British Land Company PLC

LSE:BLND

Earnings Call Transcript 2022-Q2

[Simon G. Carter, CEO & Director]

Welcome. Thank you for joining us at 100 Liverpool Street. I'd just like to thank our host, Peel Hunt, for hosting us in this great building of ours, and obviously, all of you for joining us, whether that's in the room or on the lines. This is a building we're incredibly proud of, and I think it's a really good example of what British Land does well. It was our first net zero carbon development, and it's just won Green Building Project of the Year. So that's really helped with the leasing. It's leased incredibly well and delivered attractive returns, and that's before factoring in the further yield compression that we're expecting for the best, most sustainable space. In terms of running order for this morning, first, you'll hear from Bhavesh, our new CFO, on the financial performance. Then Darren will provide an operational update, and I'll come back with our progress on our strategy and the outlook for our key markets. But before doing any of that, I'd just like to share some of the key highlights. The trends and themes underpinning our strategy have strengthened in the 6 months. Our Campuses are benefiting from customer and investor demand, gravitating towards the best, most sustainable space. You can see this both in our own leasing activity for the period, but also the market vacancy rate, which for prime is much lower than the wider market. Within Retail, our focus has been on the Retail Parks. An increasing number of retailers prefer this format because it's affordable and complementary to online. As a result, rents are stabilizing and yields are compressing. That's driven the value of our portfolio up over 7% in the half. Urban Logistics in London goes from strength to strength, propelled by e-commerce and demand for same-day delivery. Vacancy is virtually nonexistent, and total supply is actually reducing, which is putting strong upward pressure on rents. This creates a great opportunity for us given our ability to deliver new space via repurposing or increasing density. So just 6 months in, we've made good early progress executing the strategy. We've recycled capital out of more mature assets into our 1.6 million square foot development program as well as over GBP 300 million of Retail Park and Campus acquisitions. Alongside this, we've sourced over GBP 600 million of last-mile development opportunities. Together with the improving fundamentals, this has delivered a 6% total accounting return for the half. Before I hand over to Bhavesh, I'd just like to say how pleased I am that he decided to join British Land. As you know, he was previously the Deputy CFO at Tesco. So he brings a wealth of experience across finance, strategy and retail. Over to you, Bhavesh.

[Bhavesh Mistry, CFO & Director]

