British Land : Full Year Results 2026 (Transcript)

Transcript

Disclaimer

This transcript is derived from a recording of the event. Every possible effort has been made to transcribe accurately. However, neither British Land nor BRR Media Limited shall be liable for any inaccuracies, errors, or omissions.

Simon Carter: We'll make a start. Good morning, everyone, and thank you very much for joining us. Great to have a nice turnout in the room. Probably helpful the tube strikes were called off. I was a bit worried we'd be presenting to ourselves, but no, here we go. So today we'll follow the usual running order. I'll start with a strategic update. Then David will take you through the financial performance and our attractive earnings outlook. Over the next 30 minutes, you'll see how this is driven by two things. First, our market-leading positions in sectors with strong fundamentals. Second, our active approach to asset management. We've long believed that hands-on asset management is a key source of outperformance. Never has that been more evident, and Kelly will give you some great examples later. So let me start with the occupational fundamentals of our markets and our competitive positioning within them.

Our campuses and retail parks now represent 90% of our business and they are market-leading - both in scale and in quality. I am struggling to remember a time when the occupational fundamentals were as favourable as they are today - with net absorption very strong and supply constrained in both our markets. Together with our active approach to asset management, this is translating into attractive ERV, like-for-like and earnings growth. This underpins our conviction in delivering 8-10% total accounting returns through the cycle.

I thought it'd be helpful today to touch on two topical themes: inflation and artificial intelligence.

As we all know, inflation rose dramatically after the invasion of Ukraine and conflict in the Middle East is likely to exert further upward pressure on prices. So how much of this inflation are we likely to capture in our rents? To answer this, let's look at the portfolio performance since 2022. Over this period, our ERV growth has tracked inflation and just recently overtaken it. And we've delivered top quartile total shareholder returns. That's down to having well-located, high-quality assets in sectors with strong occupational fundamentals. And this is the important bit: our markets are tighter today than they were in 2022, with vacancy around 300 basis points lower in both markets. So we expect to outperform inflation going forward and are guiding to ERV growth of 3 to 5%.

Now let's delve into the fundamentals in more detail, starting with London offices. This is where I want to touch on my second theme - AI. There is a live debate about AI's potential impact on white-collar jobs. Will this be like previous waves of technological change - the PC, the internet, the smartphone

- where new jobs were created faster than old ones disappeared? Or will it be different this time? The reality is that nobody knows for sure. So, as ever, we will stay very close to our customers to be the first to understand what is happening. In the meantime, I think we can say with a high degree of confidence that soft skills will be at a premium, and a new generation of companies will want the best physical environments for those skills to flourish. Our campuses should sit right at the heart of this. If we look at the facts today,

net absorption of space - one of the best measures of the health of demand - is at a record high. And for every company downsizing, four are upsizing.

This is driven by a strong return to the office and significant growth from a new wave of AI businesses. Despite geopolitical uncertainty, the forward-looking indicators are very positive. Demand is 57% above the 10-year average. And under offers are 50% higher than this time last year.

This demand is meeting a severe supply crunch, driven by initial fears about the effect of hybrid working, increased construction costs, and higher yields. The supply crunch is particularly acute in the City, where vacancy for new and refurbished space is forecast to fall below 2% and remain there for the next four years. Historically, when we have seen this, rents have grown at around 10% per annum.

Our campuses are ideally positioned to benefit from this environment. They offer exceptional product next to major transport nodes with rich amenity and space that supports companies at every stage of their growth - from Storey, through Work Ready, to global HQ space. The results speak for themselves - a record £143 million of leasing last year. To put that into perspective, we

represent around 5% of the London office market but were 15% of last year's

reported leasing - and 33% in the fourth quarter.

I've said before, the campus proposition is particularly attractive to science and tech businesses. In 2024, we set out a strategy to increase our weighting to this sector. We believed it would be a key growth driver for the UK economy. What we didn't fully anticipate was quite how powerful a tailwind AI would prove to be. Growth across AI and data science has accelerated - particularly over the last twelve months - and the lead indicators are very compelling.

If you look at the US, leasing activity in the San Francisco Bay Area reached 11 million sq ft last year, the highest level since 2017, with another 3.8 million sq ft in the first quarter. These businesses are now expanding internationally - and London is very clearly the leading destination. That's due to the fantastic talent on offer. We are currently tracking 2.5 million sq ft of active demand. The Knowledge Quarter sits right at the centre of this activity, as you can see on the slide, benefiting Regent's Place.

We've rapidly grown the number of innovation occupiers across our portfolio. Our acquisition of Life Science REIT adds further high-quality assets in the Golden Triangle, serving a wide range of occupiers - such as Wayve in autonomous vehicles; Oxford Ionics in quantum computing; or Thought Machine in banking payments. On a proforma basis, science and tech now represents 35% of our campus footprint.

