Paul Bassi (53), is one of the several property magnates from Birmingham riding the significant economical wave that has been sweeping the West Midlands.
Bassi is the son of Indian immigrants who moved to the UK in the 1950s. He initially started out running an estate agency, and he now runs Real Estate Investors, a listed property company said to have a portfolio value of over £100 million.
Real Estate Investors are considered as one of the most influential and largest private landlords of Birmingham, have brought in a wide range of new tenants, such as the NHS, HSBC Bank and The Royal College of Surgeons.
Speaking about the initial years, Paul Bassi said, “Back in the 1970s, when strikes closed British Leyland and manufacturing was struggling, my uncle used to drive me to football practice and he would take this shortcut through acres and acres of industrial areas and factories that were empty.”
During the financial crisis, he purchased cheap buildings and he has recently announced that interim profits had increased from £2.6 million to £8.1 million. He said, “The upswing happened in southeast England in 2009 and 2010 but not here, so our window to buy at the bottom was open for longer. It allowed us to buy some of Birmingham's family silver. While some questioned our buying at the bottom of the cycle, we believed it would come back. I really did think it was an opportunity we would end up capitalising on, and we have.”
