Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us today for our results webcast. We're delighted to have you with us. Before we begin, a quick note to say that today's session is being recorded, and a replay will be available on our website shortly after the event. Turning to the agenda, we'll start with a brief introduction from our Chairman, Aubrey Adams. He'll then hand over to Colin Godfrey, our CEO, who will provide an overview of the period before passing to Frankie Whitehead, our CFO, for the financial and operational review.
We'll conclude with a live Q&A, and you can submit questions via the chat function in the webcast. If you'd prefer to ask a question verbally, please use the dial-in details included in the announcement and press star one.
With that, I'll hand over to Aubrey.
Good morning, and welcome to our full year results presentation. I'm pleased to be opening today with a strong set of results, reflecting a year of significant strategic progress and excellent delivery across the business. We have continued to execute our strategy with discipline, strengthen the platform for future growth, and the business enters the year ahead with a real sense of momentum. Before handing over to Colin and the management team to take you through the detail, I would like to take a moment on a more personal note. This presentation marks my final results as chairman, as I will be retiring from the board after nine very rewarding years. It has been a privilege to serve alongside such a high-quality board, and I would like to thank my fellow directors, past and present, for their insight, challenge, and support.
I would also like to extend my sincere thanks to the manager and the wider team for their professionalism, commitment, and consistent delivery throughout my tenure. Finally, I would like to thank our shareholders for their continued support and engagement. I leave the business in the strongest position it has ever been, with a clear strategy of high-quality portfolio and a management team well-placed to continue creating long-term value for shareholders. It's very pleasing that the company's success has been reflected in its elevation to the FTSE 100, which becomes effective on Monday.
With that, I will hand over to Colin to take you through the results in more detail.
Thanks, Aubrey. Hello, everyone, thank you for joining us. We enter 2026 with real momentum, improving occupied demand, the successful integration of recent acquisitions, and powerful structural trends across logistics and data centers, all of which plays to the strengths of our portfolio and our strategy. It means that we start this year exceptionally well-placed to deliver against our three growth drivers and our ambitions to grow adjusted earnings by 50% by 2030. This is a business set up for multi-year compounding growth, built on capability, discipline, and consistent delivery. Throughout 2025, we delivered strong strategic momentum across our growth drivers. We continued to capture record rental reversion, expanded our logistics development platform, and advanced our data center pipeline, including launching our power-first model and progressing as planned with the delivery of our first data center project at Manor Farm, Heathrow.
We also fully integrated UKCM, generating very attractive returns and further enhanced our urban exposure with the addition of the Blackstone portfolio. At the same time, we executed a significant disposal program to recycle capital and increase returns. This is embedding highly visible multi-year growth and translating into financial performance. Despite significant capital recycling, we grew net rental income by 10.6%, increased adjusted EPS by 4.1%, and delivered 4.4% dividend growth. The financial results demonstrate that the strategy is working, and as a result, we enter 2026 with the momentum, the visibility, and confidence. As shown at the top here, our strategy builds on over a decade of consistent value creation, and the evolution of the business has been deliberate and cumulative.
Since our IPO in 2013, we've sought to create the most compelling supply chain-focused real estate business in Europe. In 2019, we added the U.K.'s largest logistics development platform with the acquisition of db Symmetry , enabling us to create high-quality buildings and compelling returns. In 2023, we made our first urban logistics acquisition with Junction Six, Birmingham, and subsequently further strengthened our offering through the acquisition of UKCM in 2024 and the portfolio of assets from Blackstone last year. Following five years of work, in 2025, we launched our power-f irst data center strategy. The combination of the largest logistics investment portfolio and the largest logistics development platform means that we are the largest logistics real estate business operating in the U.K. This gives us many advantages, including deep market knowledge, strong relationships, a lower cost of capital, and increased share liquidity.
