Town Centre Securities made a pretax loss of £19m as valuations slumped, but is now looking to buy again.
The property investor and developer, which has assets in Leeds, Manchester, Scotland and London, as well as a hotel and car park business, saw net assets fall from £179m to £152m, from a total portolio of £274.4m.
This year’s losses of £19.1m were a stark fall from last year’s profit of £10.5m, as values fell by £14.2m. The business chalked up a statutory loss per share of 38.4p, down from last year’s earnings of 19.8p.
Chairman and chief executive, Edward Ziff, said: “Having undertaken such a successful disposal programme, our attention is now turning to opportunities to selectively acquire assets and invest in our development programme, ever mindful of adding value whilst retaining robust finances.”
TCS said that it had “stabilised” the proportion of retail and leisure assets in the portfolio at 29% following the sale of over £100m of assets since March 2020. In 2020 it was 40%, while in 2016 it stood at 60%. Pure retail now represents just 18% of the total portfolio with 70% of that being the “resilient” Merrion Estate in Leeds.
TCS said its development pipeline, with an estimated GDV of over £550m, was “a valuable and strategic point of difference” which it would continue to build.
The development pipeline includes the £170m Piccadilly Basin mixed-use scheme in Manchester; the £290m office-led Whitehall Riverside scheme in Leeds; and a £90m office and residential extension to the Merrion Estate.
Loan to value reduced in the period by 290bps to 43.5% following debt repayments, despite the reduction in portfolio value.
