British Land : announce further share buyback programme

14 Jun 2018

Following the sale of 5 Broadgate announced this morning, British Land intends to extend its share buyback programme by allocating up to £200 million to purchase shares in the Company during the current financial year.

The Board regularly reviews how the Company allocates capital to optimise long-term returns to shareholders. During the financial year ended 31 March 2018, the Company bought back £300 million of shares, as well as continuing to invest to position our business for growth. This included doubling the size of our committed development pipeline, making selective, on-strategy acquisitions and progressing longer-term value creation opportunities such as our Masterplan for the redevelopment of Canada Water in central London.

The Board believes that investment in the Company's shares at the prevailing discount to net asset value offers attractive value. Our financial position remains strong with LTV at 28% as of 31 March 2018, and we will continue to progress our strategic agenda of investing in our business with a disciplined approach to capital allocation and returns.

A further announcement containing more detailed information regarding the share buy-back will be released before the start of any dealing under the share buy-back program.

Notes to Editors

About British Land
Our portfolio of high quality UK commercial property is focused on Retail around the UK and London Offices. We own or manage a portfolio valued at £18.2 billion (British Land share: £13.7 billion) as at 31 March 2018 making us one of Europe's largest listed real estate investment companies.

Our strategy is to provide places which meet the needs of our customers and respond to changing lifestyles - Places People Prefer. We do this by creating great environments both inside and outside our buildings and use our scale and placemaking skills to enhance and enliven them. This expands their appeal to a broader range of occupiers, creating enduring demand and driving sustainable, long term performance.

Our Retail portfolio is focused on Regional and Local multi-let centres, and accounts for 48% of our portfolio. Our Offices portfolio comprises three office-led campuses in central London as well as high quality standalone buildings and accounts for 49% of our portfolio. Increasingly our focus is on providing a mix of uses and this is most evident at Canada Water, our 53-acre redevelopment opportunity where we have plans to create a new neighbourhood for London.

Sustainability is embedded throughout our business. Our places, which are designed to meet high sustainability standards, become part of local communities, provide opportunities for skills development and employment and promote wellbeing. Our industry-leading sustainability performance led to British Land being awarded a five-star rating in the 2017 Global Real Estate Sustainability Benchmark for the second year running.

In April 2016 British Land received the Queen's Award for Enterprise: Sustainable Development, the UK's highest accolade for business success for economic, social and environmental achievements over a period of five years.

Further details can be found on the British Land website at www.britishland.com.

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