British Land

The British Land Company PLC

File:British Land.png
Company type	Real estate investment trust
Industry	real estate
Founded	1856
Headquarters	Marble Arch, London
Key people	Sir John Ritblat (Honorary President) Dr Chris Gibson-Smith (Chairman) Stephen Hester (CEO)
Products	london offices and retail
Operating income	£1,440m (2007)
Net income	£2,453m (2007)
Number of employees	804 (2007)
Website	www.britishland.com

The British Land Company PLC (LSE: BLND) is one of the largest property development and investment companies in the United Kingdom. It converted to a Real Estate Investment Trust when REITs were introduced in the United Kingdom in January 2007. It is headquartered in London and traded on the London Stock Exchange. It is a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index.

Origins

British Land was founded in 1856 as an offshoot of the National Freehold Land Society formed in 1849 with the two chief architects of the freehold land movement Richard Cobden and John Bright. Both were ardent supporters of a movement to extend enfranchisement. To qualify for a parliamentary vote it was then necessary to be a landowner and the main object of the National Freehold was to facilitate the acquisition of small plots of land by the people. To do this the British Land Co. would purchase land and then resell it again on the best terms to any customer who wanted to buy it. With extension of the franchise this reason ceased to govern the operation of the British Land Co and it began to opeate as a normal business in the latter part of the Nineteenth Century.

Between 1970 and 2006[1] it was chaired by Sir John Ritblat, one of the best known figures in the British property sector, whose knighthood was announced in the queen's new year's honours list for 2006.

The Company Today

As of 31 March 2007 the property portfolio was valued at £16.9 billion. More than half of the portfolio is invested in retail. This includes the Meadowhall shopping centre in Sheffield, which is one of the largest in the UK, and a large amount of property which has been purchased from and leased back to major retailers such as Tesco, Sainsbury's and ASDA. The other major group of assets is office property, most of which is in central London. This includes the Broadgate Estate near Liverpool Street station and Regent's Place near Euston Station. British Land has been involved in Broadgate, which is one of the largest development projects in London in recent decades and is still incomplete, since 1984, and after making a string of acquisitions on the estate over the years it acquired the last piece in 2003. In 2004 it received planning permission for a Richard Rogers designed skyscraper at 122 Leadenhall Street in the City of London which will become one of the tallest buildings in Western Europe. Demolition of the existing structure began in January 2007 and building completion is expected in 2010. The company have current proposals to extend Regent's Place as far as Osnaburgh Street with two new mixed use buildings designed by Terry Farrell and Wilkinson Eyre.

In May 2005 British Land announced that it had agreed to purchase Pillar Property Plc for £811 million pounds in cash to boost its position in the out-of-town retail property sector.

External links

• Official site
• Yahoo! profile
• Company History from Answers.com
• Investor question about buybacks & capital markets