With 24 offices in 17 countries, investment management firm LaSalle is a global industry leader in real estate. The organisation is an independent subsidiary of the NYSE-listed JLL property group, operating in a dedicated team model to deliver strategic plans and asset allocations that meet the complex objectives of its clients.
Simon Marrison is the CEO of LaSalle’s European operations and knows the importance of good customer service.
“In our business, we follow the philosophy that the client is king,” he says. “Delivering performance is what we live for and it is what we are known for in our market. We are not owned by a financial institution and we don’t have in-house money that we can fall back on. Delivering top performance for our clients is an imperative, otherwise we ultimately risk losing them. Every client gets the undivided attention of its team and a tailored service. Our UK business, for example, has an average client retention period of 14 years and that includes clients that we have taken on in the last two years. As you can imagine, our longest standing client relationships go back decades and you don’t get that without a focus on superior performance and the client’s specific needs.”
Simon joined the group in 2001 to look after the Continental European region while based in Paris. At the time, the business had a mono-product platform and was doing value-added closed-end property funds. “It was quite a small platform,” he explains. “We had only expanded out of France in 1999 and recently got a foothold in Germany. My job was to not only build off that initial experience and track record in the closed-ended fund space, but to diversify our business.