Six months into its financial year property developer Harworth says it’s on track to grow its investment portfolio to almost £1bn in the next five years, having already completed more than 80 per cent of its planned sales for 2024.
The London-listed group, which specialises in land regeneration, said it had completed, exchanged or in heads of terms on 86 per cent of its budgeted annual sales within the first six months of the year.
During the period Harworth also exchanged contracts for the conditional sale of 48 acres of serviced land at Skelton Grange to Microsoft for £107m, representing an internal rate of return of more than 40 per cent and a significant premium to the December 31 2023 book value of £52m.
In addition, the group achieved planning permission for 1.8m sq. ft. of land across 500 plots, with up to 1.5m sq. ft of land across 150 plots granted planning permission since June.
This, combined with completed disposals being ahead of book value, means Harworth expects its EPRA net disposal value “to be broadly in line with current market consensus” by the end of 2024.
Lynda Shillaw, chief executive of Harworth, said: “Harworth has continued to deliver against its growth strategy to reach £1bn EPRA NDV by the end of 2027 and we recently announced our intention to grow the investment portfolio to £0.9bn by the end of 2029.
“This growth will largely be driven by our existing industrial and logistics pipeline, which now totals 38.8m sq. ft. and will see the delivery of strategically positioned Grade A assets we intend to retain and hold.
“This has been another strong first half for planning approvals and land sales, the highlight being the exchange of contracts on a £107m serviced land sale to Microsoft at a significant premium to book value, our largest transaction to date.
“We continue to see strong demand for Harworth’s serviced land and employment spaces, with the recent momentum in serviced land sales highlighting the strength of our markets and these sales provide a stable funding channel for our industrial and logistics development programme.
“The recently announced evolution of our strategy sets a clear direction for the Group. It reflects our strong conviction in the demand for industrial and logistics space in our regions which is underpinned by limited supply, and our ability to unlock the significant embedded value in our extensive development pipeline to meet our growth targets.”