The name Life Science REIT understates the opportunity, which in fact spans the entire science and tech ecosystem. Labs represent just 6% of the acquired portfolio. And, interestingly, there are no life science companies among the top

five occupiers, which together account for 50% of the rent roll. The acquisition delivers attractive economics, unlocked through our scalable platform. We expect meaningful cost synergies through the elimination of corporate costs and efficient onboarding of assets. The acquisition is immediately earnings accretive, and we expect further earnings growth through capturing reversion and leasing vacant space, particularly at Oxford Technology Park, where much of the space is newly delivered. We've already made excellent progress in our first month of ownership as you will hear from David. Crucially, earnings accretion was achieved with no impact on NTA.

I am sometimes asked how we manage the higher covenant risk associated with smaller science and tech companies. In practice, we have seen very few failures as you can see on the slide. But risk management remains critical. Smaller, high growth businesses typically take Storey or Work Ready space on shorter leases, with limited rent-free periods supported by rent deposits. Because the fit-out is generic, if a tenant does fail, we can re-let quickly, with downtime generally covered by deposits. By contrast, we require strong credit profiles for HQ space, given the longer leases, higher incentives, and more bespoke customer fit-outs. Though ultimately, owning in demand real estate is the best mitigant of credit risk.

I'd like to turn now to development. It's a more challenging environment for

this, given higher build and funding costs. So it won't work everywhere - but in very core locations, like Broadgate, where future supply is close to zero, the economics remain compelling. We are achieving premium rents, yields on costs of 7%+ and mitigating risk through pre-lets, fixed price design and build

contracts, and partnerships. This is exactly the approach we're taking at 1

Appold Street as you will hear later from Kelly.

And now to retail parks - a growing part of our business where the fundamentals remain very healthy. By now, you will be very familiar with our

three A's: affordability, accessibility, adaptability. These make parks the format of choice for the UK's best performing retailers - grocers, essentials, and omnichannel operators. Expansion by these retailers has driven strong absorption, with vacancy down 340 basis points since 2021, unlike high streets and shopping centres where vacancy remains high. New supply is very unlikely, with values remaining below replacement cost and planning extremely restrictive.

Our portfolio is unmatched in terms of quality and scale. We have 10 million sq ft of space within 30 minutes of half the UK's population. And our deep, longstanding retailer relationships are a key competitive advantage. This has translated into footfall that's grown more than 13% above the UK retail benchmark since 2019.

Strong rental growth on our retail parks looks set to continue given its high correlation with occupancy. With occupancy of 99%, we delivered 4.4% rental growth last year. The over-rent that emerged post-Covid has largely burned off

through ERV growth, and today we are leasing space at around 6% above

previous passing rents. Kelly will cover this and how we're leveraging our retailer relationships to source attractive acquisitions and drive performance. But before that, David will take you through the financial performance. David over to you.

David Walker: Thanks Simon, morning everyone.

Three things from me today. First, I'll cover our financial performance for FY26. Then I'll update on the balance sheet and our approach to capital allocation.

And finally, how our five earnings levers drive performance into FY27.

Starting then with the financials, I am pleased we delivered earnings growth ahead of the guidance I gave at the start of the year, underpinned by strong like-for-like growth, good progress on development leasing, especially through the second half and continued cost discipline. Like-for-like net rents grew 6%, adding 2.1 pence to EPS. Within this campus growth was 12%, as EPRA occupancy improved following leasing progress at buildings like Norton Folgate and 155 Bishopsgate. Retail also performed well, delivering 2% growth despite

already high occupancy levels and the fact we are doing deals ahead of previous passing rent is a key driver of future like-for-like growth.

Development leasing added 1.4 pence to EPS, as recently completed schemes began to contribute to income. And we saw the benefit of our focus on admin costs, which are down 9% and this, combined with a £1 million increase in fee income, added 0.8 pence to EPS.

These positive items were partially offset by two factors: the negative year-on-year movement in one-off items and higher finance costs. Within the one-off items, there was a provision release last year, mainly related to receipts of legacy arrears, that did not repeat in FY26, and this movement more than offset the upside from surrender premia. Surrenders were higher than normal in the year but, in each case, they represent the kind of hands-on asset management Simon described allowing us to secure cash receipts and re-let the space to new occupiers, at higher rents.

Higher finance costs reduced EPS by 3.4p. Of this, 1 pence was due to a 30-basis point increase in our weighted average interest rate, to 3.9%. But the bulk of the increase is because interest that was previously capitalised on developments now hits the P&L as these schemes complete. This, in itself, reduced EPS by 2.4 pence. Although looking forward, this impact is now more than offset by the leasing delivered on these schemes which is a key reason why we see our earnings growth into FY27 as being de-risked, which I will touch on later.