Thank you, Simon. Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us, and great to see so many of you in person here at 100 Liverpool Street. I'm now 4 months into my role here at British Land, and I want to thank everybody for the warm welcome that I've received. British Land is a fantastic business, and I've been really impressed by the team and the quality of our places that I've seen whilst visiting them over the last few months. Looking at our first half performance, we made a good start to the year with improvements across all our key metrics. Underlying profit was GBP 120 million, up 12.1%. Primarily, this is driven by strong rent collection now reaching normalized levels and significantly reducing the impact of provisions for rental debtors. Net tangible asset value increased 5.1% to 681p per share. The key driver was an increase in our portfolio valuation of 2.9%. This is the first time in 4 years that our portfolio valuation has increased, and it reflects a clear turning point for our business. Darren will explain how our strategic focus on campus developments and retail parks is driving this. Our financial position remains strong. LTV is 33.4%, up 140 basis points, reflecting the progress we've made on our committed developments and value-accretive acquisitions made to date. We will pay an interim dividend in January of 10.32p per share. Turning to Slide 7. Net rental income is up GBP 19 million or 10% in the half. Excluding the impact of CVAs and admins, like-for-like rental growth for Retail & Fulfilment was 1.5% or GBP 1 million. This reflects strong leasing performance in the period, improved occupancy and is partially offset by deals transacting at lower passing rents. Like-for-like growth for Campuses was 1.4% or GBP 1 million. This was driven by letting activity, including Monzo at Broadwalk House and the dentsu international rent review at 10 and 20 Triton Street with their lease in place until 2030. Overall, like-for-like rents are down GBP 1 million, which reflects GBP 3 million of surrender premia recognized in the prior period. The impact of CVAs and admins was GBP 7 million. This largely relates to various retail CVAs that occurred during the middle of last year. Encouragingly, CVA activity has been very limited in the half with none in the second quarter. Our rental income was also impacted by active capital recycling in our business. Over the last 18 months, we've successfully disposed a GBP 1.4 billion of off-strategy assets, recycling the proceeds into our value-accretive development pipeline and returns-focused acquisitions. We can already see the benefit of this with a GBP 10 million increase to net rents and more to come as developments complete. As you can see on the right-hand side, the key driver of net rental income growth is materially lower provisions for debtors and tenant incentives, which contributed GBP 47 million to net rents versus the prior period. This reflects our strong progress on rent collection, which you can see on Slide 8. Our performance is a result of continuous engagement with our customers over the last 18 months. As at the 9th November, cash collection for the half was 96%, with Offices fully collected and Retail at 93%. For the September quarter, rent collection continues the strong trend with 93% collected, of which Offices are nearly fully collected and Retail at 87%. Now focusing on provisioning. Last year, during the height of the pandemic, the impact of provisions for debtors and tenant incentives in the first half was GBP 47 million. By comparison, we provided GBP 21 million for debtors that were billed in period. This was offset by the release of provisions for FY '21 debtors as we collected cash for the prior year at a higher rate than what we provided for. Overall, this leaves us with a 0 impact on our P&L this year. Slide 10 sets out our income statement. Our strong rental income growth helped drive profits to GBP 120 million, up 12.1%. Administrative expenses were GBP 44 million in the period. As guided at our FY '21 results, this increase is primarily the result of 2 things. Firstly, following the closure of the group's defined benefit pension scheme last year, a GBP 3 million credit was recognized in the prior period. And secondly, GBP 1 million of lease depreciation for York House following the disposal of our West End offices to the JV with Allianz in January 2021. Cost control is something we've been focused on as a business and will remain the case going forward. Net finance costs for the half were marginally down at GBP 51 million, driven by financing activity, which I'll detail later on. Underlying earnings per share is 12.9p, up 23%, and results in a dividend of 10.32p per share. As usual, we've included a guidance slide in the appendices. As a reminder, we introduced a new dividend policy last year. Dividends are calculated at 80% of underlying EPS based on the most recently completed 6-month period, therefore, automatically moving in line with our earnings. This policy ensures our strategic flexibility and is supportive of our strategy to recycle capital into the best returning assets. Turning now to the balance sheet. The 5.1% increase in NTA was driven by property revaluations as well as the impact of profits in excess of dividends paid. When including the interim dividend, we have delivered a total accounting return of 6.1%. This reflects the progress that we've made on our strategy. I've laid out the key drivers on the slide. 1% is attributable to active asset management on our Campuses following strong leasing to innovation and growth occupiers, for example, at Regent's Place letting the entirety of 1 Triton Square to Facebook with dentsu recommitting to their existing space on the Campus for a further 9 years. 1.5% relates to the progress we made on developments, achieving strong uplifts at Canada Water as well as at 5 Kingdom Street following the successful clearing of the judicial review process. And 1.9% from the value play in Retail Parks where we've deployed incremental capital and seen significant yield compression in the half. Darren will give you additional detail on how this has played out. Now let's turn to our development program. Developments have historically been a key driver of earnings and value growth, and we expect this to continue. Our recently completed and committed developments have an ERV of GBP 91 million, adding a further 7.3p to annualized EPS once they're fully let. We continue to manage our risk with speculative exposure at 8%, having pre-let 1 Broadgate to Allen & Overy and JLL. This is a level of exposure that I'm comfortable with. Throughout the pandemic, we kept momentum on our developments, allowing us to place fixed price contracts and lock-in costs. Building contracts have now been placed at Norton Folgate, Aldgate Place and Phase 1 of Canada Water with 95% of costs for these projects fixed. We're also progressing on placing the building contract at 1 Broadgate and expect to deliver an average IRR of 10% to 12% across our committed pipeline. We expect some cost inflation headwinds primarily from raw materials as well as some shortages of labor. We forecast construction cost inflation of around 3% in 2022. Looking ahead in our near-term pipeline, we have over 1 million square feet of development opportunities at our Campuses and in Logistics, with over 90% already having planning permission. This development optionality is key. Developments are just one part of our broader strategy to actively recycle capital from dryer, lower-returning assets into higher-returning opportunities as we sharpen our focus on driving total returns. Since April last year, we've disposed GBP 1.4 billion of assets at a blended net initial yield of 4.6%. We actively invested these proceeds into the higher-returning campus developments that I spoke of and into innovation sectors outside London, including the Peterhouse Technology Park in Cambridge and the Surrey Research Park in Guildford. We invested in the growth opportunity we see in Urban Logistics, purchasing Enfield and the development opportunities at Thurrock and the Finsbury Square car park. We also saw opportunity to deliver value in Retail Parks, acquiring the likes of Biggleswade and the remaining interest of HUT at yields of over 8%. Simon will add further detail shortly on these areas of focus. The strength of our debt metrics is a key competitive advantage. And in the half, we've continued to be active on the balance sheet. We refinanced 100 Liverpool Street with the Broadgate joint venture raising a new GBP 420 million, 5-year green loans secured against the property. As part of the refinance, the building was released from the Broadgate securitization and GBP 107 million of bonds were redeemed. Our LTV remains low at 33.4%. And our weighted average interest rate is 2.7%, decreasing 20 basis points since March following the refinance of 100 Liverpool Street and the use of our lower-cost RCFs for developments and acquisitions. We have a balanced approach to interest rate risk management. At the 30th September, the interest rate on our debt was fully hedged with 51% fixed and the balance capped. Overall, Fitch has recognized the strength of our balance sheet, affirming our senior unsecured credit rating at A. One thing that struck me in my new role is how much sustainability is integrated throughout the entire business. You'll hear more on this from Darren and Simon. We've continued to make great progress against our 2030 Sustainability Strategy. Once again, we achieved the GRESB 5-star rating for both our standing portfolio as well as our developments. Alongside 100 Liverpool Street, 1 Triton Square has become the second net zero carbon development with embodied carbon already below our 2020 target. We're also progressing with work to further improve the energy efficiency of our standing portfolio. Darren will give you more details about the work that we're doing. But in terms of cost, our initial finding suggests a total of around GBP 100 million between now and 2030. A significant amount of this will be recovered through the service charge, especially in Retail. These interventions will not only make our standing portfolio compliant with EPC requirements, but also achieve our ambitious 2030 strategy targets of a 25% improvement in whole building energy efficiency. In summary, we've delivered an improved first half performance driven by strong level of rent collection nearing pre-pandemic levels and good operational performance. And we're making good strategic progress with a strong financial position that can help us drive future growth and total returns through further developments and acquisitions. I'll now hand over to Darren who will provide an update on operations and markets.

