Cheffins Magazine 2011 published

The latest issue of the Cheffins Magazine is now being distributed. If you haven’t received your copy please make a request by emailing: maria.brookes@cheffins.co.uk.

Writing in the magazine, Cheffins’ Chairman Bill King says: It’s always a pleasure to write the introduction for the Cheffins Magazine, knowing that it reaches all our clients and professional friends plus many prospective clients.

We’ve had a hectic year since the last magazine was produced, with some significant results, and we value the instructions that so many of you provide to us.

The past three years have been a challenge for any business and no less for Cheffins. Our response has been to develop new areas of activity and to increase our market presence – including opening a new office this year in St Ives, forming our Private Client service, setting up a Corporate Real Estate consultancy and raising our profile in all our activities.

Our strategy has been to continue investing in the future and to expand our services to clients. This has proved to be the best approach and we are enjoying increasing success in all departments.

Our Residential Agency business has hit new highs with our Cambridge team, in particular, experiencing a massive surge in sales and enquiries. We attract many London-based house buyers looking for a better quality of life.

Our Commercial Property teams have beavered away through the past two years of slow market conditions and achieved great results with sales and lettings of business space throughout the Mid-Anglia region.

Traditional skill selling to the world

Our 186 year old traditional of auctioneering is still an important part of our business. For example, our Machinery Sales at Sutton, near Ely, last year turned over more than £41 million of machinery, selling by auction to buyers from more than 100 countries.

Cheffins Fine Art team achieves ever more exciting results, now one of the leading provincial salerooms with a team of specialist valuers attracting instructions from across the UK and selling internationally. Our base in Cambridge offers easy access into the London market and our well-developed on-line bidding system has opened up our sales to the world. There has been a major increase in the sale of oriental works and we have been recently instructed on a number of major house clearances for leading families in this region.

In April we held our first Vintage auction of the year and, to quote my colleague Jerry Curzon: “Cheffins inaugural Vintage sale of 2011 saw buyers arrive by land, sea and air as well as on the ether with the advent of live on-line bidding. The economic doom mongers were, once again, fed humble pie as the appetite of hardened collectors of all things vintage proved to be as sharp as ever, with prices appearing unabated and, in many cases, exceeding expectations.”

Our Property Auctions continue to expand, attracting properties throughout the Eastern Counties.

The launch of 700 acres of farmland in South Cambs together with other land sales in the region have kept the rural agency department busy. In addition, they have been busy with a wide variety of work – from tax planning to advice on renewable energy.

Throughout the diverse range of business and professional activity undertaken within Cheffins, our aim is to be ‘best of breed’ and to ensure that clients value the contact they have with us – whether they are a house purchaser in Ely or a farm machinery buyer from the Lebanon.

I hope you enjoy reading this year’s Cheffins Magazine and that we can continue to provide you with the quality of service you expect from us. If we don’t, please contact maria.brookes@cheffins.co.uk.