acclaimed for your company's employee engagements and management initiatives, please contact Julie Anne Nuñez at [email protected].