ANNUAL REPORT 2022

Offices, Retail, and Urban Neighbourhoods

This has been a year of building momentum, both in our performance and our strategic activity. We have grown our portfolio value, our earnings and our dividend. We have strengthened our team and refreshed our sustainability framework to ensure everything we do aligns with a sustainable future. We identified opportunities to grow and we acted upon them – adding significantly to our mixed-use urban pipeline. We’re creating and managing places that excite and inspire people, places fit for today and for the future, places that enable communities to grow. Last year we promised growth with purpose. Now we’re seeing growth in action.

Key highlights

Our people and culture
Our approach to sustainability
Our performance
Our £12.0bn portfolio
More on our business
Useful downloads
Investor relations

"Our performance during the financial year has been positive, as our proactive approach to asset management and strategic decisions has started to bear fruit. In the past year, we have moved from lockdown to growth. We have seen momentum build significantly across our estate since restrictions were lifted, as people relish the attraction of spending time together in stimulating, inspiring places.

This is reflected in our operational and financial results - with strong leasing in London and a recovery in occupancy and sales in retail. Despite the challenges resulting from geopolitical risk, and rising inflation affecting consumer spending and the construction industry, we remain very well placed."

Mark Allan, Chief Executive

37.0p

Dividend per share (2021: 27.0p)

48.0p

EPRA EPS (2021: 33.9p)

1,063p

EPRA net tangible assets per share (2021: 985p)

£12.0bn

Combined Portfolio (2021: £10.8bn)

£875m

Profit before tax (2021: £(1,393)m)

£5.1m

Social value delivered in 2021/22

We focus on investing in three areas of the real estate market where we have a genuine competitive advantage and can maximise the value from our portfolio and the talents and experience of our people. This enables us to make healthy, sustainable returns to enable our business to grow over time.

Our three areas of focus are: Central London offices; Major retail destinations; and Mixed-use urban neighbourhoods. What binds these three areas together is the importance of a sense of place to their enduring success, and to that of their surrounding areas. We strive to create, curate and activate places that inspire people, generating value for all our stakeholders. To achieve our strategy successfully, we need a clear sense of purpose and a culture that supports, respects and motivates our people. This central purpose is: sustainable places, connecting communities and realising potential.

Our strategic focus
Focus on Central London offices

In central London, we develop, own and manage offices that offer a variety of propositions to meet the evolving needs of occupiers, who range from global corporates to small, fast-growing businesses. Demand for our high-quality, sustainable office space is healthy, and this part of the portfolio can offer a blend of returns - from high-quality, low-risk income, through to profits from new development.
Our strategic focus
Focus on major retail destinations

In retail, we own and manage high-quality, major retail destinations that offer something special to brands and shoppers alike. Shoppers are attracted to places that provide experiences they can’t easily get elsewhere; brands are drawn to places where they can showcase their offer to a high number of shoppers. Our job is to bring the two together.
Our strategic focus
Focus on mixed-use urban neighbourhoods

The lines between where we live, work and spend our leisure time are becoming increasingly blurred, creating an urgent need to reshape our cities. We are using our scale, expertise and experience to help adapt the built environment to meet people’s changing needs. These projects take shape over a number of years and stages, offering an attractive blend of income, growth and development-led returns in phases.

Our people and culture

We want to ensure we have a positive impact on our communities and add social value. Our culture is central to this, describing how we interact with each other, our customers and partners. The ability to attract, retain and develop our people is increasingly critical to the success of our business. Therefore, this year, we’ve focused on developing our culture and our people through new leadership programmes, while continuing to enhance diversity and promote inclusive behaviour.

Our approach to sustainability

We aim to be a sustainable business, playing our part in tackling key social and environmental challenges. We identify and respond to risks and opportunities relevant to our business and our stakeholders. So, in the past year, we launched our new sustainability strategy as Build well, Live well, Act well. To develop our revised approach, we talked to over 230 employees, customers and partners to understand the environmental, social and governance issues we should be addressing and influencing. Subsequently, a team of 30 colleagues from around the business created the strategy, setting a vision and targets.

Our performance

Central London

In our Central London portfolio, we achieved a record year of leasing, and our overall occupancy remains high, at 95.3%. We also capitalised on strong investment demand for office assets, with disposals in line with our strategy of selling mature office assets to invest in growth opportunities. And with two innovative deals, we unlocked 507,000 sq ft of potential new schemes, at New Street Square, EC4, and in Southwark.

Retail

During the year, we restructured and strengthened our retail team to focus on supporting brand and guest relationships, and building on opportunities to create a best-in-class portfolio of major UK retail destinations. We are seeing the results of this work, with £29m of lettings signed or in motion. We acquired also an additional 18.75% stake in Bluewater, Kent, one of the UK’s leading retail destinations.

Mixed-use urban

We grew our mixed-use pipeline by approximately 50% through two major acquisitions. We acquired U+I, providing access to five mixed-use projects in London, Manchester and Cambridge. We also acquired a 75% stake in MediaCity, Greater Manchester, providing a combination of long-term income and mixed-use development potential.

Our £12.0bn portfolio

The value of our portfolio increased to £12.0bn during the year, marking a 3.6% increase adjusted for investments and disposals, and is made up of our Central London, Major retail destinations, Mixed-use urban neighbourhoods and Subscale categories.