Each phase has broadened our capability and helped to enhance our performance, as the data below shows. Over the past 10 years, we've grown contracted rent from GBP 100 million to GBP 361 million, and at the same time reduced our EPRA cost ratio by 220 basis points, as detailed bottom left. That combination, continued income growth, underpinned by an efficient cost base, has delivered strong and sustained total shareholder returns, as seen bottom right. Looking forward, we're primed to deliver, and we're entering 2026 with growing momentum in each of our three growth drivers.
I'll come back to this later, but first, I'll hand over to Frankie to cover our financial and operational review. Frankie.
Thank you. Good morning, everyone. As Colin said, 2025 has been another strategically important year for the company, and we've delivered excellent progress across our three growth drivers. Our active approach to managing the portfolio has resulted in strong operational performance. With two milestone events during the year, the launch of our data center strategy and the acquisition of the GBP 1 billion logistics portfolio from Blackstone, we expect momentum from these events to accelerate our financial performance into 2026 and beyond. Starting with the headlines, we've delivered strong like-for-like rental growth this year of 4.2%. This has supported an increase in our adjusted EPS of 4.1% to GBP 0.0838 per share, and the dividend is up by 4.4% to GBP 0.08 per share.
We have deployed capital into a range of attractive opportunities, which, along with valuation uplifts, increased our portfolio value by over 20% this year to GBP 7.9 billion. Our EPRA NTA increased to GBP 1.878, with income growth and ERV growth leading to valuation gains, and once again, generated attractive returns through our development activity. Turning to look at income and earnings growth in more detail. Our earnings growth drivers are clear, and these underpin our ambition to deliver adjusted earnings growth of 50% by the end of 2030. Firstly, net rental income has increased by 10.6%, driven by a full year's contribution from the UKCM logistics assets, a 10-week contribution from the Blackstone portfolio, and strong like-for-like rental income growth net of our disposal activity.
Income from Development Management Agreements, or DMAs, was GBP 15.5 million and in line with expectation. We guide to DMA income reverting to our GBP 3 million-GBP 5 million run rate for the financial year 2026. Secondly, our disciplined cost management has further improved our EPRA cost ratio to 12.4%, one of the most efficient platforms in the sector. This reflects the advantages of our externally managed structure and our commitment to cost efficiency as we scale. We continue to exclude the additional element of DMA income from adjusted earnings to maintain comparability year-on-year. Adjusted EPS growth, excluding that additional DMA income, was 4.1%. With the dividend growing by 4.4% to GBP 0.08 , our payout ratio is consistent with the prior year at 95%.
Looking at the top right chart, you can see the significant embedded rental potential of 37% between current passing rents and the Estimated Rental Values across the portfolio. This provides us with great near-term visibility over the future growth in net rental income, we'll be coming back to this later in the presentation. Let me now turn to capital allocation and our robust balance sheet. As already noted, the portfolio increased in value to GBP 7.9 billion. Looking at our allocation of capital on the top right, you see that during the year, we deployed development CapEx in line with our guidance of GBP 231 million into logistics development and GBP 209 million into our first two data center schemes. In addition, our logistics acquisitions totaled over GBP 1 billion, the majority of which was the portfolio acquired from Blackstone.
This portfolio will deliver a 6% running yield in 2026 and is immediately accretive to adjusted earnings. We've made excellent progress on capital recycling, shown here on the bottom right, with GBP 416 million of assets sold or exchanged to sell in the year, which means we are now 80% through the disposal program of the UKCM non-strategic assets. These capital movements and the increase in net debt, which part-financed the transaction with Blackstone, resulted in a year-end loan-to-value of 33.2%. With the GBP 62 million of disposals that were exchanged and have now subsequently completed post the year-end, our pro forma LTV reduces to 32.7%.
