Demand from small businesses and market traders helped Birkby boost pretax profits by 17% to £11m for the year to March.
Chief executive Kim Taylor-Smith said that most of the growth had come from the company’s existing portfolio of industrial units and indoor shopping markets, rather than acquisitions. Average rents increased by 5.5% over the year, although Taylor-Smith expects growth to slow down in the next 12 months.
He said prices for multi-let secondary property, which the company lets on short leases, have fallen since the start of this year. Birkby has bought 70,604m2 (760,000 sq ft) of space for £9.8m in the past three months and has about £30m earmarked for deals. “We are seeing a softening in the multi-let market,” he said.
