Performance Highlights

We have achieved notable success over the half year in the areas of leasing up our developments, securing planning consents for the future, selling investment properties and progressing the establishment of a fund for investment in PFI contracts.

In our London Portfolio, our development projects delivered a valuation surplus of 7.5% with the strongest contributions being from New Street Square and Bankside 2&3, at both of which we achieved significant lettings. At New Street Square we achieved record rents for Mid-town in the range of £71.00psf – £76.00psf in the tower building as compared to £42.50psf on our initial pre-letting within the scheme two and a half years ago. At Bankside 2&3, we were delighted to conclude a letting of the whole of the office element totalling 34,600m² to Royal Bank of Scotland. Within the Retail Portfolio, we opened our Princesshay shopping centre development in Exeter with the scheme 90% let on the date of opening. The scheme makes a strong civic contribution to Exeter, and this has been widely recognised in the press with accolades such as the headline ‘A Jewel in the Crown’.

We have sold £333.3m of property from our London Portfolio at an average of 15.3% above the 31 March 2007 valuation figures (pre-disposal costs). The premium pricing reflected, in a number of instances, specific actions we took to create additional value. An example was at Blackfriars Road in Southwark, London SE1 where we established the likelihood of getting planning consent for a new building over 2.5 times the size of the existing buildings. Sales from our Retail Portfolio totalled £589.1m and, despite negative sentiment towards retail investment property over the whole period, averaged 4.1% above March valuation figures (pre-disposal costs).