[Darren Richards, Head of Real Estate]

Thank you, Bhavesh. Good morning, everyone. I'm going to give you an update on valuations, leasing activity and some insights into what we're seeing on the ground. I'll start with valuations. You'll be aware that we've updated our reporting segments, reflecting our focus on Campuses and Retail & Fulfilment. Campuses comprise our London campuses, including Canada Water and those outside London. Retail & Fulfilment includes all our retail assets, assets we've acquired to deliver Urban Logistics or those with logistics potential in the portfolio. Overall, values are up 2.9% in the period. Campus values are up by 3% with yields tightening by 6 basis points, and ERV is stable. Developments continue to outperform with Canada Water increasing by 11%, reflecting progress on the Masterplan. 1 Triton Square at Regent's Place was also up, having reached practical completion in May and with a new deal to Facebook. In total, all developments were up by 6%.The value opportunity we identified in Retail Parks is playing out even more quickly than we expected. ERVs are only slightly down, and we've sealed yield compression of 54 basis points, driving values up by 7.1%, the best performance in 5 years, and we think there's more to come. Some of the strongest performers were midsized parks. Biggleswade, for example, which we only acquired in March, is up 19%. In total, our park portfolio is now valued at GBP 1.7 billion. The value of our Urban Logistics assets was up by 3.7%, again, reflecting the strong fundamentals in that sector. We'll come back to that. For Shopping Centres, values were down 4.2% in the period, reflecting an ERV decline of 3.8% and yield expansion of 8 basis points. Although the subsector remains more challenging than the parks on the ground, the rate of valuation and ERV decline has slowed significantly compared to the previous half. So let's look at activity on our Campuses. We've been delighted with the performance. Leasing activity in the half covered over 800,000 square feet, which was overall 6% ahead of ERV. We let a further 254,000 square feet to Allen & Overy post period end, bringing total activity to more than 1 million square feet since April. And as a result of 1 Broadgate, which we only committed to 7 months ago, we've pre-let or placed under option all 500,000 square feet of the office space, effectively during the COVID period, at rents in line with our original pre-COVID expectations. In addition, we've made good progress on the Retail and F&B lettings at Broadgate. And as some of you will have seen, Eataly has been incredibly busy since opening, driving footfall across the campus. And the Storey has had a great half. We've let 100,000 square feet since April to some really innovative businesses, such as Featurespace, Genflow and Here Technologies, all fast-growing technology businesses and exactly the sort of customer Storey was designed to attract. Occupancy is over 80%, and viewings are back to pre-pandemic levels. In terms of the overall office market, we've seen a big step-up in the amount of occupation activity over the past 6 months. Take-up increased 60% quarter-on-quarter. Under offers are now in excess of the 10-year average. And as a result, we've seen an overall reduction in available space as the market continues to improve. We're also seeing more deals priced at the higher end of the market. 38% of Central London deals are over GBP 75 per square foot, a big uptick on pre-pandemic levels. Data coming through like this demonstrates what we could see happening back in May is playing out, and that's a drive towards the high quality end of the market. But supply of that type of space remains constrained. 75% of overall vacancy is secondhand, with more than 90% over 10 years old and 70% smaller than 10,000 square feet, a part of the market that will really struggle up against the likes of Storey. And the pipeline remains similarly constrained. Speculative space under construction over the next 4 years is the equivalent of only 20 months' worth of average take-up, which bodes well for our next round of development. Now of course, the working from home debate hasn't gone away, but what we believe we're seeing post-COVID is the acceleration of key trends, which play very well to our campus proposition, as we've set out here. COVID has, in very stark terms, highlighted the benefits of workplaces, the need for them to act as hubs for businesses, to attract and retain talent, to foster culture, collaboration and customer proximity. What we're hearing from our customers, therefore, is that modern, high-quality space designed with employee wellness in mind, excellent transport linkages and surrounded by great public realm and amenities will ultimately be a driver of productivity. What's also clear is the rapidly increasing importance of sustainability to businesses and to their employees and the recognition that a company's real estate decisions are key in terms of reducing their carbon footprint. In many cases, it's the principal intervention they can make. Finally, there's one factor which we think is a crucial part of what campuses offer, and that's flexibility. To be clear, we don't mean flexible workspace here. This is about working with our customers in partnership, understanding their requirements, over time, as their businesses evolve and offering them the ability to expand, consolidate or move around a campus or even across London. Facebook is an obvious example. They've grown several times with us at Regent's Place, and they've just doubled their space to 635,000 square feet by taking 1 Triton. At Paddington, Vertex