British Land Share Discussion Threads

[shieldbug] 18/12/2020 09:28

Sold out of BLND. The management are more curatorial than entrepreneurial. Its been run by a banker for 10 years and now another one.

[porsche1945] 18/11/2020 18:56

@ghhhh

Probably not, the pound has been trashed since 2016 brexit fiasco, foreign investors dont want to be invested in politically unstable countries or buying into depreciating currencies. UK needs a brexit deal and a soft one or the U.K. is even more fxxked than it already is. Either way the countries best days long past. I drove through London this afternoon, totally dead, I’d be selling BL and quick.

[deanforester] 18/11/2020 17:19

Was the fall because the news was already in the price?

[essentialinvestor] 19/10/2020 14:04

Appreciate the view, thanks.

[williamcooper104] 19/10/2020 12:06

GPOR/DWT are BL are interesting All have very strong balance sheets and BL/GPOR could be M&A targets

[williamcooper104] 19/10/2020 12:03

Personally for my risk/reward/income preferences I prefer long leased, relatively secure, commercial property - be that logistics, supermarkets or medical/health (what used to be called "alternatives" and is now mainstream) I was fortunate to privately develop life sciences/healthcare assets - so I tend to follow my listed equity investments where I've gone privately The ultimate commercial real estate sector is commercial (not residential) ground rents as these provide the best inflation protection together with a yield and security of income that works well in deflationary environments - however that's impossible to get in the U.K. public markets as our pension/annuity funds have been buying the market GPOR/DWT - London focuses, lowly leveraged

[essentialinvestor] 19/10/2020 10:26

William, if I may ask, which commercial property sector stocks do you see
as interesting?, thanks.

[williamcooper104] 19/10/2020 10:18

Google buying their Central Saint Giles office for £800m (largest ever west end office sale) Google only occupy 20 percent of the site at moment Big confidence vote

[williamcooper104] 17/10/2020 08:08

London office valuations reflect Brexit risk and didn't fully reprice for QE unlike Paris (only other deep/liquid Eurpean office market) IMO a no deal likely to be very good for super prime resi (though recent tax changes are v negative there), harder call on prime offices The London office market got saved last cycle by tech companies and they're not, in the main, that bothered about a hard brexit - just makes their U.K. liabilities/staff cheaper Sub-letting the greater risk The other good thing about brexit is that it hit development pipelines so we went into covid with a tight supply

[ghhghh] 25/9/2020 08:00

A No Deal Brexit would crash £ resulting in foreign funds piling into UK property investments, supporting/boosting valuations?

[williamcooper104] 24/9/2020 12:41

Bizarrely the private markets are still a lot hotter than you'd think they should be - yields haven't moved out much/if all Grey space will be the killer as always is in the city Ironically BLs retail park assets now might look better than their office assets

[williamcooper104] 24/9/2020 12:38

It looks like the position is being parked in Brookfields 2019 vintage real estate PE fund - it's a mega fund Some PE funds have just taken public shareholdings and held them - Starwood bought into GPOR - but LPs don't pay their 2 and 20 for GPs to go buy listed equity (its a little bit more than we pay our broker :) - so a takeover approach is likely (IMO) - if the price is right Brookfield did hold onto a minority in Songbird for years - but that was after they failed to take it over

[porsche1945] 24/9/2020 10:02

The only thing that will save BL now is a brexit deal, any deal, good or bad as long as not a hard brexit, otherwise the exodus from London will continue, jp Morgan yesterday. U.K. a terminal basket case. However, maybe get a deal, vaccine appears and maybe even Boris resigns, then things might take off.

[jonwig] 17/9/2020 07:01

Brookfield stake up from 7.3% to 9.2%:



Hardly the time to be a seller.

[shieldbug] 10/9/2020 13:42

A good interview with Simon Carter -

hxxps://www.financialdirector.co.uk/2019/05/06/british-land-cfo-on-diversifying-in-the-face-of-brexit/

[shieldbug] 10/9/2020 12:21

Apparently Simon Carter was Head of Strategy at British Land when he left in 2015.

Not sure if that counts in his favour.

[shieldbug] 10/9/2020 12:18

British Land plans 700,000sqft new office space at 2 Finsbury Avenue.

Simon Carter appointed CEO.

Market not exactly ecstatic.

hxxps://www.standard.co.uk/business/property-developer-british-land-unveils-major-new-london-offices-proposal-a4537446.html

[shieldbug] 07/9/2020 17:54

Thanks Essential.

Just reinforces my view that this is a time to listen to ones own instinct. It will all make sense with hindsight.

Certainly there are plenty of journalists making hay with this topic. For that reason alone one needs to read/listen with great care.

[williamcooper104] 03/9/2020 16:39

Thanks - will check that out

[essentialinvestor] 03/9/2020 16:07

Detailed comment on the company and sector in today's FT Markets Now,
for anyone interested.

[williamcooper104] 28/8/2020 16:55

It ought to be feasible (although as said at much lower current use values so not without a lot of pain) Would require careful planning There's still plenty of Chinese/HK happy to buy expensive flatsConverting office into resi isn't that hard - plenty of regional secondary offices have been

[williamcooper104] 28/8/2020 16:47

But to make it worthwhile to convert into resi current use values need to fall considerably - good office is c£1.5k psf - conversation to resi works at max of £1k psf (and probably more like £500-700 psf) So we won't get the upswing until values tank

[essentialinvestor] 28/8/2020 16:46

William, is that feasible in Central London though?.

Could some of the office towers in to apartments?.

[williamcooper104] 28/8/2020 16:44

The secular adjustment hopefully swings into a normal cyclical swing by huge amounts of office space being converted into residential

[williamcooper104] 28/8/2020 16:42

Totally agree Last cycle it was much easier even if it did seem like the economy was going to be toast for a long time Far far harder to call WFH/covid Ultimately it's probably just yet another extreme cycle in what's always been an extremely cyclical market The better investors/operators like DLN/GPOR have almost no debt - so they will likely do well out of it - but if you invest in them now you need to be comfortable with what's likely to be volatile ride