FROM shelf stacking in a south Manchester supermarket to a 1bn property business, Nick Payne has always known where he is going.
Nick, an expert in leisure property and one of the driving forces behind the successful Deansgate Locks bar and restaurant strip, is now managing director of Nikal Investments.
Founded with the backing of Alan Murphy, who made his millions in the toilet paper industry at Skelmersdale based AM Paper, Nikal has ambitions to become on of the UK’s largest private developers.
For Nick, 37, this is the culmination of an ambition nurtured since he was just eight years old.
“My mother started working in an estate agents in Sale that gave me the appetite for property. And my best schoolpal’s dad always drove fabulous cars and had a wonderful lifestyle. I found out he was a property developer. It though that sounds good’. I was about eight at the time,” Nick explains.
The die was cast. He studied for property qualifications in Sheffield and Manchester and qualified as a chartered surveyor, moving into his first job in 1987.
Working with hotel, restuarant and pub specialists Christie Co, he soon became fascinated with the leisure property business. At the early age of 21 he was transferred to the firm’s Leeds office to head the valuation team.
By 1993 he was recruited by rivals Edward Nike Air Foamposite One Symons Partners to run a new hotel and leisure property division in Manchester and Liverpool.
Then came an offer he didn’t try to refuse, when Payne became friendly with Simon Bate and Andy Dodd. Dodd was involved with So What Arts, the company managing Simply Red star Mick Hucknall.
With Hucknall’s backing Simon and Andy set up a property business and invited Nick to join them.
In 1998 Nick joined them to set up Westport Developments. Their first task was to restore the railway arches at the end of Deansgate.
“It was a strange proposition, the railway arches,” recalls Nick.
“We didn’t own anything really except the floor and the airspace after all, it’s a railway arch so the art of leasing that kind of space, with a leaky roof, to Air Jordan 2s big corporate companies was quite a challenge.
“But we had a lot of fun designing it, the footbridges over Air Jordan 23s the water, and so on. The real key was handpicking the tenants.
“I remember going down to London to see Don Ward, owner of the Comedy Store and gently persuading him that he should be in Manchester.”But happy days at Westport were not destined to last. Andy and Simon, now with a new partner Ken Knott, had ambitions to take the business in a much bigger league catering for major corporate property occupiers.
A second company called ASK after Andy (Dodd), Simon (Bate) and Ken (Knott) was founded. The writing was on the wall for Nick whose initial didn’t find its way into the title.
He remembers: “The idea was that Westport would do regeneration, and unusual property projects, and ASK would do the larger corporate developments and the two would sit side by side. But then Ask and Westport merged. There were certain things I was uncomfortable with as ASK grew one was the ASK name itself.
“Simon said don’t worry its only a name which I accepted Air Jordan 5s but it’s a bit like do you want to be in my gang?
“That was minor really but the merger of ASK and Westport meant the emphasis changed and our successful company Westport was put to one side in favour of the new one.”
Yet as one door closed another opened. Nick was introduced to Alan Murphy by his bankers at Coutts. They got on well but at first nothing came of the relationship.
“It was Christmas 2001 and I bumped into Alan at Deansgate Locks. We hadn’t met for about six months. We had a beer and he said if we have an opportunity to work together we should explore it,” says Nick.
Admitting to being “unmotivated” at Ask, and personal relationships at the company under strain, Nick decided to leave and take up Alan’s challenge.
Nikal a combination this time of Nik (Payne) and Al (Alan Murphy) was founded in early 2003 with 50m backing. The aim is to build up a 1bn property portfolio.
Involvement in the vast 300m Masshouse regeneration project in Birmingham has already taken them some of the way towards that goal.
A bid to redevelop Altrincham town centre could take them a stage further and there is the Jordan Pro Strong prospect of another major city centre project early next year.
Nick said: “I’d like to do projects where there’s some thought and some enthusiasm. You have to feel passionate otherwise it simply becomes a money making vehicle.
“That’s an aim, we need to make profit, but if we can make profit from something we really believes in that’s better.
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