Our History

1911

The Crystal Palace sells to Lord Plymouth for £210,000.

1912

Howard Frank buys estate agent Walton & Lee to secure the prime front page of Country Life magazine.

1913

The Edinburgh office opens.

1914

Senior Partner Howard Frank is knighted.

1922

The firm sells Winston Churchill’s house and sells Chartwell to him.

1924

The Duke of Westminster sells Grosvenor House in Park Lane through Knight Frank & Rutley.

1925

Knight Frank & Rutley buys 40 acres north of Oxford Street for the Audley Trust.

1958

Offices on London’s Chiswell Street are acquired for BP, marking the UK’s largest ever property transaction.

1964

The Geneva office opens.

1965

Knight Frank & Rutley is established in Nigeria.

1980

The UK’s biggest single property deal takes place: BP’s purchase of Britannic House for £93 million.

1981

Douglas Elliman Knight Frank sells Pan-American World Airways Intercontinental Hotels Corporation to Grand Metropolitan for $500 million in New York.

1983

Knight Frank & Rutley joins with a leading Hong Kong surveyor to form Knight Frank Kan and Baillieu.

Meanwhile, in the same year, the Singapore office is established.

1984

The firm acquires additional premises at 5 Hanover Square to accommodate its growing staff, now comprising 53 partners and 5 associates.

1986

Qantas Centre in Sydney is sold for $200 million, becoming Australia’s largest single biggest property sale.

The Residential Development division is set up at the London Docklands office.

2003

Knight Frank becomes a Limited Liability Partnership.

2004

Knight Frank is ranked as one of The Sunday Times 100 Best UK Companies to Work For.

2005

The firm advises on the development of London’s new Olympic Village ahead of the 2012 Games.

Rutley Capital Partners, the real estate private equity business, is established.

2009

Newmark Knight Frank is appointed leasing agent on the Empire State Building.

2010

Knight Frank is appointed on London’s new skyscraper, The Shard, set to be the tallest landmark building in Europe.

2011

Knight Frank successfully pitches to sell the 40-acre Battersea Power Station site, consisting of eight million square feet of mixed-used property.

Launches multilingual website and introduces a new property app which goes on to be listed in the Daily Telegraph Top 10 property apps.

2012

My Knight Frank, a library of past and present research publications, launches.

2018

Expands the European network with the opening of the Hungarian office.

Forms a strategic alliance with Bayleys in New Zealand.