Riding leaves Harrow for Northern Trust
Mike Riding, co-founder and managing director of Harrow Estates, the regeneration specialist controlled by former Redrow owner Steve Morgan, has left the company to join Northern Trust.
Riding will head up the land regeneration division of Northern Trust, owned by another North West property heavyweight, Trevor Hemmings.
Lancashire engineer-turned-developer Riding founded Harrow with Morgan in 2001 after the latter had made £120m selling housebuilder Redrow Homes, which he founded in the 1970s. Riding met Morgan when he approached him to jointly tackle the former rubber works site in Leyland.
Warrington-based Harrow is part of Morgan's Bridgemere Group of property and leisure companies that includes Carden Park Hotel in Cheshire and Wolverhampton Wanderers FC, acquired in August 2007.
At the start of 2008, former Redrow regional chairman and Wilson Bowden director, Greg Locke, joined Bridgemere as chief executive with responsibility for Harrow Estates. Harrow has projects planned in Preston, Openshaw, Chorley, Ellesmere Port and Salford.
Riding said in a statement: "I am delighted to be joining the highly professional 85-strong Northern Trust team. Given the company's strong financial standing and asset base Northern Trust is ideally situated to take advantage of the current distressed market place throughout the UK within all industry sectors.
"With over 2,000 acres of land and 8m sq ft of income producing property Northern Trust is looking to expand its portfolio through all divisions of its business with both acquisitions and joint ventures."
Locke said today: "We didn't want Mike to leave but he wanted to pursue something new and we could not stand in his way. The business of Harrow Estates continues and we are still in the market for acquiring sites for future developments."
