Former trader with his tanks on British Land's lawn

Business Profile: Colin Kingsnorth of Laxey Partners is seeking big changes at the Ritblat property empire

A tiny office on Chelsea Wharf in west London is not the place you'd expect to find the young Turk fund manager who is taking on one of Britain's biggest property companies.

The office is in a converted workshop opposite an old mill and is a long, long way from the nearest tube. Instead of a lift there is a steel, industrial-style staircase that leads to a modern suite of rooms overlooking the Thames. Even the address, Door E, First Floor, 28 Chelsea Wharf, is hardly what you'd expect of a financial group with $500m of funds under management. But it is home to the firm whose battle to shake-up British Land comes to a head at a the group's annual general meeting tomorrow.

Welcome to Laxey Partners, the four-year-old firm run by the 38-year-old Colin Kingsnorth. Blond, grey-eyed and not showing a trace of nerves ahead of the big day, Mr Kingsnorth, is a former trader who owns a stake in the hip Brighton hotel, the Hotel Pelirocco.

He gestures around his tiny empire, which has just 14 staff, pointing to bits of furniture scavenged from the auctions of failed enterprises. "That table is from the Millennium dome," he says pointing to a modern glass unit in the reception. "The sofa is from Enron UK and so are those desks and shelves." Anything from WorldCom? "Not yet," he says with a smile. "But the auction is coming up."

He seems relaxed for someone who has kicked up an almighty fuss. His name and firm were virtually unknown in the City before Laxey built up a 3 per cent stake in John Ritblat's British Land and started to agitate for change. Mr Kingsnorth and his partner Andrew Pegge, has tabled resolutions proposing that British Land buy back its own shares and appoint external managers to handle the company's property assets.

It has even got a little bit personal. "British Land is a pretty damned bullying style of company. It has bullied shareholders over many years. If shareholders have concerns, you'd expect a company to react. But this particular company calls people's bluff. They say 'no, we're not going to do buy-backs. Now, you toothless institution, what are you going to do?'"

Has he ever met John Ritblat, British Land's veteran chairman? "I expect to meet him at the AGM. I've met Nick (Mr Ritblat's son and British Land director). The meetings were friendly, but low on content. They are incredibly thick-skinned."

Mr Kingsnorth is critical of Mr Ritblat's senior's strategy. "He is a collector of property assets," he claims. "I think he has pursued size over return and that has showed up in the long-term performance. We think he's vastly wealthy in property, but outside British Land."

Mr Kingsnorth wants a full-scale review of the assets. "Putting Broadgate (the prestige office development in the City of London) up for sale would probably be a good idea. And Meadowhall (the Sheffield shopping centre). They don't have any particular expertise in shopping malls. Lots of other people do."

Mr Kingsnorth critics say that although he has attacked the company's corporate governance, such as the lack of independence of three of the group's four non-executive directors, he is only really interested in making a fast buck. They also say he has timed his assault badly coming in after British Land's shares have already rallied and the discount to net asset value has narrowed considerable. Mr Kingsnorth does not attempt to hide his motives. "We call ourselves active value investors. We buy things that are cheap and try to make them less cheap. That means we are proactive.... We put forward resolutions for meetings but we don't have a problem with that. It's a Darwinian approach."

Mr Kingsnorth set up Laxey in 1998 as a 50:50 joint venture with Mr Pegge after spending the previous 18 months twiddling his thumbs on the Isle of Man as he fulfilled a non-compete clause. The group has $500m under management mostly from UK and US pension funds. It targets value opportunities which often leads it to look at property assets within companies. It does not disclose performance measurements, so it is impossible to judge how successful it is.

"We look at balance sheets before profit and loss accounts. We're interested in assets. It's value investing and you often end up looking at property within a company because it is often a cheaper way of gaining control of an asset than acquiring the asset itself."

Mr Kingsnorth was born in Brentwood, Essex and educated at the old North East London Polytechnic. His father worked at Unilever but the young Kingsnorth was more interested in the City. "I worked for Robert Fleming as a general dogsbody on investment trusts. Then I went to Olliff and Partners in corporate finance and arbitrage funds."

He later joined Olliff & Partners, a stockbroker, before moving onto Buchanan Partners where he met Mr Pegge. In 1995, the pair set up a hedge fund joint venture with Jim Mellon's Regent Pacific. They ended up based in a village on the Isle of Man called Laxey, which they used as the name of their new vehicle. After they sold out Mr Kingsnorth stayed on the island for 18 months while he worked out his non-compete clause. "It was a nice break. I'd spent the previous few years working all hours, with a Bloomberg screen by the bed, trading all night. We had a young child (he now has two) so it was quite a good place to be: safe, no traffic, lots of outsidey things."

In the end though he was going stir crazy. "It was a good place to be at the weekend. But during the week, well..." he says, his voice trailing off. "My wife was going mad by the end of it."

At Laxey he pays himself £80,000 a year, net of tax but says it is a "very profitable business" whose proceeds are reinvested. His outside interests include fishing, cricket and, surprise, surprise, investing in property. "I've got a one-third stake in a hotel in Brighton, the Hotel Pelirocco. It's got 17 themed rooms, sponsored by various companies, like Nokia, Sony PlayStation and Smint (and witty names like Sputnik, Absolut Love and Lenny Beige's Love Palace). It's completely over the top. But it's great."

It's perhaps not an asset John Ritblat would invest in. But tomorrow we will find out which of these two – the veteran investor, or the young pretender – has come out on top.

COLIN KINGSNORTH HOTELIER TOO

Title: Chairman, Laxey Partners

Age: 38

Pay: £80,000 net of tax

Education: North East London Polytechnic (now part of the University of East London)

Career history: Robert Fleming, Olliff & Partners, Buchanan Partners, Regent Pacific.

Interests: Cricket, fishing and property. He owns a one-third stake in the Hotel Pelirocco, in Brighton. "It's completely over the top, but it's great."