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The company provides the legal framework and offers services for running its property syndicates but it is currently up to individual advisers to find enough clients who are interested in investing in a property syndicate and then select a suitable property.
The problem with this is that advisers often struggle to find enough interest from clients to launch a syndicate and have little experience in selecting property for investment.
Richard Ellis, head of sales and marketing at Merchant Investors, said the company is planning to address these issues by putting advisers with an interest in commercial property syndicates in touch with each other and selecting a suitable property for the syndicate to invest in.
Ellis said that it makes more sense for the company to find 25 advisers with two interested clients than for advisers to each find 50 interested clients.
The revamp has been earmarked for launch in the first quarter of 2008, provided that there is no crash in the property market.
Ellis said that the syndicates will avoid much of the current market volatility by investing in small-scale retail properties with long-term leases.
He said: ‘It’s cushioned from the overall market but at the same time it’s not completely divorced.’
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