2015 Year in review

Chairman's Statement

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Our proven strategy has delivered another year of excellent performance across the business.

In a year of good performance across the property sector, Workspace has again outperformed. Workspace is benefiting from its focus on new and growing companies in London and a long-term strategy of redevelopment and refurbishment combined with active portfolio management and targeted acquisitions. This momentum is reflected in our revenues and profits which have again grown strongly. Group net rental income was £57.7 million, an increase of 15%, profit before tax was £360.0 million, an increase of 43%, and EPRA NAV per share was £7.03, an increase of 42%.

Considering these strong results and the Company’s future prospects, the Board is recommending an increase in the final dividend by 15% to 8.15p to be paid on 7 August 2015. This represents an increase in the total dividend for the year of 13% to 12.04p.

During the year we acquired five properties, helping us to expand our portfolio in our target areas such as London’s Midtown, and we will continue to search for and execute transactions that we believe will provide strong, long-term shareholder returns. We also agreed terms for the cancellation of the Glebe Proceeds Share Agreement with the former lenders to the Glebe portfolio which we acquired in 2009. This concludes the integration of the portfolio that has delivered substantial returns since its acquisition.

"In a year of good performance across the property sector, Workspace has again outperformed."

Group net rental income up 15%

In November, we were grateful for the strong support of investors in successfully completing a £96.5m share placing. This will allow us to move more quickly to extend our refurbishment pipeline and take advantage of acquisition opportunities.

Throughout all of this, the Board continued to support Jamie and the team in executing our strategic plans with strong governance sitting at the heart of our approach. During the year, Bernard Cragg retired as Non-Executive Director and we welcomed the arrival of Stephen Hubbard to the Board. Stephen is currently Chairman of CBRE UK and we are already benefiting from his wealth of experience.

We aim to support not only our customers but also the wider communities around us and we remain alive to our responsibilities.

Nowhere is that more evident than in our goal to reduce energy usage in all of our buildings and it is pleasing to note that we have reduced overall energy consumption by 9% over the last two years.

All of the achievements we report this year are of course a reflection of the hard work and dedication of our employees and I would like to thank them once again for their expertise and commitment which is growing our business and further strengthening our presence.

Looking forward, I believe we have the right strategy to cement our position as the home to new and growing companies across London, and deliver superior value to shareholders