The poor health of the high street has proved contagious for the value of properties owned by British Land.
The owner of shopping centres including Meadowhall, in Sheffield, and Ealing Broadway, in west London, reported a 4.5% fall to £6.3bn in the value of its retail portfolio in the six months to the end of September.
The company’s London office portfolio, which includes a 50% stake in Broadgate in the City of London, rose by 0.7% to £6.1bn on the back of a 5.8% rise in like-for-like rental growth.
That, though, failed to offset the burden from retail property. British Land’s overall portfolio valuation fell by 1.9% to £12.9bn and its net asset value per share, a key performance measure in the property sector, fell by 2.9% to 939p.
The FT added that BL plans to cut its retail property holdings from half of its portfolio to between 30 and 35% as it sells properties in the troubled sector.
Chris Grigg, chief executive of the FTSE 100 property company, said on Wednesday that the shift would take place over about five years as the group moves to owning more housing and ‘campus’ style office space instead.
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