Great Portland Estates (GPE) is celebrating a record year for new leases and renewals in its portfolio, securing £70.9m per annum of rents at 10.3% more than their March 2025 ERV over the 12 months ended 31 March 2026.
That fed through into a 4.3% increase in the value of its portfolio and a 6.1% increase in its EPRA NAV to 524p per share. EPS rose by 63.5% and the dividend was upped to 8.2p per share.
£490m worth of property was sold during the period at prices that were 2.3% ahead of March 2025 book value and equivalent to about £1,251 per square foot. Another £200m worth of sales are under consideration. The company also bought two properties in Fitzrovia for a total of £69m.
Within the development portfolio:
- 2 Aldermanbury Square, EC2 completed for Clifford Chance, on time and budget, 100% pre-let
- Good progress at five on-site development and refurbishment schemes, £223m capex to come
- Three on-site HQ schemes now c.50% pre-let including 30 Duke Street, SW1 to CD&R and The Delft, SE1 to Quantexa
- Two Fully Managed refurbishments, including commitment to The Howlett, Gresse Street, W1
- Three Fully Managed deliveries in year – 141 Wardour Street, W1, 170 Piccadilly, W1 and 19 Wells Street, W1 – (c.77,000 sq ft); strong leasing progress
- Further three pipeline HQ schemes, planning secured at St Thomas Yard, SE1; total capex £367m
GPE is looking for rental growth of 4%–7% over the coming year (4%–8% for prime offices). It still sees growing demand for London offices, expecting to see 2.7m office jobs in London by 2030, 30% more than pre-pandemic. GPE says its leverage remains low with LTV at 28.6%, well within its through the cycle target range of 10% to 35%.
QuotedData’s Richard Williams said “Widely held fears for the future of offices has held back GPE’s share price, but do not match with reality – as has been shown in these results. As we wrote a couple of weeks ago, the structural supply and demand dynamics at play for the best-in-class central London office market is supportive of strong rental growth. The gap between GPE’s share price and NAV, at over 40%, looks far too wide in our opinion.”
