John Hitchcox is as often in glossy magazines as the business pages, but that has not deterred the laid-back property entrepreneur from taking his first steps into the real estate fund sector.

The founder of Yoo, a UK-based development and design group, has been putting his marketing skills to use over the past few months, working with bankers to raise money for an investment vehicle to buy and develop residential schemes that have stalled owing to the credit crisis.