Pharmaceuticals have expanded across 2 buildings. And in the case of TP ICAP at Broadgate, we work with them to consolidate 2 different functions into a single 140,000 square foot workspace, also enabling us to progress our plans at their previous building, 1 Broadgate. I should also add that our ability to offer storage space has also been key. Businesses like BAI, WiredScore and Starling Bank have all used Storey to expand their space with us. The ability to offer this kind of flexibility to customers, to work with them long term and offer solutions going forward, combined with all the other benefits I mentioned, is why the campus proposition continues to strengthen, allowing us to drive value, including through our developments, pre-letting 1 Broadgate 4 years ahead of completion, for example. Something I'd like to spend a moment on is energy efficiency. It's a key part of our customer offer and something we're very focused on, as you'd expect. It builds on our track record. We've reduced landlord carbon intensity across our portfolio by 73% in the decade to 2020, and our 2030 targets include a further 75% reduction across the portfolio. We've got a clear plan to achieve this. We've undertaken net zero asset audits across our portfolio, which identify the most effective interventions we can make. Now management of our EPC ratings will obviously form part of this. Currently, 100% of our office space is A to E rated, so we're compliant with the 2023 requirements. But obviously, all of our space needs to be A or B rated by 2030. There will be a cost to this, but there are significant mitigants, as Bhavesh has said. This includes the fact that some of our buildings will be refurbished in any event, such as 3 Sheldon Square at Paddington shown here, which will be fully electric. But we think of this in terms of the ability to drive value as occupiers increasingly seek out sustainable buildings and the partners with the commitment and the ability to deliver them, and our recent activity demonstrates this. Now let's turn to Retail & Fulfilment. Last year was our busiest year ever for retail leasing, and we've maintained that pace of activity. Total leasing in the half was 1 million square feet, broadly in line with ERV. This reflects a really strong performance from Retail Parks, which accounts for 60% of activity, and we're letting space nearly 2% ahead of ERV. We've got a further 570,000 square feet under offer in the whole of our Retail portfolio at nearly 7% ahead of ERV. Increasingly, retailers have a preference for the retail park format because it's more affordable and supports an online offer. We're doing deals with the likes of Next and Decathlon who like that online compatibility, as well as more online resilient businesses like Primark or Lidl. This activity has driven an improvement in occupancy, which is now up to 96%. Footfall and sales are also returning to normal. As shown here, since the 16th of May, Retail Parks are again performing particularly well. And on Shopping Centres, the increase in the basket size means that despite lower footfall, sales are not far off pre-pandemic levels. Now I showed you this chart in May. Retail Parks are up from 53% of our Retail & Fulfilment portfolio to 59%. They're the strongest part of the retail market to be invested in, and we're now benefiting from our approach to keep occupancy high, outperform operationally, attract stronger covenants and stabilized rents. And the structural benefits of retail parks have meant that the investment market has reengaged significantly this year with the yield compression we expected now coming through. Shopping Centres are 28% of Retail & Fulfilment or 8% of the group. The plan here, including for centers such as Meadowhall, is very much in line with what we've done out of town. The focus is on keeping them full. Meadowhall, for example, is 97% occupied, maintained strong operational performance and stabilized rents. Then we expect, as we've seen for Retail Parks, that for the best schemes, the investment market will be able to price these cash flows potentially at stronger yields. In addition, we have assets in our -- this part of our portfolio where we see longer-term opportunities. At Ealing, our predominantly open air scheme in London, we've recently gained planning for an extension and refurbishment for 165,000 square feet of offices with the potential for a further 300,000 square feet, capitalizing on great fundamentals opposite Crossrail. Finally, Urban Logistics also represents a huge opportunity for us. First, there's a clear crossover with Retail Parks. Already, they're being used in effect as customer-facing facilities by many of our occupiers. Nearly 1/3 are shipping from store and more are looking to do so, and 3/4 offer click and collect. We've also identified opportunities in our own portfolio for logistics conversion at Meadowhall and Teesside with nearly 900,000 square feet of additional space we can create. And we're targeting Retail Parks which are ideal for conversion. Thurrock Shopping Park, our recent acquisition, is the best example of that, which Simon will talk about. Taken together, our pipeline of opportunities has a gross development value of circa GBP 600 million. So to wrap up, first, we're leasing really well across the business. 2 million square feet is impressive in any environment, but particularly this year. Second, the campus proposition is delivering. Our progress at 1 Broadgate is testament to that. And third, Retail Parks are really driving value for us. That's clearly reflected in the valuation performance. Thank you. And now I'll hand over to Simon.

