Aldo Attanasio d’Aponte · Founder, Arbitrage Group
Twenty years. Still looking closer.
I have spent twenty years on the buyer’s side of prime central London property: finding what is not for sale, negotiating what is, and telling clients when to walk away. Most of it never reached the public.
2006
Founded Arbitrage Group in London
78%
Of purchases secured off-market
£1.5bn
Of acquisitions advised
26
Development schemes, Mayfair to St John’s Wood
“It’s not available” does not always mean there is no opportunity. Sometimes it means nobody has asked properly.
On securing 16 Old Bond Street for Prada
What I believe
The purchase price is where the analysis starts, not where it ends.
Only the buyer’s side
I have never taken a seller’s or a landlord’s instruction. If the advice were influenced by whether a transaction completes, there would be an obvious conflict. I would rather lose a fee than encourage a client to buy something because it is there.
The market you can see is not the market that exists
A property does not need to be advertised to be available. Access is built over years, through owners, private bankers, solicitors and the people close to the asset. It is not something you can buy from a database.
A property is one line on a balance sheet
The structure, the financing, the tax position, the family and the eventual exit sit around every purchase. A property can be excellent in isolation and still be the wrong acquisition for the person buying it. I came from investment banking; that is how I still look at it.
“Not this one” is advice
The pressure in a transaction is to find a reason to proceed. The better discipline is to ask whether there is a reason to proceed at all. Patience is not the absence of action; it is knowing when action is justified.
The story
From Naples, through investment banking, to the quiet end of the London market.
I grew up in Naples with an early love of buildings and went to work in investment banking before I went anywhere near property. In 2006 I founded Arbitrage Group in London to do one thing: act for the buyer, and only the buyer, in a market where almost everyone else is paid by the seller.
Since then the firm has acquired, developed and advised on more than £1.5 billion of property across Mayfair, Belgravia, Kensington, Chelsea, Notting Hill, Covent Garden and Soho, and has advised Italian and European houses, Prada, Miu Miu, Vivienne Westwood, Furla and Brandy Melville among them, on their London stores. Most of our clients arrive by word of mouth. Many of the best transactions were never publicly marketed.
The work
Streets, shops and buildings I have spent twenty years inside
Watch
Short films on how prime London actually works
Off-market access, the Old Bond Street consolidation, why yield is not always the thesis, and the reasons to walk away.
What do you actually buy when you buy property?
Regent’s Walk, St John’s Wood
Speaking and mentoring
Property, negotiation and building a firm from nothing
I speak at universities and business schools, mentor young adults and founders, and take on interns at Arbitrage each year. If you run a programme, a panel or a company that could use a candid conversation about how deals are really done, get in touch.
Writing
Behind the visible property market
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Why Buy a Flat Yielding 3% When a Gilt Pays 5%? The Question My Clients Ask Every Week
On income alone, a UK government bond beats a prime London flat and it is not close. An honest look at the…
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Buying the Street Around the Big Money: A Queensway Story
When serious capital commits to a street, the street changes. A small corner deal at the unfashionable end of Queensway — and…
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The Clients Who Come Back: What Repeat Mandates Actually Prove
In advisory work, the meaningful measure is not the first instruction but the fifth. What repeat mandates reveal about an adviser, and…
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The Italian Connection: Advising European Brands into London
London is the natural first international market for many European brands. What draws them, what they consistently get wrong, and how the…
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Anatomy of a Bond Street Consolidation: How an Off-Market Flagship Is Actually Secured
The best retail units in London are never advertised. A step-by-step account of how a flagship consolidation on Old Bond Street was…
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What a Retail Property Adviser Actually Does — and When You Don’t Need One
An honest account of what retail property advisory involves across a lease lifecycle, what it costs, and the situations where you are…
In the press
Disruptors Magazine · The NYC Journal · MarketSpy · The Leader Report · USA News
Notes from the quiet end of the market
An occasional letter when I have something worth saying. No market noise, no newsletters for the sake of it.
Aldo Attanasio d'Aponte 