Overall, Underlying Profit was up 5% with Underlying EPS up 1%, and, so, in line with our dividend policy of paying out 80% of Underlying EPS, the Board has proposed a final dividend of 10.8 pence, taking the total payout to 23.12 pence,

up 1%.

In terms of the more detailed P&L account, the two metrics I want to focus on are the net rent margin and cost ratio, both of which have been impacted this year by specific factors. Firstly, the provision movements I just described and secondly, increased void costs as developments completed. Going forward, the void cost impact will reduce as we benefit from the development leasing we've already delivered, and fill the remaining space. At the same time, we remain focused on controlling costs

In this context, it is pleasing that admin costs are down 16% since 2022, despite inflationary pressures and down 9% this year alone. This will of course benefit the cost ratio, which I expect to be around 17.5% in FY27 before reducing further to mid-teens in future years whilst margins return to around 90% over time.

Moving on to the balance sheet, and NTA. Portfolio values increased 2.3% over the year which, along with profit growth, delivered a 4% increase in NTA per share to 590 pence. Combined with the dividend paid, this delivered an 8.1% total accounting return within our target range of 8-10% for the first time since 2022.

It is clear that our focus on making smart asset management decisions, in the right sectors, driving rents higher, while controlling costs, has underpinned this performance.

We remained active in the debt markets in the year, completing over £3 billion of financing activity. More recently, the backdrop has, of course, been more volatile, but we have continued to access markets successfully, including a new loan secured on 100 Liverpool Street in April, and our new commercial paper programme, which is shorter-dated by nature, but benefits the P&L.

Looking ahead, with our diverse mix of debt types and duration, we remain well financed with flexibility on when and how we raise new debt. Leverage remains within our target ranges for this stage of the cycle. LTV is 39.2%. Net Debt to EBITDA on a Group basis is 7.7x and our Fitch rating remains A with a stable outlook. So, with £1.6 billion of liquidity and no requirement to refinance until 2029, the balance sheet continues to provide the stable platform we need to grow.

In this context, our approach to capital allocation remains disciplined and consistent. In fact, this slide is unchanged from half-year. Our focus is on recycling capital out of mature, lower returning assets into higher returning opportunities. Today, that means continuing to invest in retail parks at attractive pricing and progressing best-in-class campus developments - on a suitably de-risked basis.

Kelly will talk you through the framework of how we think about de-risking development shortly. As ever, we take all capital allocation decisions in the context of shareholder returns, including the relative returns and EPS accretion available from share buyback, for example, when we have proceeds to invest following significant disposals.

Our acquisition of Life Science REIT demonstrates how we are alert to opportunities to drive growth in an earnings-accretive, NTA-neutral manner. It allows us to scale into a sector with strong tailwinds using our existing platform and is immediately earnings accretive, adding 0.3 pence to EPS in FY27, with further upside moving forward, primarily from the lease-up of newly delivered space at Oxford Technology Park. We have already repaid the legacy company debt, using cheaper British Land facilities, integrated the five assets into our portfolio, at minimal incremental cost, and are making good progress on initial leasing, with 56 thousand sq ft of newly delivered space under offer at Oxford Technology Park.

Turning now to our five earnings levers. This is the framework we use to deliver consistent, cash generative growth. I am pleased at how, in FY26, we delivered well against these, including good like-for-like growth, continued cost rigour and strong progress on development lease-up. Fee growth has been slightly below what we target medium term, largely because capital activity was also lower in FY26 than we would normally expect. Kelly will expand on how we see the outlook for investment markets in a minute. Principally though, these levers were about the building blocks of earnings growth for FY27 onwards and here I have set out how we expect them to trend over the medium term, which again is consistent with half-year. The first three levers demonstrate how we expect to generate around 4% core, organic EPS growth per year. With capital activity adding a potential further 2% EPS growth meaning, overall, we expect to deliver sustainable earnings growth of between 3 and 6% per annum going forward.

Specifically, for FY27, there are a few things that I would highlight. First, given the occupational strength in our core markets, we are confident in delivering like-for-like growth at the top end of our target range of 3-5%. Second, we will benefit from the development leasing completed over the last 18 months which will deliver around £40 million of rents in FY27. Third, we remain focused on leasing our remaining development space while retaining a firm grip on admin costs which will both drive an improvement in our cost ratio - to around 17.5% this year based on the expected shape of our P&L. Partially offsetting this, we expect a continued, further gradual increase in finance costs likely at the top end of this range of 10-20 basis points, given our hedging profile. And finally, within the capital recycling lever, the Life Science REIT acquisition is immediately earnings accretive. All of which underpins our confidence in delivering at least 30.5p of EPS for FY27, 6% EPS growth off FY26 levels. Which is a good place to hand over to Kelly.