[Simon G. Carter, CEO & Director]

Thanks, Darren. I'm really pleased with the strategic progress we've made over the last 6 months. As you know, our strategy exploits our clear competitive advantages in development and active asset management and invest behind 2 key strategic themes, our Campuses and Retail & Fulfilment. So let's start with the Campuses. Even before COVID, demand was shifting away from functional offices to more creative workspaces, and now customers are more focused than ever on the very best space. Our Campuses are incredibly well positioned to offer this. In some of the most exciting parts of London, we provide modern, high-quality and sustainable space together with excellent transport connections. This has driven the strong leasing performance Darren talked about. In May, we said we've realized the potential of our Campuses in 2 ways: first, by our extensive development program; and second, by increasing our focus on innovation customers. I'll talk about each of these in turn, starting with development. Development has been a key value driver at British Land, delivering GBP 2 billion of profit over the last 10 years. Our most recent program completed this year. It includes this building and the others you can see on this slide. Our focus on great design and strong sustainability credentials means they've leased incredibly well and delivered overall returns of 13% per annum. With this development program coming to an end, we have committed to a further 1.6 million square foot across 1 Broadgate, Norton Folgate, Aldgate Place and Canada Water. We expect to deliver attractive double-digit IRRs from each of these, too. By maintaining our program through COVID, we were able to lock in costs early, navigating the current inflationary pressures. It also means we're well placed to benefit from strengthening occupational demand as we emerge from the pandemic. That's been clearly demonstrated at 1 Broadgate where we've successfully pre-let the office space to JLL and Allen & Overy. There's also strong interest in Norton Folgate. It's an exceptional development, combining original 18th century warehouses with modern, high-quality space and leading sustainability credentials. This distinctive combination is a real differentiator in today's market. Aldgate Place is our first build-to-rent residential scheme in a vibrant part of London with superb transport connections. And at Canada Water, we have committed to the first phase of our Masterplan, which includes the 3 buildings on the next slide. Across these 3 buildings, we're delivering modern urban space set in world-class public realm. The warehouse-style workspace is smart and sustainable, and we expect rents north of GBP 50 a square foot. The apartments at A1 will have amazing views across the whole of London. To capitalize on that, these will be built to sell. But build to rent will play a role in later phases. This is a unique project, not just in scale, but in our ambitions to be sustainable. We're targeting the highest industry standards. In line with our 2030 Sustainability Strategy, all these buildings will be net zero embodied carbon. Minimizing carbon is harder on new builds. So we're having to be really innovative in our use of materials and new processes. This will reduce embodied carbon on Phase I to around 680 kilograms of CO2 per meter squared. This is ahead of our pathway to net zero. We're equally focused on minimizing operational carbon, so we're using electricity instead of gas. And at A1, our initiative to recycle heat from offices into residential has been recognized as an industry first. It's unusual for the first phase of a regeneration scheme to be profitable, but we are forecasting an IRR over 10% for Phase 1 and expect whole project development returns to be in the low teens. We also have an opportunity to increase and accelerate these by bringing in a partner. And there's more to come. Not only do we have a further 4.5 million square foot at Canada Water, but we have nearly 2 million square foot of other campus development opportunities. The next commitment will most likely be at 5 Kingdom Street. We have more opportunities at Broadgate. And at Regent's Place, we've taken vacant possession of the Euston Tower. Here, we have plans to create one of the best tower buildings in London with a highly sustainable scheme. Around 50% of the space will be delivered lab-enabled in order to attract sectors such as life sciences. Regent's Place is increasingly seen as a key location for fast-growing innovation sectors given its proximity to the Knowledge Quarter, UCL and the Crick. Facebook is a great example of an innovation business expanding here. As you know, we believe the innovation sectors will be key growth drivers of the U.K. economy, especially in the Golden Triangle. Our campus model is particularly well placed to take advantage of demand from these sectors. These businesses like to cluster or colocate, and they're increasingly focused on the quality of space, amenity, public realm and housing provision. We particularly like the fundamentals of Oxford and Cambridge where vacancy is very low, supply constrained and around 70% of take-up is from these sectors. This hasn't escaped the notice of other investors, and the market is competitive, especially in life sciences. But we're playing to our strengths. We're looking at longer-term regeneration opportunities where our place-making credentials and strong track record of partnering with public bodies set us apart. In addition, we're targeting acquisitions where the pitch isn't as crowded. Peterhouse Technology Park in Cambridge is a good example. It's fully let to ARM, one of the U.K.'s most successful technology businesses. It's highly reversionary, and we're expecting strong rental growth in Cambridge. The adjacent field has just traded at the same price per acre without benefiting from any planning or any buildings. We've recently made a couple of acquisitions on the Surrey Research Park, The Priestley Centre and Waterside House. We have an excellent campus opportunity here to capture demand from fast-growing technology customers on a part where vacancy is just 3%. Moving now to Retail Parks. You heard from Darren that they are the preferred format for a growing number of retailers. This improved occupational backdrop has seen more investors enter the space, including U.K. and overseas institutions. Yields are compressing rapidly as a result. The left-hand slide -- the left-hand side of this next slide sets out the 5-year view we expressed in May. On the right, you can see how things have developed over the last 6 months. If anything, the market has moved more rapidly than we expected. So we are pleased with the GBP 260 million of investment we've already made. We expect to be able to make further acquisitions with attractive forecast returns. Our leading position in parks gives us an edge in sourcing, underwriting and driving performance through asset management. I'm now going to turn to Urban Logistics. As I mentioned earlier, the fundamentals go from strength to strength here. As a result, rents are growing at 5% to 6% across wider London and up to 9% in more central locations. Our approach is to develop new space in 3 different ways, which all play to our strengths. First, we're converting Retail Parks in and around London to logistics, where we are best placed to keep the income flowing whilst taking the assets through planning. Second, we're increasing density in established logistics locations. And third, we're carving out space right in the center of town by repurposing or incorporating into mixed use. So let's look at an example of each. In July, we acquired the Thurrock Shopping Park for GBP 3.8 million per acre. As you heard from Darren, it's a successful retail park today. But its location on the M25 junction by the Dartford Crossing makes it ideal for logistics. And it sits on a hill, which enables us to deliver a double-storey facility without a ramp. This reduces cost and increases lettable space. Altogether, we're targeting an IRR of around 15% from this project. Enfield is a good example of a densification opportunity. It's an 11-acre site, so there's room for a multistorey facility. And the local borrower is supportive of increasing density in this location. The newest and fastest-growing part of the market is last-mile solutions right in the center of town. Rents here can be as high as GBP 50 a square foot. These solutions will involve repurposing existing assets or incorporating into mixed use. This rationale drove our acquisition of the Finsbury Square car park. Here, we will deliver a logistics hub for last-mile and quick-commerce operators. And we're pursuing similar opportunities across the rest of our campuses. Having made good early progress executing our strategy, we're focused on maintaining this momentum. This slide sets out what you should expect from us next, including further pre-lets, progressing the development pipeline, sourcing further Urban Logistics and Retail Park opportunities and, of course, recycling capital out of mature assets. Turning to the outlook in our markets. Whilst uncertainty and risks remain, visibility has improved. On our Campuses, we think we'll see ERV growth over the next 6 to 12 months as customers focus on the best space where supply is most constrained, and we expect yields to compress for this type of space. In Retail Parks, rents will continue to stabilize, and we're beginning to see some rental growth for smaller, well-located parks. We think yields will continue compressing, and this will extend to the larger parks. As expected, Shopping Centres are a little further behind. They've been more impacted by the pandemic and have greater exposure to fashion. But ERV declines are slowing, and we think yields will stabilize as more investors enter the market. For Urban Logistics, the underlying fundamentals in London remain compelling, and this will be reflected in rents and values. So to conclude, it's been a strong first half. Our strategy benefits from favorable trends. We've executed swiftly against our plan, and we're now focused on maintaining this momentum to deliver attractive returns. Thank you. We will now move to Q&A. So Darren and Bhavesh will join me on the stage. And as it's a bit of a novelty having people in the room for a results presentation, I think we'll take questions from the floor first.

[Simon G. Carter, CEO & Director]

Do we have any questions in the room? Max?

[Maxwell Wilson Nimmo, Analyst]

Maxwell of Numis. Just a couple of questions. Firstly, you obviously talked about the Golden Triangle in the innovation sector. What is it that you've seen kind of separately with just Surrey Research Park that makes you kind of look at that area? And are there other geographical locations that you would consider in that space? And secondly, what's a sensible assumption? And I appreciate it can be lumpy in terms of disposals going forward and that kind of -- to obviously fund all the developments you have. And roughly the split of what you think would come out of Retail versus what would come out of Campuses going forward, just in terms of ballpark view.

