DTZ resurrected

The Queenstown branch of Colliers International - Australasia's largest commercial property company - has resurrected the former DTZ property consultancy company in Dunedin which was closed last month with the loss of seven jobs.

Colliers has become a joint venture partner with former DTZ, which takes on the Colliers' name, and it is likely to become a Dunedin-based independent branch.

Colliers in Queenstown, which was established there last July, plans to double its existing business around Otago in the next two years, Queenstown-based manager of Colliers, Alistair Wood, said.

"The current environment offers many opportunities to drive our business in Otago while everyone else sits on their hands. It is a very good market for us to get into," Mr Wood said in a statement yesterday.

Colliers also intended to expand and develop its valuation and consultancy work around Otago, Mr Wood said.

As Colliers' Queenstown office had completed "substantial" business in Dunedin and the synergies already existed between the businesses, it was decided to provide clients with an office in Dunedin.

Colliers, with 13 branches and about 330 employees across the country, had sold Fisher and Paykel Appliances' former Mosgiel site for $20 million in recent months and was handling this week's tendering of a large commercial area in Dunedin, held by Fonterra which is going to the F and P Appliances' site.

In late March, DTZ in Dunedin confirmed it would close following a decision made by the worldwide property consultancy company's head office in London, leaving seven people redundant.

DTZ Otago branch manager Stephen Cairns, who is also chairman of the Otago Regional Council, said at the time several staff had decided to relaunch the business.

Yesterday, he said the Dunedin office would initially be a branch of the Queenstown office before becoming a stand-alone branch and, on opening in Moray Pl next Friday, would employ five people.

Mr Cairns said Colliers was a "brand champion" and had strong associations with its staff in Queenstown, Christchurch and Auckland in the past and was "delighted" to be joining the network.

DTZ and its forerunners before buyouts, has been in Dunedin for about 25 years, under various guises.