British Land Company Plc (BLND) Q4 2024 Earnings Call

Investor webinar replay

Replay transcript excerpt

We'll make a start. Thank you very much for joining us for our full year results. It's been quite a busy year for the business. You probably noticed, particularly the last couple of months, so we've got plenty to cover. What I do hope you'll get from these results is a real sense of the momentum in the business and the strategic decisions we took three years ago are really delivering for us. We're going to follow the normal running order, so Bhavesh will start with the financials, Darren will cover the operational performance, and I'll come back on the strategy and the outlook. But I thought before we do that, maybe if I just go through the headlines. We're pleased with our operational performance this year. We've continued to lease well across the business with 3.3 million square feet of leasing, 15% ahead of ERV. We've also controlled costs well and taken together this has led to profit growth of 2% despite a number of properties entering development and the meta surrender. Our strategy of focusing on campuses, retail parks and London urban logistics is delivering. ERV growth accelerated to nearly 6%, exceeding our guidance in all our sectors. We did see further outward yield shift of 33 basis points in the year, but the pace slowed in the second half. And combined with good rental growth, this meant second half values were stable, Overall, we outperformed the MSCI total return benchmark by 300 basis points. We've actively recycled capital this year. The highlights include the surrender and joint venture of 1 Triton Square, the sale of our remaining interest in Meadowhall and the commitment and pre-let to 2 Finsbury Avenue. With very good leasing momentum and high occupancy, our base case forecast for rental growth this year is 3% to 5% across each of our markets. ...