[Simon G. Carter, CEO & Director]

Thanks, Max. On your first question on the Surrey Research Park, what we saw there is basically the same fundamentals that we like about Oxford and Cambridge. So it's got an established cluster of fast-growing technology businesses, and vacancy is very tight. We were able to enter at a low cost per acre on the first acquisition, The Priestley Centre. That was, I think, about GBP 1.8 million per acre. It's a good redevelopment opportunity as well, and we will deliver lab-enabled space there. So it's got those factors that play into our campus strength. Good demand, low vacancy, so -- and nice Southeast location at that cost per acre. In terms of the profile of disposals over time, probably best answered in terms of our leverage and our view on that, and I'll let Bhavesh expand on that. But we would look to maintain leverage in the sort of mid-30s type range that we've got at the moment. We've got a lot of latitude around that. So it will be driven by can we deliver the right returns with our disposals, so lock-in profits and then reinvest in opportunities as we move forward. I think you asked about what proportion would be Retail, what proportion would be from our Campus businesses, our Office today. So on the Retail side, we're more likely to expand in the Retail Parks in the short to medium term. I think as rents stabilize and we see more investors enter for the Shopping Centres, you could see us exit those. But we'll be very careful to maximize value, and we think we can deliver some decent returns. It's the hard yards of stabilizing assets, and we're best placed to do that. And then you've seen us sell offices, and it's really going to be the dryer, more mature assets as we recycle into the development program because what we're seeing is the demand is for the best, most sustainable buildings. If you think about how we've leased over the period, the leasing we announced today at 1 Broadgate, even before we've demolished the building, that's full. That's exactly where we should be focusing our attention. So I don't know, Bhavesh, if you want to add on leverage?

[Bhavesh Mistry, CFO & Director]

Yes. From a leverage perspective, balance sheet, as I said in my remarks, is the key strength of BL. Our loan-to-value is sort of mid-30s. I'm comfortable keeping it at that level. We kind of look through the cycle as valuations go up and down, but we're roughly in the mid-30s range, and that's kind of where you'll see us remain.

[Simon G. Carter, CEO & Director]

Any other questions in the room?

[Sander Bunck, Vice President of Real Estate Equity Research]

Sander from Barclays. Three questions from my side. First one, slightly building on to Max's questions in terms of disposals, but obviously, there's kind of GBP 90 million of new rents coming in from the development pipeline. That is being offset with disposals, and some assets will be taken offline in the meantime to redevelop. In your business plan, like what is kind of your medium- to longer-term EPS growth thinking along those lines, like trying to put it a bit into context? The second question is on the ERV movement on the Campuses, which was broadly flat. Can you just give a range, kind of what was in the background behind that number? And the last question is on London development. Obviously, probably most of the people at the moment see that office space needs to be upgraded if you don't own the best stuff. Are you worried about kind of a supply response in kind of the medium term? And how do construction costs also play into that? Does it prevent people from developing at the moment? Or is it not material enough to change that?

[Simon G. Carter, CEO & Director]

Thank you, Sander. I'll probably divvy up those questions. On disposals and the profile for EPS growth, as Bhavesh set out and he'll almost certainly expand on this, we have got that extra income coming in from the development program. And effectively, the current program is funded by the developments we made last year. As you saw, we made more -- sorry, disposals last year, we sold GBP 1.4 billion, and now we're pushing that into the development program. So that will lead to accretion. We're not going to give you a forecast for the trajectory of EPS, but nice try. But we're going to -- we will see growing earnings because we've sold the more mature assets. Bhavesh, I don't know...

[Bhavesh Mistry, CFO & Director]

Maybe if I talk about some of the building blocks on how we think about EPS. So developments, we -- as you saw, the sort of 7p, GBP 91 million in terms of development that will come online. Like-for-like trading across the estate, we expect to be roughly what you've seen in the first half. Provisions, you've seen really good rate of rent collection. I'd expect that to normalize as we look ahead. A continued focus on cost base and financing costs, as we always have done, we'll continue to keep a good grip of that. And then disposals and acquisitions will be lumpy. And acquisitions, as you saw, will bring rental come in. Disposals will take it out, and it again depends on the timing of when those activities happen. So hopefully it gives you a flavor of some of the blocks without specific guidance.

[Simon G. Carter, CEO & Director]

Darren, do you want to take the question on the ERV movement in the period?

[Darren Richards, Head of Real Estate]

And on ERV movement, to be honest with you, there wasn't much variation between the Campuses, to be honest with you. So what I would point you to, though, is the amount that we've got under offer still. I mean, obviously, a considerable amount of deals done over the period, that 1 million square feet, including A&O. We've got another 330,000 square feet under offer. And already, that's showing on average about 3% above ERV. So the direction of travel is positive. But in terms of your question, then it was relatively flat, right? There was no kind of no standouts there.

[Simon G. Carter, CEO & Director]

And then, Sander, I think your last question was around London development and the prospects. And as I alluded to my previous answer, we do see that development will be a key driver of returns for us because of where the demand is at the moment. And as you saw from the slide that Darren put up, actually, the supply of space that would compete with the type of product British Land is delivering is very limited. And I think that's why we've seen the success. We're coming out of a pandemic, and we've leased more space in this 6-months period, 1 million square foot of space than we've leased at any point in the last 10 years. So that's making us feel pretty good about life, and it's great to have those opportunities in the pipeline. So we roll from 1 Broadgate into 2 and 3 Finsbury Avenue. Here at Broadgate, we've got the Euston Tower. There's definitely construction cost inflation out there. Bhavesh, in his prepared remarks, talked about that. But we, I believe, have benefited from keeping momentum during COVID. So we kept the program going, which has meant we've got the contracts and avoided the worst of that construction cost inflation. We do expect it to run at a higher level, but we do think some of the dislocation effect that we're seeing at the moment will moderate in the fullness of time. But as we've said, we're pretty confident on the rents, which I think will more than offset that. So we're predicting some pretty strong IRRs from our development program.

[Sander Bunck, Vice President of Real Estate Equity Research]

Sure. And just quickly on the development point. You're not worried about development -- developers in the wider -- in the London market alongside you because, obviously, they are looking to upgrade their space as well over the next sort of 4 to 5 years. So are you expecting increased competitiveness within that grade A, high-quality space? Or are you kind of relaxed about it at this point of time?

