British Land Share Discussion Threads

[shieldbug] 15/5/2019 10:38

The strategic advantages of managing campuses and multi-let spaces is a good one but it is likely to be costly.

Combining Offices and Retail businesses into one Real Estate team is looking increasingly sensible.

I don't think EPS means anything with a REIT. Changes in NAV are something to take note of but they do not necessarily represent earnings (or losses).

Consolidated net rental is down 7.6%. Haven't calculated it but would expect this is mainly due to net property sales. They say like for like rent is up £15m but that would be for the group and would not include the fund.

Dividend up 3% + £125m buy back.

[jonwig] 15/5/2019 08:05

I've only scanned through the FY results, but they aren't alarming.
With a nav of 905p, a discount of 37% looks excessive.

Retail maybe not as bad as feared on a valuation basis.

[sharesoc] 07/5/2019 18:23

ShareSoc have organised a company visit to British Land for the 1st July. Registration and more details here:

[ianood] 25/4/2019 23:38

shielbug - got it in one

[shieldbug] 25/4/2019 14:12

Waikenchan - that's why ETFs are not great for property investing. I prefer to pick REITs and know what I am investing in.

[waikenchan] 25/4/2019 09:10

Investing article about retail reits

[shieldbug] 24/4/2019 15:05

The BLND share of the transaction was £193.5m and after paying off loans etc they get £95m. If this is a correct reading these properties were quite highly levered - about 50%. So while they were quality investments it does help overall with balance sheet. Hoping proceeds used for developing Canada Water which should be in advanced stage of planning now.

[scburbs] 24/4/2019 13:06

“Our Retail portfolio is focused on Regional and Local multi-let centres, and accounts for 49% of our portfolio.”

Looks in line with the strategy to me (whether you agree with it or not). Logically they should also be looking to sell the remaining superstore assets (6 or 1.3% GAV).

[cc2014] 24/4/2019 12:22

Agreed, but I'm still struggling to align myself with their strategy.

They have a blue chip customer who is unlikely to default and I think it unlikely supermarkets are going to fall in value over an extended period of time. One can discuss on-line shopping but the recent evidence is that on-line supermarket shopping is now falling in percentage terms.

So, whilst I can get my head round the desire to reduce the retail percentage from half to a third I'm not sure this is one of the parts I'd want to sell. Of course the directors know the business better than me. Perhaps it's the malls they need to sell really but they are struggling to sell these for NAV so are looking at this instead?

It doesn't leave me inspired as a shareholder. Oh and if they are just going to use the cash to buy back shares that doesn't inspire me either.

I guess it feels like a deal for the sake of a deal because they have committed to reducing retail as the city boys have told them the share price will go up if they do that.

Nevertheless it's neither here nor there in terms of BLND overall. I'll continue to sit in the trade, collect my dividend and hope one day we fix Brexit and it will go up 20% overnight.

[essentialinvestor] 24/4/2019 11:36

It's clear in terms of their previous statements,
intention is the shrink the % of retail holdings.
They are selling what they can in retail, provided the price is right.

[jonwig] 23/4/2019 08:41

Yup - so it's not just me! But at £200m out of a total £13bn portfolio it's no great isuse.

[cc2014] 23/4/2019 08:35

I can't say I get this deal either. There's nothing wrong with it, but I'm not really sure of the motivation despite the RNS to help me. Looking at the share price the City don't seem bothered either.

I guess for the moment I'll just have to trust the directors expertise is much greater than mine. Not really how I like to invest...

[jonwig] 23/4/2019 08:09

JV sale, 12 Sainsbury's superstores.

This summarises their realignment, though I'd have thought supermarkets were the safer end of retail:

This is the latest example of how we are delivering against our clear long-term strategy to build an increasingly mixed-use business focused on three core elements: campus focused London offices; a smaller, refocused Retail business and Residential, principally build to rent. As part of this, we expect Retail to comprise c.30-35% of the assets of our business, down from around half today.

[shieldbug] 01/4/2019 15:42

British Land completes Share buyback program.
33,672,430 ordinary shares at an average purchase price of 594.

Previous years buyback was 47,607,139 shares at an average price of 630.

So in total over 2 years they have bought back 812,795,569 shares at an average price of 615p.

[shieldbug] 01/4/2019 14:59

Aprirose acquires British Land pub portfolio for c.£130m -

[soilderboy] 11/3/2019 08:20

Way forward.

[jonwig] 22/1/2019 18:34

On my reading, it looks pretty amicable on all sides.

[shieldbug] 22/1/2019 17:38

Head of Offices and Head of Retail - both gone. What's up?

[jmc43] 21/1/2019 15:05

Some quite serious Director changes announced today:

<<a href='http://otp.investis.com/clients/uk/britishland3/rns/regulatory-story.aspx?newsid=1226671&cid=389' target='window'>http://otp.investis.com/clients/uk/britishland3/rns/regulatory-story.aspx?newsid=1226671&cid=389&gt;

[soilderboy] 19/1/2019 08:22

I agree totally.The cost or returns for retailers is crippleing. A lot a dropping a free service and passing it on to the customer. This is not going down well.High street shopping where you can try on, have adrink and bite to eat will come back strong.It will take a while but will happe.

[chillpill] 18/1/2019 09:24

I looked at a presentation the other day. I think Debenhams was a sub 3% client.

No doubt there will be retail reductions but hardly likely to mean the NAV drops 40%.

[jonwig] 18/1/2019 08:57

FT:

Some of the UK’s biggest listed landlords face rent cuts as Debenhams seeks to ease the burden of a store portfolio that includes leases stretching as far as 2083.

British Land and Intu have the largest exposure to the struggling retailer, according to data from Colliers International, although people close to both companies insisted their stores were among Debenhams’ most successful.

Other groups with significant exposure include Landsec, Capital & Regional and Hammerson, the data shows. At least 30 of Debenhams’ 165 stores are owned by listed groups.

[chillpill] 18/1/2019 08:55

The 40% discount to Net Asset Value is just too big.

Historically it has always traded very close to its NAV.

Yes retail has issues but considering their prime assets is it really that bad?

I doubt it.

[shieldbug] 18/12/2018 19:21

Online retail has some fundamental issues that need resolving if it is really going to be a success. For one thing a lot of deliveries go missing and have to be replaced. Replacing lost packages is costly for the seller. Missing deliveries create anguish and unfulfilled expectations for the consumer. Something that you do not get buying in-store where the cashier completes the transaction to both parties satisfaction.

Click and collect and the omnichannel solves a lot of these issues. Business rates and online sales taxes will also shape how this turns out.

A lot of business gets done online, and attracts bucket loads of venture capital and other investments but how much of it profitable? How resilient is that business? What happens when the digital equivalent of shoplifters start to exploit your sales and logistics and on a grander scale? If you don't make money the business ain't going to survive.

Time will tell how viable the logistics and economics of online shopping really are. Just because there is a craze for it today doesn't mean it will be the norm tomorrow. In the meantime of course there will be casualties in bricks and mortar retailers.

British Land seem switched on to gathering data and analysing it.

The discount to NAV is also reassuring while all this plays out.