Our Business and Markets

Helical Bar is a UK based property development and investment company listed on the London Stock Exchange with a market capitalisation of over £450m. We create shareholder value through a wide variety of high margin activities with property investment at our core. Whilst a profit centre in its own right, property investment provides a stable income stream to cover all our overheads and interest costs. Our spread of activities gives us flexibility to deploy capital rapidly across our business and focus on whatever opportunities offer the best returns at different points of the property cycle.

Our goals

We seek to make excellent returns for our shareholders over the short-, medium- and long-term whilst avoiding the pitfalls of the commercial property cycle. We aim to achieve this through a broadly based, diversified property business, which has access to a very wide range of investible opportunities.

We do all this with a small, long serving management team who have a significant proportion of their own wealth invested in a 18% stake in the Company. 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.

Our approach - how we create value

Planning

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

In 2006/07 we gained consent for a retirement village of 144 units on the site of a disused hospital in Liphook, Hants, resulting in a £9m increase in site value.

We currently have brownfield sites in Cambridge, Horsham and Great Alne (west of Stratford upon Avon) where we are seeking retirement village consents. Residential use is being sought on industrial sites in Fleet and Whitstable and on a greenfield site in Telford.

In Vauxhall, London we are working with National Grid UK Pension Fund to secure a large residential allocation on an industrial estate fronting the Thames. Our biggest project is at White City where on behalf of a consortium of landowners we are master planning 4.5m sq.ft. of residential and commercial space on 33 acres. In Milton Keynes we are in the process of gaining a consent for a 300,000 sq.ft retail warehouse and leisure scheme and a trade park on separate sites.

Mixed use developments

In recent years we have sought to create more sustainable development with a variety of complementary uses. In particular, we have incorporated residential uses into a number of our schemes. These include 700 student housing units above our 180,000 sq.ft. retail in Nottingham and 56 flats in our department store conversion in Cardiff which we all sold on the first morning of the launch, a year before completion. At C4.1 in Milton Keynes, with local developers Abbeygate, we are building 440 flats above a 110,000 sq.ft. Sainsbury supermarket. These have been forward sold to Barratts and social landlord Genesis. At Parkgate, Shirley the construction of an 80,000 sq.ft. Asda supermarket together with 120,000 sq.ft. of retail and 200 residential units are planned to commence in 2008. In Wolverhampton an 11 acre site has been divided and sold into land parcels for residential, hotel, car showroom and public houses with a listed building to be converted in to a casino.

Office developments

We have a twenty year track record of building Grade A Central London office buildings, often in partnership with institutions and other landowners. We have recently been appointed by Pace Investments (City) Limited to manage the development in the City of 320,000 sq ft of offices pre-let to Man Group as their new headquarters. We are also partnering the National Grid UK Pension Fund on the refurbishment of 35,000 sq ft of offices and 23,000 sq ft of leisure and restaurants at Clareville House SW1. At Mitre Square, EC3 we have obtained planning consent for a 350,000 sq ft office scheme and plan to commence in 2008. At Bracknell we are moving forward through planning a major mixed use scheme which will comprise over 300,000 sq ft of offices and residential.

Office refurbishments

We like to breathe new life into unloved, empty office buildings in and around central London introducing some design flair and creating new hubs or communities of occupiers. In Battersea we recently converted an empty TV studio into offices with a communal bar and meeting space, which is now let to over twenty different businesses. We have just obtained planning consent to double the floor space, building a further 50,000 sq ft on part of the car park. Investment properties Rex House, SW1, Shepherds Building, W12 and 61 Southwark Street, SE1 represent over £100 million of buildings that we have refurbished in the past and retained for their growth potential.

Retail development

Through our joint ventures with Oswin and Overton, we have been building retail parks and shopping centres for over a decade. Last month we completed a retail park in Luton let to DFS, SCS, Carpetright, Harveys and sold to the Hercules Unit Trust for £36m. Planning consent is being sought for a 25,000 sq ft bulky goods retail warehouse scheme in Crewe.

Retail refurbishments

Reconfiguring and combining small retail units enables us to attract desirable new retailers into our retail centres. At the old Morgan's Department Store in Cardiff we have created units for Borders, TK Maxx, Moss Bros and Rossiters. At Letchworth we nearly doubled rental values over a three year period. We introduced a dozen new retailers to the town more than doubling the capital value and generating a near five-fold return on equity.

Industrial developments

In partnership with Chancerygate we are building around 140 units totalling over 580,000 sq ft for onward sale to owner occupiers at two sites in Oxford and at Southampton, Southall (West London) and Stockport. We are also building 93,000 sq ft of mainly industrial space but also trade counters, crèche and a convenience store in Hailsham with Quadrant Estates. In recent years we have completed successful schemes in Slough with Chancerygate and in Cambridge, Edenbridge and Harlow in partnership with Dencora. These schemes often include sales of parcels of land for hotels, car showrooms and self-storage and the development of trade counter schemes.

Retirement villages

As part of our planning business, we obtained retirement village consents and in the past sold off the sites for development. At Cawston, Rugby we retained an interest in the development as a consortium member and following its success we have elected to build out our recently consented scheme at Liphook.

Outsourcing

Our outsourcing venture, The Asset Factor, has made good progress during the year - evolving its positioning as an asset manager and property operator.

We have secured a 50% stake in an internal property management business in partnership with Nelson Bakewell. Currently managing support services to a portfolio of over 30 million square feet in over 600 locations; it is one of the top three managers of multi- tenanted buildings in the UK. Our strategy is to invest in new management, improved systems and best practice processes to create and grow a premium branded, market leading property and facilities management business.

We have also launched a new corporate services office business as a joint venture with fast growing sector specialist Avanta. Our first surplus space deal was signed in December 2006 with Prudential on 22,000 sq ft property in Dukesbridge House in Reading. The facility has since been refurbished and commenced operations in April 2007.

Poland

Helical Poland continues to make good progress.

Sosnica Retail Park, Gliwice, will comprise a 64,000 sq m retail park anchored by a 12,000 sq m Carrefour hypermarket. The site is at the intersection of the new A1 and A4 motorways and will be completed to coincide with the new junction in the second half of 2009.

At Wroclaw, a retail scheme for 10,000 sq m is planned adjacent to the existing Korona Retail Centre. Pre-lets have already been agreed with Electroworld and Carpetright. Work will start on site at the end of 2007 and terms have been agreed to forward sell the completed scheme to an Irish investor.

A number of other retail schemes are under consideration.

Helical Bar has set up a joint venture with Governetz to take advantage of the 2006 Varney Report advocating saving public funds by government departments sharing services and relocating departments outside London.

The aim of these projects is to work constructively with Government organisations and suppliers to relocate to a single campus where they are able to share both accommodation and business support services. Helical Governetz aims to develop a two million square feet portfolio, with an end value of some £600m.

Helical Governetz is seeking to create a number of campuses having identified locations including Newport; Keele, Staffordshire; and Waverley, Sheffield.

An introduction to Helical Bar