Our goals

Our overriding long term strategy is to make excellent returns for our shareholders through a broadly based, diversified property business, which has access to a very wide range of opportunities.

We do this with a small, long serving management team who have a significant proportion of their own wealth invested in a 17% stake in the Group and have no competing interests. We try to keep execution risk to a minimum, working with first rate joint venture partners when we move into new areas of property business.

Planning

We are specialists in unlocking value by obtaining planning consents for more valuable uses.

Our approach

Our spread of activities gives us the flexibility to deploy capital rapidly across our business and focus on whatever opportunities offer the best returns at different points of the property cycle

Mixed use development

In Wolverhampton we have converted a disused railway station into a casino and sold a site for student housing having previously disposed of land parcels for residential, hotel, car showroom and a public house.

We have a development agreement with the London Borough of Hammersmith & Fulham in partnership with residential specialist Grainger plc to provide a scheme of 120,000 sq.ft. new civic offices, a food store, restaurants and 300 flats.

At Parkgate, Shirley we are finalising land assembly for an 80,000 sq.ft. Asda supermarket with 70,000 sq.ft. of retail and 100 residential units.

At Amen Corner, Bracknell, we are making good progress in planning terms on the site’s allocation for residential use but a deterioration in market conditions has resulted in site assembly issues which we continue to address.

Change of use

We continue to work with the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham and the GLA in the production of an Opportunity Area Planning Framework for White City which will set out a blueprint for the area’s potential. The aspiration for us and our landowning consortium (Aviva, M&S, BBC and Land Securities) is a major mixed use scheme east of Wood Lane, London W12 incorporating some 4.5m sq.ft. of residential and commercial floorspace with a creative industries bias. The ownership interests of our consortium lie immediately opposite BBC Television Centre and just north of Westfield’s new shopping centre.

Helical entered into a joint venture with National Grid UK Pension Scheme where we sought to pursue a change of use, in planning terms, of an existing industrial estate, at Vauxhall, London SW8, to a Thameside residential led scheme. Good progress was made and the site sold in June 2008 for £80m. The final stage payment is due at the end of June 2009.

Retail development

We are currently focusing on our retail developments in Poland where we have circa 100,000 sq.m  (1.1m sq.ft.). of development planned in three projects. We have completed our first scheme in Wroclaw of 9,600 sq.m.(103,000 sq.ft.) which is fully let. In Opole, site enabling works have commenced on our 38,000 sq.m. (409,000 sq.ft.) scheme anchored by Carrefour and Praktiker with funding from Standard Life. Our largest scheme at Gliwice is 50,000 sq.m. (538,000 sq.ft.) and 40% is currently preleased with commitments from Carrefour, Castorama, Media Expert and site preparation is well under way. In total we have let 55,550 sq.m. (598,000 sq.ft.) with 18,250 sq.m. (196,000 sq.ft.) in lawyers hands and 9,500 sq.m. (102,000 sq.ft.) in negotiation.

Office development

We are acting as development managers for the new 320,000 sq.ft. Man Group HQ at Riverbank House in the City for City of London and Pace Investments. In the West End we have completed the refurbishment of Clareville House, SW1 which comprises 35,000 sq.ft. of offices and 23,000 sq.ft. of leisure and restaurant space for National Grid UK Pension Scheme.

At Mitre Square, EC3 we are preparing a revised planning application for a smaller scheme of circa 275,000 sq.ft. of offices.

Office refurbishment

In Battersea we have just completed a new 50,000 sq.ft. phase 2. This follows the conversion of an empty TV studio into offices with a communal bar and meeting space which is now fully let to over 20 different businesses. Three of our investment properties, Rex House, SW1, Shepherds Building, W12 and 61 Southwark Street, SE1 represent over £90m of buildings that we have refurbished in the past and retained for their growth potential. Our total London holdings comprise circa 440,000 sq.ft. of offices let to 72 tenants generating a rent roll of £10.5 million, an average of just £27 per sq.ft. and an ERV of £12.4m, £28 per sq.ft.

lndustrial development

In partnership with Chancerygate and Quadrant we have built 120 units totalling over 570,000 sq.ft. for onward sale to owner occupiers at two sites in Oxford as well as at Southampton, Southall (West London) and Hailsham. We have let or sold 46 of these units (300,000 sq.ft.), realising £35m. These schemes include sales of parcels of land for car showrooms, builders merchants and self-storage uses and the development of trade counter schemes.

Retirement villages

We continue to be a major supplier of retirement village schemes. Our successful scheme at Cawston, Rugby is now in its final stages and we retain a further 40 acres for future development. At Bramshott Place, Liphook we have built a 51 unit first phase and have sold eight units with reservations on 18, leaving 25 available. Schemes at Horsham (156 units) and Cambridge (101 units) have now received planning consent and we look to commence development next year. Further projects in Exeter and Great Alne, Warwickshire are the subject of recent planning applications.

Despite the slowdown in the new build housing market, we are very pleased with the reception the villages receive in the market.

Outsourcing

The market positioning of The Asset Factor in property services outsourcing is an attractive one as an increasing number of organisations look to save cost and meet increasingly demanding compliance issues as the economic downturn continues. The principal Asset Factor venture, NB Entrust (a joint venture with NB Real Estate), two years after our major repositioning exercise, is now trading profitably and growing strongly and should be a major winner from this market trend. Similarly the commercialisation business, Asset Space, is well placed to grow as an incremental cash generating service for property owners.

A new joint venture with Integral in the facilities management sector (Mobius Support Services) and the existing managed help desk service (Asset OnCall) should also benefit from the market’s focus on costs.

Our service project in Reading has faced pressure on market rates but has now achieved sustainable occupancy albeit at a lower rate than originally budgeted.

Governetz

Our Helical Governetz joint venture is proving most exciting with potential demand for space of several million sq.ft. spread between our three schemes at Waverley, Keele and Newport. A number of further campuses are in negotiation with an aim to provide in excess of 4m sq.ft. of supply over a period of time. The Government should be a major driver of occupier demand during these difficult times and, equally importantly, one of the few covenants readily fundable with our institutional partners. Whilst these initiatives will take time to come to fruition they will be a major plank of our future business.

Quotient

In January 2007 we acquired a research facility near Newmarket in a joint venture with the majority shareholder of Quotient who occupy the buildings. As part of the transaction we acquired a minority stake in Quotient, a fast growing biosciences company. During the year we sold a tenth of our shareholding and recovered the cost of our initial stake, leaving us with a 22% holding in the Company.

Student accommodation

Completion of the sale of our site at Fieldgate Street, London, E1, which has planning consent for 340 student rooms, is due in August 2009. At 200 Great Dover Street, London, SE1, currently an investment property, let to Conoco Phillips until June 2011, we are at detailed planning negotiation stage for a new development of 35,000 sq.ft. of offices and 290 student rooms. Other schemes are under consideration.