Mr Stephen Owens

Stephen is Managing Director - Pubs and Restaurants, responsible for Hospitality Valuation Services across the UK and Europe along with Pubs & Restaurants brokerage and Consultancy teams in the UK. He is based in both the Leeds and London offices. He directly manages a team of 25 fee earners plus support staff.
Stephen is a Fellow of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) and Member of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators and is on the RICS panel of Arbitrators and Independent Experts of dispute resolvers in respect of rent reviews disputes on licensed and leisure properties having attended and passed the Presidents training course and reassessment.
He regularly takes appointments as an Arbitrator and Independent Expert. He also acts as an Independent Assessor under the Pubs Code and takes appointment both privately from the parties and from the Pubs Code Adjudicator (“PCA”) via the Dispute Resolution Service (“DRS”) of the RICS.
He also acts as an Expert Witness in litigation and landlord and tenant matters and has attended and given evidence in Court up to High Court level. Stephen is an RICS accredited Expert Witness.
Stephen has over 42 years’ experience in licensed and hospitality premises having worked in private practice for the last 20 years and prior to that held a number of senior property and acquisition roles in pub and restaurant companies.
As well as portfolio and individual valuation work, he also provides strategic advice and business reviews for banks, insolvency practitioners and operators together with providing strategic portfolio transactional advice, acting on behalf of:
• virtually all UK lending banks
• all major operators
• many local and regional owners and investors
• private equity and venture capital firms
• UK developers and investors.
The team advises or transacts over 2,000 hospitality properties on an annual basis. The scope of work includes:
• Portfolio and individual disposals
• high quality IM's and due diligence
• acquisition advice
• fully RICS and IVSC compliant valuations
• market and feasibility studies and development advice
• advice on leases, management contracts and rent reviews
• investment appraisals and asset strategy
• detailed cash flow forecasts
• specialist bank support and business recovery solutions
• expert witness and litigation support
• strategic advice - corporate and business planning and strategy
• performance benchmarking
– asset management
– advice on non-performing assets.
Christie & Co is regarded as the market leader in the hospitality sector.
Stephen is also a Trustee and Director of the British Institute of Innkeeping (“BII”)