Brindleyplace developer Argent has reported a 51% drop in pre-tax profits to £6.7m following a sharp fall in development sales last year.
In the year to December 1996, Argent made only £515,000 development profit. This compares with 1995 when Argent made a £10m profit by selling land to Argent Development Consortium.
The consortium is a joint venture with British Telecom pension scheme, Citibank and United Bank of Kuwait.
However, Argent also made a £3.9m profit on sales of investment properties in 1996.
Net assets per share in-creased 9% to 312p thanks to a rise in the value of the company’s investment port-folio and acquisitions during the year. Argent’s 28 investment properties were valued at £314.5m at the year-end compared with £263.4m in 1995.
A 7% rise in the value of retail properties offset a 3.6% fall in the value of offices and industrial buildings.
Since the year-end, Argent has increased the weighting of retail and leisure properties in its portfolio from 57% to 78%, in line with its strategy set out last year.