Drawing this all together, including the equity consideration issued in the year, our EPRA NTA increased to GBP 5.1 billion, or GBP 1.878 per share, up 1.2%. We have again delivered compelling underlying total accounting returns. Starting on the left-hand side with our 4.7% earnings yield, we added 1.9% and 2.6% to returns from our investment and development portfolios, respectively. With capital value performance across the whole portfolio at 2.4% over the year, we delivered an underlying total accounting return of 8.5%.
We have separated three non-recurring items here from underlying performance, which span the non-strategic asset performance, an impairment against our land option portfolio, which I covered at the half year, and the technical NTA dilution arising from the shares issued as part consideration for the Blackstone portfolio. This results in the reported total accounting return of 5.5%. It's worth stating here that we have yet to feel the full financial impact of the Blackstone portfolio of assets and, to a larger degree, our live data center projects, we're expecting a larger contribution from these components to total returns as we move forwards. A component of this performance, shown along the bottom, was our portfolio ERV growth of 4% over the year, which is attractive in the context of underlying inflation. Our portfolio equivalent yield has remained stable at 5.7%.
Moving on now to our asset management performance. Colin highlighted this as our first key growth driver, we've delivered another year of strong progress. Our asset management team has added GBP 10.5 million of contracted rent through rent reviews and other lease events. Open market rent reviews and hybrid reviews performed particularly strongly, averaging a 36% and 21% increase in passing rent, respectively, all aiding our improved EPRA, like-for-like rental growth of 4.2%. As the bottom left-hand chart highlights, we will see a greater proportion of the portfolio subject to review in 2026 and 2027, and this will deliver an acceleration in the rental income capture over the next few years.
Finally, moving on to the right-hand side. Our portfolio vacancy has reduced slightly to 5.6%, reflecting the net effect of our portfolio activity and, as expected, the greater level of rotation within the urban assets. Before I move on to our development activity, I want to briefly highlight an important component of the Blackstone transaction, which is the innovative three-year reversionary bridge. Essentially, the portfolio acquired came with GBP 20 million of cash, acting as a bridge between the passing rent at acquisition and the market-based ERVs across the portfolio. The release of this reversionary bridge will be recognized within adjusted earnings over the next three financial years on a reducing annual basis. It tapers in line with the actual capture of market-level rents, as set out at the bottom of this slide.
This earnings contribution should be viewed as a baseline for performance from the portfolio, with upside available through rent review outperformance or an improvement in portfolio occupancy. Our development platform is our second key growth driver and continues to deliver strong returns for us. During the year, we commenced construction on 1.4 million sq ft of space, which has the potential to deliver over GBP 13 million in headline rent. We secured 0.4 million sq ft of development lettings this year, adding nearly GBP 4 million to contracted rent at a yield on cost right at the top end of our 6%-8% target range. It's fair to say 2025 was a year of macroeconomic uncertainty. This continued to weigh on the pace of occupier decision-making.
As Colin will outline in a moment, occupier confidence is improving, and we ended the year with 1.8 million sq ft under construction, representing GBP 19.6 million of potential rent, of which 53% was pre-let. The importance of sustainability to our business is clear, and it continues to play a vital role in driving performance and returns. We provide what clients want: highly modern buildings that are powered by clean energy, are energy efficient, and have the power resilience to accommodate future automation. Excluding the portfolio of assets acquired in the year, our EPC rating improved to 86% at B or above. With the portfolio from Blackstone included, this remains stable versus 2024 at 79%. These new assets present an opportunity for improvement, where targeted investment can deliver both sustainability benefits and meaningful value enhancement.
Our rooftop solar program increased capacity by 4.5 MW in the year, to a total of 29 MW. We also continued to invest in natural capital and community programs, this year surpassing 62,000 young people positively impacted through our social value initiatives. All these sustainability actions support long-term occupier demand, reduce obsolescence risk, and drive resilience across our estates. Turning to our balance sheet, this remains a real strength and provides flexibility as we invest for growth. During the year, we completed several important pieces of financing. We refinanced and upsized our GBP 400 million revolving credit facility. We issued a new GBP 300 million, seven-year public bond at a 4.75% interest rate, and we agreed an acquisition facility to part-finance the Blackstone transaction.
