Tim Lumsdon, Founder of Marchmont

This one is basically a how-to-be-an-operating-partner guide. That in itself is a testament to Tim’s ability as a partner. Operating partners are the doers in real estate, the ones who roll up their sleeves and turn ideas into reality. And if you read the Richard Croft memo, one of Richard’s four paths for young people in real estate is to become an operating partner. Listening to Tim, it’s easy to see why. The work is demanding, but it comes with the satisfaction of creating and when it all comes together, as Croft put it, “you can make off like a bandit.”

In the early days Tim was a generalist moving across asset types and exploiting inefficiencies in the institutional model. The market accepted that breadth. Today, that’s not enough. Investors want focus, conviction, and proof of differentiated expertise. The nature of capital now demands a thematic approach. It isn’t sufficient to chase broad trends, there needs to be structural tailwinds underpinning a strategy, and those themes have to be grounded in genuine operating knowledge. The USP of an operating partner is really a dedicated focus to said strategy and an embedded experience and track record in the market to do that. Beyond that it is about management:

Tim put it this way, “You need to understand the customer because your tenant is your customer. It’s really sweating the details, whether it’s capital allowances, rates, liabilities, all of the day-to-day. That is an important differentiator. The ability to transact and originate is one thing, execution is another. Most parties in the industry have relationships with agents. They can originate deals. It’s originating differentiated deal flow and executable deal flow that is the real USP.”

It’s all very well having great capital relationships, but if you can’t get yourself into a position to transact you have a problem. Agents need to know you’ve performed before and that you’re true to your word. That credibility is essential if you want to execute your strategy

For Tim and the Partners at Marchmont, strategy begins with conversations and curiosity (this is the third time someone has mentioned curiosity). Ideas need to be refined into something good. The process tends to unfold in stages:

It’s worth saying that it’s not like Tim had the process ready to recite but after I prodded a bit this is largely what I discovered. And honestly, the process feels a good mix of entrepreneurial and methodical. Ideas have space to breathe, but they are quickly tested through capital, research, and credibility. Clearly for Marchmont, building a strategy is about shaping curiosity into something that can be executed.

Liquidity is the ultimate test of an operating partner’s strategy.

“Sure, we’re not afraid to take something on and fix it. A lot of the upside comes from being able to do that and then reposition it. But you always need to be asking: where is the exit, who is the buyer, and what will make this attractive to them?”

That discipline extends beyond single assets to the construction of entire portfolios. The key thinking around building portfolios is as follows:

“You can’t just assume you’ll get a scale premium,” Tim notes. “Individual deals might look great, but when you put them together, the question is: does the portfolio actually hang?”

Disciplined origination means:

Tim sees liquidity as inseparable from identifying the right themes. The guiding principle is to own assets that investors will want to buy in five years’ time. For Tim, that’s the essence of exit planning as an operating partner, building portfolios that remain liquid and attractive when the time comes to sell.

For Tim, the foundation of a strong operating partner is transparency. “We’re always encouraging engagement, particularly when it’s capital from overseas,” he says. He welcomes investors visiting assets in person, believing that regular dialogue is essential to building trust and understanding. The best partnerships, in his view, are those that invest in personal relationships as much as professional frameworks.

Beyond transparency, access is the other currency that investors value. Tim and his partners have spent more than 25 years in the U.K. market. That network gives them an edge: they can cross-check pricing, rental assumptions, and demand signals in a way that foreign capital, often reliant on a single broker or a limited set of data, simply cannot.

“What we bring is a depth of market knowledge and the ability to source and validate deals others can’t,” Tim explains.

But access doesn’t mean much without execution. The role of a great operating partner comes down to a few core responsibilities:

That’s pretty much it.

What does it take to start an operating platform of your own? Tim’s answer starts with conviction. “You have to have high conviction in your passion, whatever that strategy is,” he says. The path isn’t smooth. Smaller operating partners often face sharper peaks and troughs than established firms, but it can be a great journey providing:

The thesis, however, can’t just mimic what others have done. It has to be differentiated. Tim stresses that aspiring founders must ask themselves: what is our edge? Do you have:

“You can’t just say, ‘we’re doing an office-to-green strategy’ - it’s been done before,” he says. “So how do you differentiate?”

Once the door to capital providers is open, personality and passion matter. Investors want to feel the authenticity of the conviction behind a strategy. But Tim believes success comes from aligning that passion with the perspective of others at the table.

“You’ve got to put yourself in the shoes of your counterparty, whether it’s a colleague, a vendor, or an investor. What do they need to achieve? What do they need to report back? How can you help them help you?”

And what about experience? Tim rejects the idea that age should be a barrier. “Look at tech, some of the leaders there are 21. It doesn’t matter how old you are if you’ve got a clear plan, a real thesis, and the right people around you.”

He encourages young operators to lean on their networks, bring in experience where needed, and be candid about both successes and failures.

“I love it when someone tells me about something that didn’t go well, and what they learned,” he says. “It’s about showing you’ve thought it through, that you know what you’d do differently.”

The bottom line: launching an operating platform requires more than identifying a theme. It demands conviction, differentiation, strong relationships, and the humility to learn from experience. Get those pieces right and you can build not just a business, but a culture that attracts both talent and capital.

This memo is entirely the product of Tim’s knowledge – no outside input. Think about it, an hour-long conversation, and out of it comes something close to a definitive guide on how to be an operating partner. I said it at the beginning, and I’ll say it again at the end - that is a function of Tim’s remarkable knowledge. My hope is that what I’ve put down here does justice to the depth of what he shared. He carried the entire conversation with a smile that never broke. And as a fellow operating partner, and someone who also loves real estate for the simple reason that we get to make real tangible things, it was great to sit with him.