26th May 2021 08:31
(Alliance News) - British Land Co reported a steep fall in portfolio value during a virus-hit financial year, though the property company has taken heart from a recent easing of lockdown measures in the UK.
British Land reported a narrowed loss, though it lost over GBP1 billion for the second year in-a-row.
EPRA net tangible assets per share fell 16% to 648 pence at March 31 from 773p a year earlier, while portfolio value fell 11% to GBP9.13 billion from GBP11.16 billion. British Land's NAV came in above company-compiled consensus forecasts of 644p.
Shares in the company were 1.5% lower at 512.00p each in London on Wednesday morning.
British Land's pretax loss for the year was GBP1.05 billion, narrowed slightly from GBP1.12 billion. Meanwhile, underlying profit for the year fell 34% to GBP201 million from GBP306 million, though this topped consensus estimates of GBP198 million.
Revenue was down 24% to GBP468 million from GBP613 million.
"While Covid-19 has clearly impacted our performance, with the portfolio value down 10.8%, we have a strong balance sheet and have already delivered excellent progress against our four priorities. We've sold GBP1.2 billion of assets, overall 6.2% ahead of book value, completed our first net zero development at 100 Liverpool Street and committed to develop Norton Folgate and 1 Broadgate, where we have pre let nearly 30% of the office space to JLL," said Chief Executive Simon Carter.
JLL is real estate services firm Jones Lang LaSalle IP Inc.
British Land's dividend for the year totalled 15.04p, down 5.8% from 15.97p the year prior.
Looking ahead, British Land noted that the UK's gradual exit from lockdown has strengthened economic confidence. It expects office rents to fall by up to 5% before recovering. It noted that retail occupational markets remain tough, and it expects rents to decline further, though it is seeing signs of stabilisation on some retail parks. The rebound in retail footfall has been encouraging, it added.
"Although it is early days, economic indicators are positive, and we are hopeful that we are starting to emerge from the pandemic," said British Land.
"However, we are very mindful that the trajectory for this pandemic is highly uncertain with risk from future variants, so we take comfort from the strength of the balance sheet and our resilient performance over the last 12 months."
Last week, peer Land Securities Group PLC reported a weak annual performance, reflecting the challenges brought on by the Covid-19 pandemic.
LandSec reported a sharply widened pretax loss in the financial year to March 31 of GBP1.39 billion from GBP837 million in the year prior. EPRA net tangible assets per share fell 17% to 985p from 1,192p.
By Eric Cunha; [email protected]
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