The spirit of property doubles a man's strength, according to Voltaire, and the message has not been lost on Greycoat Estates of London.

The company has raised backing from Scottish Widows, the Singapore government and ING Real Estate for a £100m (€146m) fund that will buy sites for speculative development. Greycoat expects debt to help raise the size of its fund to £400m in short order. A promise by Scottish Widows and partners to buy schemes on completion will persuade the banks to overcome their recent dislike of speculative developments.