At the year-end, as set out along the bottom of this slide, we had very strong financing metrics, along with a well-staggered maturity profile and access to a diverse pool of debt capital. These metrics supported our Moody's upgrade to A3 stable in the year. We've shown on the right how our capitalized interest is evolving, reflecting the higher level of capital investment in live development projects, which is around 2.5x greater than this time last year. Interest capitalized against our logistics developments remains modest due to our capital-light land option model and relatively short construction periods. An addition in the year is the interest capitalized against our data center developments, reflecting earlier land drawdowns, greater infrastructure investment, and longer construction periods. It's important to note that this cost of finance is fully captured within our underlying appraisal return targets.
Looking at some forward guidance. Our development CapEx guidance for 2026 remains unchanged. We expect to maintain our GBP 200 million-GBP 250 million run rate for logistics development, and GBP 100 million-GBP 200 million into data center development this year. We expect to achieve returns in line with previous guidance at between 7%-8% for logistics currently, and 9%-11% across our two data center projects. As we highlighted at the point of the Blackstone transaction, we expect disposals to run at an elevated level this year of between GBP 400 million-GBP 500 million to finance our accretive development activity, as well as targeting an LTV at the lower end of the 30%-35% range.
This is all part of our disciplined approach to capital allocation, which ensures we remain optimally positioned for the next phase of growth. This discipline, combined with our access to the multiple funding levers set out across the top of the slide, gives us the appropriate financial flexibility to identify and pursue opportunities as and when they arise, enabling us to invest strategically and proactively for growth. Drawing all of this together, 2025 has been a year of disciplined delivery and strong financial performance. We're entering 2026 in a great position with a strong balance sheet, multiple funding levers, and a clear line of sight across our three growth drivers. Our considered approach to managing risk, combined with the scale of the opportunities ahead, underpin our potential to grow adjusted earnings by 50% by the end of 2030.
With that, I will hand you back to Colin.
Thank you, Frankie. Turning now to our strategy. The platform that we've built, strengthened again this year, is now positioned for the next phase of growth. It's diversified, insight-driven, operationally sophisticated, and capital efficient. Crucially, it's aligned to the structural demand drivers underpinning logistics and data centers. We're entering 2026 with the right assets, the right people, and the right opportunities. To drive value in this market environment, our strategy has a simple objective: convert structural demand into superior shareholder returns through a focus on high-quality assets, a direct and active management approach, and an insight-driven development model. This strategic focus has created three clear and powerful drivers in our business. Firstly, capturing record rental reversion, which requires no or limited capital and delivers high certainty returns.
Secondly, developing new logistics assets at a 6%-8% yield on cost, supported by long-dated, capital-efficient, and flexible land options. Thirdly, developing pre-let data centers, targeting a 9%-11% yield on cost, enabled by our innovative power-first model. These drivers give us resilient, growing income, combined with opportunity for substantial capital growth. Let's start by looking at the U.K. logistics market, where demand is strengthening. Take-up increased in 2025 to 25.6 million sq ft, up 22% year-on-year, and the best level since the pandemic. Demand is broad-based across e-commerce, retail, manufacturing, defense, and 3PLs. Lettings are typically still taking extended periods of time to close, which was accentuated in 2025 by elevated macro uncertainty. Importantly, occupier confidence is improving, and this is feeding through into activity, with nearly 10 million sq ft under offer heading into 2026.
Turning to supply, 20.9 million sq ft was delivered in 2025. Vacancy ended the year at 7.1%, with new space remaining broadly stable, and the second-hand component increasing to nearly half of the total. Occupiers are rotating into higher quality, modern buildings, exactly where our portfolio is positioned. Looking ahead, supply is tightening. Space under construction is down 28% year-on-year, with speculative development almost 50% lower, pointing to fewer completions in 2026. Against that backdrop, rents continue to grow ahead of inflation, with market ERVs up 3.9%. Investment capital markets volumes also increased, aiding price discovery with nearly GBP 9 billion of transactions, noting that the prime yield has held firm at 5.25% since 2022.
