St. Modwen Properties Plc has published its results for the year ended 30 November 2017.
Mark Allan, Chief Executive of St. Modwen, commented:
“2017 has been a positive year for us. Having established our new, more focused strategy, we started to shift our portfolio towards sectors with better structural growth characteristics, we increased commercial development activity, grew housebuilding profits and reduced net borrowings. This will continue in 2018 and beyond, so despite continuing uncertainty in the external environment, the significant potential in our existing pipeline means we expect to deliver a meaningful improvement in earnings and return on capital in the medium term.”
Rupert Joseland, Property Director for St. Modwen West and Wales said:
“We have continued to accelerate speculative building across the region to satisfy market demand for good quality commercial space and to attract further inward investment and jobs for local areas. Recent highlights include start of work on a new large scale 150,000 sq ft unit and a scheme of 14 small speculative units, at Access 18 in Avonmouth, to meet national and local demand for industrial and logistics space close the M5.
“At Skypark in Exeter, our recently completed office scheme, No. 2 Enterprise Square, already has a new occupier secured for an entire floor and we are also close to completing delivery of a new regional headquarters for Devon & Cornwall Housing.
“In Gloucestershire, we are progressing a further three speculative units at Gateway 12 to join the four already completed on site as well as delivering nine speculative small scale commercial units, in partnership with Stroud District Council, at Littlecombe. We have also just signed a development agreement for a sustainable new garden village at Buckover, near Thornbury, which has an allocation in the draft West of England Joint Spatial Plan.
“These sites are just some of the 24 schemes currently underway across Devon, Somerset, Gloucestershire, Avon, Warwickshire, Worcestershire and Wiltshire. Together, they provide a solid platform from which to generate sizeable income and create long term value for our regional portfolio as well as deliver over 11.5 million sq ft of commercial accommodation for businesses, and 9,000 new homes, across the West.”