Kelly Cleveland: Thanks David and morning everyone. Simon's covered the market backdrop and our strategy, so what I want to do now is bring it to life. I'll talk you through the

activity and value creation we're seeing on the ground and share some

examples of where our hands-on approach to asset management really delivers.

Starting with valuations. This is fundamentally an occupational story - portfolio values were up 2.3%, driven by ERV growth of 4.9% and stable yields. ERV growth is at the top end of our 3-5% guidance range, reflecting the strength of leasing we've delivered. You can see the same pattern across both campuses and retail: campuses are up 2% with ERVs up 6.5%; and retail and urban logistics are up 2.7% with ERVs up 3.6%. Geopolitical and macro volatility remains very evident, but the operational performance has shown no signs of pausing, with leasing volumes accelerating in recent months.

At our campuses, we completed a record 1.7 million sq ft of leasing, 6% ahead of ERV and 20% ahead of previous passing rents. This reflects tight supply for well-located, high-quality space. Around half of this annual activity was delivered in the final quarter despite the more volatile macro backdrop.

This continues into FY27, with a further 295 thousand sq ft under offer as at year-end, 17% ahead of ERV, and in the 6 weeks post-year-end, a further 228 thousand sq ft has gone under offer. Over half our deals have been on previously vacant or newly delivered space. This strong leasing drove occupancy to 95% at year-end, from 92% in September. That includes Norton Folgate; now 94% let and under offer.

Over at Regent's Place, in October we launched One Triton Square. This building is a perfect example of our hands-on approach. We proactively took the building back from Meta in late 2023, received a £149 million surrender premium, brought in Royal London as a JV partner early 2024, and repositioned it as a world-class science and tech building.

Leasing velocity has exceeded expectations with the building 94% let, including all of the lab space, just seven months after practical completion, and achieving rents 40% ahead of what Meta was paying. Occupiers include Gilead, announced earlier this year, and more recently Anthropic - one of the world's leading AI companies - who've signed for 158,000 sq ft. This is our sixth deal with Anthropic at Regent's Place, and a great illustration of how our campus model supports growing businesses as they scale.

Stepping back, Regent's Place as a whole has had a strong year as it continues to transform. The 1.4 million sq ft Knowledge Quarter Campus benefits from proximity to leading academic and research institutions. Leasing this year has been 12% ahead of ERV, and ERVs across the Campus are now almost 7% higher year-on-year. This is being driven by a broadening of the occupier base, with a science and technology focus. Science and tech occupiers now represent over half the Campus rent, up from a third five years ago.

Euston Tower is the next chapter. As we move forward with our search for a

development partner, it's a great opportunity to build on the Campus's position

as London's fastest-growing destination for innovation and high-growth businesses. And British Land will be moving head office to the Campus in a couple of months, so we're excited to have a front-row seat to everything that follows.

While AI and tech's an important source of incremental demand, professional and financial service activity remains incredibly robust - our letting to lawyers HSFK at Broadgate's 1 Appold Street development, signed in February and completing in 2029, is a good example. Their 21-year lease for the office space sets new benchmark rents for Broadgate, and the project meets all our development criteria: prime campus location; meaningful pre-let, of between 60 and 100% of the office space; construction cost certainty; and flexibility to bring in an additional capital partner alongside GIC to manage risk and drive fee income.

Turning to the offices investment market - the occupational backdrop is well recognised as very strong, and that strength will feed through to investment appetite in time. At the start of the year we were seeing encouraging signs, with renewed appetite for larger lot sizes. Since then, the Middle East conflict and UK political situation have weighed on the rates environment. But it's a question of when the recovery continues, not if - the occupational fundamentals are too strong for investors to ignore. Post year-end, we've exchanged or gone under offer on £176 million of asset sales and have a number of other live processes underway. We'll update you on these in due course.

Turning now to our retail parks, which remain virtually full. Leasing volumes are strong, with 1.5 million sq ft completed at 9% above ERV. Importantly, deals are now being agreed above previous passing rents, reflecting very limited new supply and strong occupier demand.

And it marks a key inflection point. For several years, rental growth absorbed historic over-rent. We're now through that phase; so rental growth is flowing through into like-for-like growth.

Demand on retail parks also continues to broaden. Compared with a decade ago, more occupier types have moved from marginal to mainstream, including gyms and leisure; drive-throughs; discount grocers like Aldi and Lidl; EV charging, and health service uses. This matters because it supports higher footfall; longer dwell times; and greater cross-spend, which will support the next wave of sustainable rental growth.