Turning back to our business, our portfolio has been curated to maximize our opportunities. We now have a broader range of unit sizes with greater urban penetration and more assets benefiting from open market rent reviews, improving pricing power in a rising market. This is all underpinned by long-dated Big Box income from a modern portfolio let to some of the world's most recognized companies, as you'll see here on the right. It's exactly the right mix heading into 2026. Our first major growth driver is continuing to capture our in-built rental reversion. This is an exceptionally attractive and growing opportunity. Through rental reversion and vacancy, we have the opportunity to increase rental income by over GBP 100 million, of which 73% can be delivered within the next three years. Delivering this increase requires minimal capital.
Our team has a strong track record of meeting or exceeding ERVs. This is high certainty, high-quality income growth, and is firmly within our control. Frankie updated you on the excellent progress made in investment sales to support our recycling program. This included GBP 299 million of UKCM non-strategic assets sold since May 2024, and a further GBP 62 million with contracts exchanged, leaving GBP 86 million in two assets, representing around 1% of portfolio value to be sold within the next few months. One of these is now under offer. In aggregate, these sales are ahead of the effective cost of acquisition. This is disciplined capital recycling, selling non-core assets and reinvesting into high-returning logistics and data center opportunities. The primary reason for acquiring UKCM was to capture a high-quality urban logistics portfolio with significant in-built reversion.
We've made great strides in capturing this, having increased contracted rent by 18% since acquisition, supported by strong rent reviews, lease re-gears, and new lettings. This blueprint for success is mirrored in the Blackstone portfolio transaction, which completed late last year, where we have acquired a high-quality urban logistics portfolio at below replacement cost. These assets are now fully integrated into our platform, and we're already making excellent progress with our asset management initiatives, letting up vacancy and capturing significant rental reversion, as demonstrated by the examples shown here on the right-hand side of the slide. Our second growth driver is logistics development. This platform is capable of delivering more than GBP 300 million of additional rental income, nearly doubling today's passing rent. It's capital efficient, supported by long-dated land options, and can be flexed according to market conditions and our strategic objectives.
As Frankie mentioned, some lettings that we expected to close in Q4 2025 slipped into this year, such that 2026 development activity is primed for delivery, with nearly GBP 50 million of rent close to being secured. We have nearly GBP 9 million of pre-let rental income in solicitor's hands, over GBP 5 million of rental income in advanced negotiations, strong occupier engagement across the pipeline, including a 55% increase in pre-let inquiries, and yield on cost tracking at the upper end of the 6%-8% range. Our third and most exciting growth driver is data centers. Demand for data center capacity is strong and is expected to grow significantly, noting that co-locators dominate the London market. The constraint to supply in this market is power.
There isn't enough in the right locations deliverable within the right time frames. Our power-first model solves that constraint, enabling faster delivery, lower risk, and materially higher returns. In the 12 months since we announced our data center strategy, we've created an exciting pipeline of opportunities, with more than 230 MW of power across our first two sites, and the potential for GBP 58 million of annual rent, targeting an attractive 9%-11% yield on cost. At Manor Farm, our first DC project, momentum continues to build. We're in advanced negotiations on a pre-let with an occupier, have agreed a contractor, and are primed to make swift progress. We're expecting a planning decision imminently, with the Planning Inspectorate indicating a determination on or before the 17th of March 2026, keeping us on track to begin construction as planned.
