The Crown Estate delivers 329.4 million pounds to Treasury

The Crown Estate’s retail portfolio has helped the real estate firm deliver 329.4 million pounds to the Treasury coffers following the publication of its financial results for the year to March 31, 2018.

The Royal family’s commercial property company, which owns retail property across London and regional developments such as Fosse Shopping Park in Leicester and Rushden Lakes, the new 140 million pounds retail and leisure destination in Northamptonshire, reported a “strong financial performance” with income returned to the Treasury up 4 percent from 316.7 million pounds in 2016/17 on a like-for-like basis.

Overall performance was ahead of the market, with a total return of 11 percent against the annual bespoke benchmark of 8.2 percent. Total return outperformance was driven primarily by the growing offshore wind portfolio and flagship retail lettings in Central London, The Crown Estate said in its financial statement.

Alison Nimmo, chief executive of The Crown Estate said in a statement: “Our highly skilled team has delivered another great set of results this year, against a backdrop of a challenging and uncertain market.

“This success has been built on a disciplined focus on creating high-quality service and experiences for our customers in the best locations, and an approach to business that looks beyond short-term volatility to deliver long term, sustainable outperformance.”

Key assets included the addition of nearly 260,000 square foot of retail and office space in central London, which raked in a total rent of 30 million pounds. Along with retail lettings to the West End including flagship stores for Microsoft, Asics, L’Occitane, Aspinal of London, Arket, and Weekday.

The Crown Estate’s property portfolio value also rose 6.8 percent to 13.3 billion pounds in the past year, while its capital value increased 7.3 percent to 14.1 billion pounds.

The results means that The Crown Estate has now returned a total of 2.7 billion pounds to the public over the past 10 years.

Robin Budenberg, chairman of The Crown Estate added: “Once again the business has delivered strong returns for the nation’s finances. It has been an exciting year and we have begun to pivot the business away from a traditional bricks and mortar approach towards a more customer-focused, services-based model, so we are preparing to take advantage of the trends that are transforming how people want to work, live and socialise in the future.”