To finish, I'll touch on some examples of recent active management in retail parks - this is one of the things we do better than anyone else. In November 2024, we acquired Orbital Retail Park. At underwriting, the plan was: upsize M&S Food into the former Homebase unit and re-let the smaller, vacated M&S space to another leading national operator. We agreed both deals in principle before we purchased-acquiring with Homebase in situ, recognising the pressure they were under, and with direct visibility from our discussions with

M&S that they wanted a larger store. M&S opened pre-Christmas, just over a year after acquisition. They tell us this is their fastest new store from signing to opening and has been trading extremely strongly. The asset has delivered us a 21% IRR since acquisition.

Telford's another good example of hands-on asset management. We bought Telford Forge Shopping Park in October 2024, followed by the neighbouring park last month - acquired at an attractive price reflecting some vacancy. To create value across both parks, we've agreed a deal to bring a major national retailer to Telford Forge. To make room, we'll relocate some existing tenants into the vacant units next door. We've also added everyday services and EV charging to drive footfall and dwell time, and we expect combined returns of around 11%. This is exactly the kind of opportunity our expertise allows us to find and execute - less competitive, more attractively priced, and difficult for others to replicate. We have more in the pipeline.

It's also important that we recycle capital when we've delivered our business

plan, and we see more attractive returns elsewhere. That was the case at

Harlech, where on completion of a regear and enhancing the scheme's income

profile, we sold the park in March this year at 10% ahead of book.

So to summarise, we've had a year of record leasing in campuses, driven by strong occupational fundamentals. Retail park rents are now growing above previous passing, a meaningful inflection point driven by broadening demand. And we're adding value through active asset management and capital recycling. And I'll now hand back to Simon.

Simon Carter: Thanks, Kelly. Some great examples there of us sweating the assets. So to wrap up the presentation, as you've just heard, we had a record year of leasing in FY26, which provides high visibility on earnings into FY27. And while the external environment remains uncertain, we're confident in our ability to deliver attractive earnings growth and total returns across the cycle. We have the right real estate in the right sectors and locations where demand is strong and supply is constrained and we're actively driving value through hands-on asset management. So that concludes the presentation. Thank you very much for listening. David and Kelly will now join me on stage and we're happy to take any questions. So we'll take questions in the room first, I think. I think we've got a microphone available. So any questions in the room? Oh, one at the front.

Tom. Thanks.

Tom Musson: Thanks. Good morning. It's Tom Musson at Berenberg. Just one question about how you underwrite the risk of tenants who are not profitable. I know you touched on it in a slide in the presentation. Do you have limits on, say, the total exposure you're comfortable having to firms who are loss-making? I guess it's not just SMEs in Storey space with arguably higher credit risk. Even Anthropic, just as an example, is for now still heavily reliant on external funding.

Simon Carter: Sure. No, it's a great question. And as you covered in your question, for the smaller ones, it's really about how quickly they can move in and out of the space. We've seen very few failures, remarkably low actually in this space, but obviously there's a chance they come. But if you can move tenants in and out quickly, then that's great. But to your point on our HQ space, it's strong credit profiles. And yes, Anthropic is loss-making today, but I think it has a valuation of about a trillion, is what they're estimating for it. So, look, that feels like a covenant we're comfortable with, but we do think about that. We have tests and that was a decision. It would have failed our test on income, but given how well the business is performing and growing, we felt that was a bet worth taking.

Tom Musson: Okay. And maybe just second one on the new commercial paper programme. At what margin are you drawing that debt? Do you need to hold requisite capacity in your RCF in order to draw on the funding and what's the total capacity of that programme?

David Walker: Hi, Tom. Thank you. Yes, it's back-to-back with RCFs. We're at around, subsequent to year-end, 300-350 million today. I think we'd expect to go up to around 400 million at this point in time. It's something that we like because, as you said, there's a kind of 50 basis point plus margin differential there versus say our RCF. So there's a P&L benefit that you trade off versus the shorter duration. So, as we look to diversify the debt book, it made a lot of sense to us.

Tom Musson: Thank you.

Zachary Gauge: Morning. It's Zachary Gauge from UBS. A couple of questions. First one, just quite specifically on the development pipeline, a couple of assets there. Yield on cost and ERV seems to have moved quite a bit over the year. So One Triton Square ERV went from 17.3 to 15.7; yield on cost dropped 50 basis points. In Canada Water Plot A1, obviously small ERV, but 3.6 to 3 and a 200-basis point drop in the yield on cost. If you could just touch on the moving parts behind both of those. And the second one was just on margin. So obviously at the start of last year, I think you guided 89 to 90 on the gross to net, ended up at 86.4 this year and 87 to 88 guide for next year. I know we talked about this in the past and you've mentioned development drag, obviously leasing up of void space and the bad debt provisions being two main drivers, but I think obviously both of those you'd have had visibility on them 12 months ago.