We have also made good progress at our second data center site, where we expect a planning decision this year. These are just the first of a series of projects in a pipeline of potential opportunities of over 1 GW. When you bring the three growth drivers together, the scale of the opportunity ahead of us becomes clear. We can more than double our rental income to over GBP 800 million across the medium and longer term. We show here the contribution from our three growth drivers: rental reversion in gold, development in blue, and data centers in red. Today's GBP 337 million of passing rent on the left, bridges to GBP 361 million of contracted rent through the burn-off of rent-free periods and signed agreements for lease.
You can see how the growth drivers generate a near-term opportunity to increase passing rent to GBP 425 million, driven by reversion and development. A medium-term opportunity to increase this to GBP 562 million, reflecting further reversion and development potential, plus a very meaningful additional upside from our first two data center projects. Finally, there is the significant long-term opportunity within our extensive logistics land portfolio, taking rent to well above GBP 800 million. Key here is that much of this value is already baked into our business. As you can see at the bottom, none of this includes future rental growth or additional asset management upside, and crucially, it excludes any benefit from our 1 GW pipeline of further data center opportunities. This is why we're so confident in delivering sustained earnings growth and compelling returns for shareholders.
To conclude, we have a resilient and high-quality income stream, an attractive and growing dividend, and clear line of sight to material earnings growth, with an ambition to grow adjusted earnings by 50% by 2030. We have a strong balance sheet, a proven model, and powerful multi-year drivers. Critically, the business is primed for delivery in 2026, particularly through the early stages of our data center program. It's a compelling combination, resilient income, strong and compounding growth, and the potential for exceptional returns from data centers in the years ahead.
Thank you for listening, and with that, I'll hand you over to Ian, who is coordinating Q&A. Ian?
Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you very much indeed for joining us. This is the live Q&A part of this afternoon's presentation. Thank you very much indeed for submitting your questions via the webcast. Just a reminder, if you have further questions, please do put them into the text box, and we'll try our best to get through as many of these questions as possible. We'll go straight into this. The first question we've had is: the potential for e-commerce growth to slow, and what replaces that demand?
Thanks, Ian. Good morning, everyone. Thanks for joining us. e-com has hit about 28% of total retail sales. It's still an important part of our market. We think it will continue to grow at a rate above inflation. I think the key thing to note here is that there are many drivers to demand in our market. third-party logistics operators have been the largest contributors to take up lettings in recent times. Again, this year, around 30%, well, in 2025, followed by manufacturing, which is partly as a consequence of Brexit and de-globalization effects.
We've got a broad, very broad range of sectors actually, that is supporting demand in industrial logistics. That's very, very gratifying 'cause it means that if one of them was to slow a little bit in demand case, then it's not gonna have a significant effect on the modern day market more generally.
Great. Thanks, Colin. The next question is: Have you undertaken a stress test in the event that a major tenant pulled out?
Frankie?
Yes, there's probably a few layers to this. In terms of stress testing, I mean, of course, in the ordinary course of business, that's absolutely something that we do on an ongoing basis to know, under various scenarios, what that would mean for the business. Speaking about occupiers more generally, I think if we look across our occupied base, we're very happy with the strength of that. I think it's one of the most diverse and strongest customer bases of a logistics portfolio across Europe. We've got very strong history of rent collection, and of course, when we're signing new leases, there's a thorough diligence process around customer credit strength and financial worthiness. There's a robust process around all of that.
I think the other factor here is, in the current market environment, where rents are growing attractively, and our portfolio today sits 28% underrented, in a circumstance, where we were to lose a customer, actually, it does accelerate an ability to grow that income, and accelerate the capture of that rental reversion. There's various layers there, but very happy with the current picture in terms of customer.
Great. Thanks, Frankie. The next question is: How do you see the political environment at the present time?
Okay, that's a broad-ranging question. Look, I think, there's obviously been a geopolitical risk in recent times. We've had other external factors. I touched on de-globalization earlier, but lots of elections, I mean, you had the tariff impact. You know, close to home, we obviously had the run-up to the budget, and there's clearly been destabilization, politically, within the U.K. as well. I do think that our occupiers, the, you know, the C-suite of the U.K. PLC, are getting used to the disruptive elements, and they're increasingly showing signs of adapting to that and being prepared to make investment decisions with the backdrop of that.
