(Reuters) – Land Securities Group Plc, Britain’s top commercial property landlord, has appointed broadcaster Channel 4’s Ian Cheshire as its next chairman, the company said on Friday.
The new Landsec chairman takes over the mantle at a time when UK commercial property values are seeing a slump, pressured by rising interest rates and broader economic uncertainty.
Aggressive interest rate hikes to tame stubborn inflation and deepening recession worries are dampening a tentative recovery in the British commercial property sector from the pandemic fallout.
Cheshire, the chairman of Channel 4 and private hospital operator Spire, replaces Cressida Hogg, who was named the next chair of defence firm BAE Systems last year.
He will join the Landsec board in a non-executive capacity on March 23 and take over the chairman’s role on May 16, when Hogg retires after almost five years in that position.
Cheshire, 63, is currently a non-executive director at BT Group and will retire from the communications firm at their annual general meeting in July.
A veteran in the retail industry, Cheshire had joined Channel 4’s board last April and was in the forefront of discussions with the British government over its now-abandoned privatisation plan.
(Reporting by Aby Jose Koilparambil in Bengaluru; Editing by Savio D’Souza and Sherry Jacob-Phillips)