So I guess the question is what's incrementally changed on the cost side versus what you expected 12 months ago to today?

Simon Carter: Thank you, Zach. So I'll take the questions on the yield on cost. So on One Triton, originally we thought we'd do more floors of fitted labs. So with that, you have the fit-out and that then means that you get the higher rents, but obviously the fit-out only has a certain shelf life. So we're now more traditional office space. We've got one floor of labs which are occupied, but that's the key reason there; that move from fitted labs to effectively primarily an office

scheme. And probably, just as Kelly alluded to, it's been a very profitable scheme for us because we took the £149 million surrender premium. We then brought in a JV partner. We only had 15% of our original economics in it and then we've delivered a yield on cost of 6.3 on a building that's leased very, very well.

And then at Canada Water, I think you're referring to our Dock Shed scheme. Yeah, the scheme there. And the reason the yield on cost moved on that was two reasons. Rents came down a bit. So the valuers moved the rents down to where we were marketing the space. We've always thought it was about a £50 for a day-one letting; we'd be leasing the space at £50. The valuers had a bit higher for a while; about £60. And then the other factor is unfortunately this Building Safety Regulator. We had a residential and an office scheme combined and the office scheme was ready to PC, but you can't PC until you've PC'd the residential scheme. We've now got that through the gateway. As you know, that's been very, very slow for everyone across London. It's through, but it meant it got delivered basically a year later, which impacted the yield on cost, unfortunately. It's one of the challenges. We probably won't do one demise with residential and offices going forward. It makes it too tricky.

David Walker: Yeah. Then on margin. Yeah, thanks, Zach. Good question. You're right, the guidance last year was 89 to 90. We did update that at half-year. So I think we've come in, that was 87 to 88. So we've come in 60 basis points light of that. You're absolutely right. And you're also right about the drivers. So provisions this year: we had some legacy cash receipts in the prior year, which drove provision releases. We're back to a more normalised provision position this year, but the year-on-year move is impactful. And then as you again rightly say, it's void costs. And in terms of guidance, what's harder for me to have visibility on is the timing of the lease-up of the developments, which clearly impacts on the amount of void costs you carry in any particular year as well as when the rental income starts to come through.

So, it's a double-sided coin. What I would say is, as we've all hopefully reiterated, one of the most pleasing things about the year just ended is the progress we've made on development lease-up. A lot of that was through the second half. So what we now see is the benefit of that moving into next year. So the void cost impact is therefore mitigated. We get the rental income coming through and that's why I'd guide over the medium term for that margin to go back up towards 90%.

Zachary Gauge: Thanks.

Valerie Jacob: Hi, good morning. Valerie Jacob from Bernstein. I've got a question on your asset values in the West End, they were flat this year despite quite strong ERV growth. So I just wanted to see if you had some colour on that and maybe a follow up on that. ERVs have been growing quite strongly and I just wanted to have your opinion on the risk of yields moving out if, you know, ERV growth slows down.

Simon Carter: Maybe I'll take the second part of that question first, Valerie. I think we're not seeing a slowdown in ERV growth at the moment. If anything, it's accelerating. There was a slide I put in the deck where occupational markets are really, really tight at the moment and I think we're going to see less supply come forward because of some of the volatility. So we think rental growth accelerates from here and we tracked inflation over the last sort of four years, but we think we'll outperform inflation because of that tighter market. So not looking at that, I think you've probably got a situation where rental growth's going to be stronger, but there'll be some pressure on yields because of higher rates and so those two will kind of be counteracting one another. And then Kelly, do you want to take the question on West End values?

Kelly Cleveland: Yep. Happy to take that. The standing investment portfolio in the West End was up reflecting what we covered in the prepared notes, the strong ERV growth leasing ahead of ERV, but there was a relative drag from developments and that's at Euston Tower. It's to do with updating some cost assumptions around the development, but what we would say here is that we haven't moved the rents on to reflect the progress that we've been having at Regent's Place. There is also Paddington. There's one move-out assumption on one of the standing investment assets there, but it's space that we're very comfortable getting back and we're working through our plans with our JV partner.

Simon Carter: Great. Any more questions in the room?

Marc Mozzi: Marc Mozzi from Bank of America. If you were to spread and to break down your rental growth between retail on one side and urban logistics on the other side, what would be the numbers? Because it's 2% and it seems to be low from a retail perspective. I guess it's dragged by the urban logistics assets.

Simon Carter: Yeah. Thanks, Marc. I think that's in the table in the deck. Kelly, you've probably got the figures to hand there.

Kelly Cleveland: Yeah. So good question. London urban logistics against the backdrop of a slightly softer short-term market there that we've flagged before that ERVs were down 4.3%, also reflecting some leasing that we had done in the half and retail parks' ERV growth of 4.4%.