[Simon G. Carter, CEO & Director]

Darren, do you want to take that?

[Darren Richards, Head of Real Estate]

Yes, sure. If you look at the pipeline for space, as I said in the presentation, it's very constrained. I mean to have -- it's just over 18 months' worth of supply coming through over a 4-year period. I mean that's pretty constrained, just to start off with. And then in terms of just the amount of spaces on the market, some of that secondary space I was talking about, it's going to take quite a while for that to work its way through the system. I mean, obviously, quite a lot of that space hasn't got some of the benefits that we were talking about in the presentation as far as being on a campus. If it isn't in the right geography, then you can see those kind of buildings struggling. And it will take time to actually turn the stock out to the kind of secondary space into prime. It takes years to get development off the ground and actually -- and even to get it leased up and then built, they were talking about 4 or 5 years. So we think it is going to take time. So we're not really worried, and the demand/supply dynamics are in our favor at the moment.

[Simon G. Carter, CEO & Director]

Any other questions? Matt?

[Matthew S. Saperia, Analyst]

Matt Saperia from Peel Hunt. Can I ask 2 questions on Retail Parks? First one, you obviously talked about the range of valuation performance over the period. I was wondering if you had any comments and observations around the operational performance and the range of that, particularly around, I guess, rental tone and occupier demand? And then following on from that, Simon, I think you made some comments about continuing to seek acquisitions. Because of the differential in performance over the past 6 months or so, have you started to pivot what you're looking for and potentially looking, I guess, at some of these larger parks that you alluded to?

[Simon G. Carter, CEO & Director]

Thanks, Matt. Maybe if I take the second one first, and then hand over to Darren on the first part of the question. So in terms of the assets we're looking at, we're still looking across the wider market, and we are finding that it's more competitive. But actually, even just last week, we acquired the Farnborough retail park, Blackwater. That's a strong demographic there, a good park, mixture of fashion and bulky goods. The fashion side plays to us because actually, we can -- we know where the demand is for that space. We can move that on if you actually want to move it from fashion to other occupiers, potentially discounts as we're well placed to do that. And that's a park that we've acquired at an attractive yield of nearly 7%. So very pleased with that. Will we look at some larger parks? I think we will do over time because we probably have the best experience of managing those. So the pitch is one that's open for us at the moment, and we still feel there's a good window of opportunity to acquire further kit. Darren, I don't know if you want to take the question on the occupational side?

[Darren Richards, Head of Real Estate]

Sure. I mean the occupational side for us has been very strong, as you've heard. I mean last reporting period for the full year, we were 1.7 million square feet. About 65% of that was for out of town. Same sort of proportionality on the 1 million square feet that we've done to date. That's got a pretty decent spread across the portfolio, all the way from the smaller parks up to the bigger ones. So it's quite representative of what we're seeing on the ground. The thing I'd point you to is the 570,000 square feet we've got under offer. Again, a big chunk of that is out of town. And actually, that's showing us, just for the parks if you break them out, over 5% growth above ERV. So we've restabilized those rents to the point now, we think, that there will be, as Simon said in his remarks, maybe some growth and some level of correction back because we think there was a degree of overcorrection when we're in the kind of rough market we were going through in the past couple of years. So very positive progress.

[Simon G. Carter, CEO & Director]

Great. Any more questions in the room? No. Okay. So maybe if we move to the lines. Have we got any questions on the lines?

[Operator]

[Operator Instructions]

[Simon G. Carter, CEO & Director]

Any questions on the lines? One question?

[Operator]

We have a question from Marc Mozzi at Bank of America.

[Marc Louis Baptiste Mozzi, MD & Head of the EMEA Real Estate team]

I have 2 questions on my side. Number one is back on your outstanding strategy for your development pipeline. If I do basic calculation, it looks like you had about GBP 3 billion of potential CapEx to come in the next, let's say, 10 years if you include Canada Water. And I'm wondering, how can you target the mid-30 LTV with such a big investment pipeline ahead without trying to tell us that you're going to match more or less the same amount, thanks to disposal? That would be my first question. And my number two question, can you give us a little bit of color on how do you see this polarization between Grade A and secondhand?

[Simon G. Carter, CEO & Director]

Sorry, Marc, I wasn't sure if we lost the end of that question.

[Operator]

Unfortunately, we lost connection with Marc.

[Simon G. Carter, CEO & Director]

I think it was about polarization. So the first question -- first part of the question was around the size of the development pipeline. Unashamedly, we've got a big profitable development pipeline, which we've built up over time. We see that as a key strength for the business. And look, we are going to take capital out of more mature assets and put it into that development pipeline. So it is very much going to be about recycling to do that. But the other thing I would flag is that we've been pretty clear that on our big project, Canada Water, we will look to bring in a partner. And we do that because it shares risk, it allows us to go faster and it allows us to deliver that place-making and regeneration effect more quickly. So that increases our return. So that's how we would look at that part of it. And then I think, Darren, it was a question on polarization.

[Darren Richards, Head of Real Estate]

I think it was [indiscernible], yes. So in terms of polarization Grade A and the rest, as you've heard hopefully in the presentation, we think there's going to be -- that those forces are quite powerful. Just increasingly, we're hearing from occupiers this need for quality space, flexibility, sustainability, that's really coming through. If you can't provide that, then you've got a problem. The sustainability on its own is a big issue. So I'll give you an example of A&O that in the release, which I think is coming out already out today, they reduced their carbon footprint in London by 80% by taking the space with us here. So all of those attractions that I talked about in terms of the Campuses, that kind of gravitational pull pulling us in and combined with this grade A drive, this drive for quality, we think, is going to be considerable. So what we would expect, if that question was heading the way, I think it was, it's going to be continued divergence between secondary and prime.

