British Land’s results for the year ended 31 March 2015 have been published. The EPRA NAV rose by 20.5% to 829p. They have declared a quarterly dividend of 6.92p; bringing the full year to 27.68p (2014: 27.0p) and the first quarter dividend for the new financial year will be 7.09p, an increase of 2.5%.
The NAV increase was driven by a 12.1% increase in the total portfolio valuation. Within that, existing buildings rose in value by 11.1% and new developments added 25.9%. Offices & Residential rose in value by 18.8% reflecting buoyant markets; the uplift in Retail & Leisure was 7.5%. 2.4m square feet of space was re-let during the year. In retail, 1.1m sq ft was let at rents 8.7% ahead of ERV and in offices 810,000 sq ft was re-let at rents 10.8% ahead of ERV. Residential sales totalled £370m, £259m of that relates to Clarges, Mayfair.
New acquisitions included 1 Sheldon Square in Paddington and Surrey Quays Leisure Centre. They swapped assets in a deal with Tesco. Building work has started at 4 Kingdom Street. They have just got planning permission for a 517,000 sq ft development at 100 Liverpool Street and they have applied for permission for a 347,000 sq ft development at Blossom street in Shoreditch.
Their weighted average cost of debt has been cut by 30bp to 3.8% and the LTV has fallen to 35% from 40% (32% if you assume the conversion of their 2017 convertible bond)
BLND : British Land results reflect strong development profits