Simon Carter: To your point, that's why it's slightly softer. Obviously, the retail parks are 11 times the size of the urban logistics.

Marc Mozzi: Thank you. And do you have the breakdown for the like-for-like number? The 2% like-for-like?

Simon Carter: Oh, sorry. Like-for-like rather than ERV. Sorry, Marc. You did say that. Apologies.

I don't, but what would the like-for-like have been in the urban logistics? We leased up space in the period so I don't think it was a drag. I don't think urban

logistics was a drag. It was more the retail park like-for-like was 2% in line with the aggregate. So urban logistics was basically flat in that period.

Marc Mozzi: Yeah, fine. Thank you. And for you, David, have you seen credit spreads moving out recently in the past couple of months? And if any moves, what would that be?

David Walker: Yeah. Spreads feel relatively stable actually, Marc. All-in pricing has moved out, obviously. And then as I said in my remarks, the market feels more volatile today. So when it comes to executing transactions, that feels a bit more challenging. Yes, all-in pricing will have moved out, but spreads feel stable. And then we continue to benefit from the fact we're 94% hedged on a spot basis.

That gradually declines to 70% over five years. So whilst we will see that increase in finance costs over time to prevailing market rates, when you analyse that out, it is that 20 basis point level we expect.

Simon Carter: Any more questions in the room? No, I don't think so. So maybe if we go to the calls.

Moderator: Yeah, it's just the webcast today. We've got two questions here from Eleanor Frew at Barclays. The first question is, "Given the limited lease events to capture reversion, can you clarify how much of your 3% to 5% like-for-like growth guidance is driven by letting up of past developments as well as factors such as surrender premiums." And then the second part of the question is, "The UK government is considering price caps for retailers who already have thin margins. Do you have any thoughts on the potential impact on tenant health and rental growth?"

David Walker: First one. Yeah. So the like-for-like growth is standing portfolio growth, Eleanor. So yeah, standing portfolio growth is what we expect to be 3% to 5% and, as I said, next year at the top end of that range.

Simon Carter: Yeah. We're capturing good rental growth at rent reviews and re-gearing leases and renewals. So that's how it's coming through. Obviously there's a pretty big reversion now in the office business and an increasingly growing one in retail. On the outlook for retail, we've given, I think, a fairly clear view that demand is very good on our parks. There's lots of retailers wanting to move and they're moving from high streets, secondary shopping centres onto the parks. And one of the things that drives that is the efficiency of the park space. You've got an occupancy cost ratio of 9%. So when margins are under pressure, I think that just accelerates that shift from high street to retail parks. Grocers have been trading well and other occupiers on the retail parks have traded well. So we'll have to see what this means, but to this point the demand is very, very healthy and I would only expect it to accelerate that shift.

Moderator: We have another question from Jonathan Kownator here at Goldman Sachs. He asks, "How is the search for partners progressing at Regent's Place given the leasing pace at the Campus? Would you commit in today's environment?"

Simon Carter: Thanks, Jonathan. Kelly, do you want to take that one?

Kelly Cleveland: Yep, sure, happy to. All the progress that we've had at Regent's Place over the half, it's a campus that's going under a really strong transformation. We're moving rents on, we're moving ERVs on. So it's an optimal time to be out there looking for a development partner. We don't have anything to report as yet, but it's a really attractive proposition and we see a lot of future growth coming out of that Campus so we feel good about it.

Simon Carter: I would almost certainly do it on a sort of de-risk basis as you've seen with our other schemes where we put in a pre-let, get a fixed price contract. That's normally the point in time where a partner wants to come in when it's been de-risked like that.

Moderator: I have a question here from Adam Shapton at Green Street. "On retail parks, 89% retention rate, is there a pattern in the 11% that are departing in terms of retailer type or location? What types of re-leasing spreads did you achieve on those?"

Simon Carter: Do you want to take that one, Kelly? I'm not sure I know the answer to that one.

Kelly Cleveland: I can give it a go. So no particular pattern, that retention rate, it's been fairly steady the last few years. I mean, it's a good retention rate for all the reasons that we've covered in the prepared notes; occupiers are not looking to give up space. They're acquisitive if anything. So no discernible pattern there about the 11%. And then the re-leasing spread that might be one that we need to come back to you on.

Simon Carter: The only data point I can think that will give you directionally the answer to that, Adam, is when you look at renewals versus new lettings in the retail parks. The re-leasing spreads are much higher on the new lettings because one of the things, I guess with leases inside the Act, is providing the evidence. It's harder obviously to provide the evidence when you're doing a re-gear than when you've got competitive tension on a new deal. So on those new deals, our releasing spreads are much higher. So I think that probably gives you the direction of travel.