[Marc Louis Baptiste Mozzi, MD & Head of the EMEA Real Estate team]

Actually, I just wanted -- on the -- on this polarization, I just wanted to see how do you envisage the rental value growth for non-graded buildings and yield movement for those in non-graded buildings? Are we going to see yield expansion, rental value decline, while on the other side, you're going to see rental growth and yield compression?

[Simon G. Carter, CEO & Director]

I think that, Marc, was that for the non-grade A.? Is it going to go backwards effectively both in terms of rents and yields? And yes, I think there is a possibility of that because there's some space that just isn't meeting the customer requirements today, particularly the smaller space. We do think a big theme. There's a lot of focus on the environmental credentials. That's really important. But I don't think that's a key driver of obsolescence. I think actually the bigger driver of obsolescence is smaller floor plate offices where flex has basically replaced that market. People don't really take 5,000 and 10,000 square foot offices today to the same extent they did maybe 5, 10 years ago. They take that in flex, and those flex operators story ourselves are taking big floor plate buildings in central locations there.

[Darren Richards, Head of Real Estate]

Yes, that pretty much covered it. I mean it depends upon where the building is because, actually, one of the things that we've done and we've demonstrated over the years is you can take a space which isn't up to modern standards and refurbish that and create grade A space out of it. I mean we do it continually in our portfolio. So it is possible to do that. But as I said earlier on, it takes time to do that. So I think you might see that in the meantime, these buildings, you get some yield erosion and then you get that gap appearing between prime and secondary before that momentum can appear through the market. So in the meantime, as I said, the supply and demand dynamics are relatively constrained. So it's going to take a while.

[Simon G. Carter, CEO & Director]

Any other questions? Thanks, Marc. Any other questions on the line? No. Jo, I don't know if we've had any questions come over the web link?

[Joanna Waddingham, Investor Relations Manager]

Yes. Yes, we have a couple. So the first is from Andrew Gill at Jefferies. With a strong rebound in Retail Parks, is now a good time to dispose of those in weaker geographies where alternative use is potentially less attractive? And a quick follow-up, could you confirm whether IRRs are geared [ or not ]?

[Simon G. Carter, CEO & Director]

Sure Yes. So first -- the second part, that's the quickest to answer. So the IRRs we quote are unlevered, so they're property-level IRRs. On the Retail Parks and is this an opportunity to dispose of weaker parts? I mean we do think, overall, we've got a very strong portfolio. You've seen that in the performance. We've outperformed IPD in this period, but there may be 1 or 2 assets that we look to dispose of. We're absolutely returns focused. We will look at the prospective returns we can get from those assets on where market pricing is. And if the prospective returns don't meet our hurdles, then those would go in the departure lounge. But net-net, we're seeing we're more likely to expand in the park space in the short term.

[Joanna Waddingham, Investor Relations Manager]

We've got 2 more from Mike Prew, also at Jefferies. Given the strength of your retail warehouse assets, why was your capital performance below that with some of those recently reported?

[Simon G. Carter, CEO & Director]

It's always dangerous to make comparisons with peers. As I just mentioned in the previous answer, we were ahead of the IPD index. But Darren can probably provide some flavor here. We did see a different performance for different assets, and we are expecting some of the larger parks, where the performance was more like a couple of percent up, to perform more strongly in the second half.

[Darren Richards, Head of Real Estate]

Mike, so the market to date is focused on those kind of medium-sized assets predominantly focused in the Southeast. There's obviously a lot of investor demand coming in. So we think that will spread in terms of geography and also in terms of lot size. In terms of our portfolio, if I think the comparisons that you're making is the right one there, about -- I would say about just over 30% of our portfolio had an uplift of more than 10%. And actually, about just over 20% of it was over 15%. We used the example in the presentation earlier, Biggleswade up by 19%. We've got a couple like that. So it's -- as far as that block of our portfolio is concerned, it's very representative from what you've heard from others. But we just think that this is going to carry on running, and it will start to spread out to the other parts of our portfolio. So that's why we're thinking that there's more to come.

[Bhavesh Mistry, CFO & Director]

If you look at Page 89 in the appendix, Mike, there's a good distribution spread of the valuation increases. I'll give you a bit of color on the spread of the value increases.

[Simon G. Carter, CEO & Director]

All right.

[Joanna Waddingham, Investor Relations Manager]

Yes. Just one more question from Oliver Creasey at Quilter Cheviot. The rent per square foot on the Retail Park portfolio is roughly double that in Urban Logistics. In that context, can you help to quantify the size of the opportunity to convert Retail Parks space to Logistics, given it could potentially result in lower rent and presumably value on average?

[Simon G. Carter, CEO & Director]

Oliver, great question there. And what I'd say on the scope for converting Retail Parks to Logistics, which is the question there, we feel that's very much a Southeast-focused theme. So for retail parks throughout the country, most of them will remain retail parks that will drive value from the affordability of rents, the complementary nature of online. Whereas in the Southeast, there's definite conversion opportunities because that differential on rents is actually nonexistent. So yes, in the case of Thurrock, the rent would be very, very similar, and we would be increasing density and, obviously, yields a tighter for Urban Logistics assets. So that's where the driver of value comes from. But it's not going to be a theme that works for all parks. It's a theme that will work for the Southeast parks or other parks in major cities that are in very close proximity to large urban populations.

[Joanna Waddingham, Investor Relations Manager]

That's all right.

[Simon G. Carter, CEO & Director]

Okay. So it looks like that's all of our questions for today. Thanks very much for joining us. I really appreciate you coming today or dialing in. Just one thing to flag for you, we've got an analyst and investor event down at Canada Water on the 9th of December, where Emma and the team will be taking people around the asset, if they're interested in doing so. So look forward to seeing as many of you there as we can. Thanks very much, everyone.

[Bhavesh Mistry, CFO & Director]

Thank you.