Moderator: We have a question here from Nikita May at HSBC Asset Management. She asks, "Are there any updates on Canada Water?"

Simon Carter: Yeah, no, happy to provide an update on Canada Water. Probably the biggest thing to update on is the Section 73. So probably aware that in London there's an acceleration package for housing where the affordable housing requirement

was reduced from 35% down to 20%, CIL was halved, more grants available. So we've taken advantage of that at Canada Water with our Section 73. So that's moved the affordable housing down from 35% to 9%. It's also given us more massing on the scheme, which is very helpful, and more flexibility on the range of living uses. We had lots of flexibility, but we've got more now. So that's good news. We will deliver the affordable homes. The idea is less affordable, but we will deliver those, and then future plots will basically be unencumbered by affordable housing. So that's good. It means we can deliver our plan, which is a capital-light one where we continue with the placemaking. We'd probably sell off plots to the uses like build-to-rent, student, as well as co-living to the dedicated operators there. So capital-light for us and lots of momentum on Canada Water. And on the office side of it, it has been quiet over the last sort of two years, but there's been a real noticeable pickup in viewings and negotiations at Canada Water. And I think that's a function of very good rental affordability, £50 rents down there, and also the placemaking really feeling like it's taking shape now.

Moderator: We have three questions here from Mike Prew at Jefferies. The first question is, "Why are valuers cautious on your retail warehouses with passing rents at

£21.70 versus a lower ERV at £21.40?" The second question is, "In a London office supply crunch, should you not be buying secondary vacant offices to refurbish or reposition?" And the third question is, "How much of the office portfolio is occupied by Storey and what is the Storey utilisation rate?"

Simon Carter: Okay, thanks for those questions, Mike. Happy to take the one on secondary offices and then Kelly, if you take the other two. So, on secondary offices, I think there is an opportunity there. I think they need to be in the absolute right locations. Our campuses clearly benefit from great transport links. I think if you've got great transport links and good bones and you can upgrade to high-quality space, that is a great opportunity. The returns have been particularly strong on our Broadgate Tower project where we're taking a building. It's a good building, but we're adding amenity and we're pushing the rents on. And part of the thinking there was just an absolute shortage of tower floors in the City. So we're getting rents that are at a discount to 2 Finsbury Avenue but not much of a discount. So that's been good economics. And then I think the first one was on retail park performance, Kelly, and the rents.

Kelly Cleveland: The rents, I mean valuers can only use the evidence that they have. So there will generally always be a bit of a lag in terms of ERVs on the values. So nothing unusual there, but I hope we're showing today that we're able to lease ahead of ERV and also now crucially ahead of passing. And then on Storey, we can come back to you with the exact figure unless one of the gentlemen next to me has it sitting in their heads.

David Walker: Just under 10%.

Kelly Cleveland: Just under 10%. It's near enough. And it's been a really good period for Storey.

So like-for-like income growth's been 16% and we're operating at 94% occupancy there, so it's doing well.

Simon Carter: Do we have any more questions?

Moderator: We do. Yeah. We have two further questions. One is from Marcus Phayre-Mudge at Columbia Threadneedle. He asked on the Life Science REIT deal, "What were the total costs of acquisition, both in pounds million and a percentage of asset value? Did you pay a full break fee on the management contract and is that included in the total costs?"

Simon Carter: Yeah, thanks for those, Marcus. I'm sorry, off the top of my head I don't have ... Oh, I'm being shown at the back of the room. £10 million was the total cost and does that include the break fee, Jonty? It does include the break fee. Thank you. Well done. This is Jonty's last set of results for British Land, so we are going to miss that. Thank you.

Moderator: I've got one final question from Philip Matthews at Wise Funds. "Should we expect a reasonable recycling of assets within the Life Science REIT portfolio and are there other M&A opportunities open to British Land or should we consider LABS a bit of a one-off?"

Simon Carter: On the asset recycling, when we did the 2.7 we were clear that there was no immediate intention to recycle those assets. We like them. We can do some really active management on them and drive performance. And then once we've done that, of course, every asset in the portfolio is a potential disposal at the right pricing. I don't think you should see LABS as a one-off deal. I think we want this business to grow. The things we set ourselves for growth are strategically aligned. So we really like this portfolio because it grew out our science and tech footprint, as you saw on my slide. And then it's about earnings accretion and hopefully NTA-neutral or not too much NTA dilution. And, so if there's more deals like that, we would do them and we are big believers in the science and tech space, particularly around the campus concept.

Moderator: Perfect. That's all on the webcast.

Simon Carter: Well, thank you very much for listening today. Hopefully that was useful, but we really do appreciate you being here. Thank you.