I do think things are improving a little bit, certainly in terms of the impact on our market, obviously, having absorbed the National Insurance increases and those sorts of things. We are seeing more occupiers now that are planning to make fairly major decisions in terms of, taking on new space.
Great. The next question is: Do you plan any further acquisitions, and what does the pipeline look like?
Okay, well, I might sort of share this with Frankie. Look, I mean, we everything we take on its own merits. When we did the UKCM corporate acquisition, when we did the Blackstone portfolio transaction last year, which obviously is single digit accretive, so a great deal for our shareholders, I think it was a real win-win transaction. We obviously, in terms of the cost of our capital and the way we think about returns, think about this in the context of, you know, the income, the total return potential that it has and the risk/reward factors. Capital allocation is really important, we run the rule over everything and think about this the same way as we always have.
I mean, Frankie, do you just want to expand on that?
Yeah, maybe just straying into capital allocation for a moment then. You know, we've got three main strands in terms of growth drivers in terms of allocating capital. The first one, the rental reversion, I just touched on that. Effectively, that is a low level of capital that's required to realize that under rent, that reversion potential. Moving into logistics development, the parameters around target returns there are 6%-8% yield on cost. We're currently operating in the upper half of that range in terms of what we're developing at the moment. Complementary to that is our data center pipeline, and we're targeting a 9%-11% yield on cost across those two schemes currently.
You know, great opportunities to allocate capital into development. That is typically where we're seeing the best return from a risk-adjusted perspective. As Colin said, always open to opportunity. We look at the investment side more opportunistically, so we don't sort of set any hard and fast targets on that. Clearly, we've been active in the last few years with regards to the UKCM and the Blackstone transaction.
Yeah. It's probably worth adding as well that I think we've got a very strong track record in, you know, both identifying, but implementing and integrating the acquisitions that we've made to date. When we acquired db Symmetry, which gave us access to the U.K.'s largest land platform, and that pipeline of very attractive development opportunities that yield between 6% and 8%, and at the moment, we're trending right at the top end of that range, that has been a great sort of success for the business. UKCM, we reported an 18% increase in the rental income over the last 18 months. Again, well-integrated, and adding a really high-quality urban logistics portfolio to the business. The deal we did with Blackstone, we just adds to that further.
I think we've got license to do these deals when we see the opportunities based on how successful we've been at integrating them and really extracting the full value from them.
With the backdrop of, you know, what I think is best-in-class, a Big Box industrial logistics portfolio with really high caliber tenants and great quality buildings, I mean, that really does cement the quality of and give confidence to our earnings and our dividends.
The next question, which almost segues into what you were just saying, actually: Are you still seeing strong demand for Big Box logistics space?
Yes, very much so. It's increasing. I think that the-- If you look at the data, I mean, we've delivered a 4% ERV growth in our portfolio. The market MSCI number was 3.9%, obviously, you know, handsomely ahead of inflation. We do think that there's opportunity for that to improve when one looks at the levels of supply and demand in the market. Occupationally, we saw a 22% increase, as you probably heard in the presentation, in take-up by lettings last year, to 25.6 million sq ft, which is a significant increase on the year before. I think they're demonstrating an increase in occupier sentiment.
There is a bit of a lag effect often with these things. We think that that will continue to improve, particularly given that the number of speculative construction starts in 2025 was a fairly significantly down. We expect that to manifest in a lower number of construction completions in 2026. We think the supply side is muted and demand is on the rise, which is good news for the potential for rental growth. Lastly, on the investment side, we've seen investment volumes increase to around GBP 9 billion in 2025. An uptick and another positive momentum. Yields are holding firm at 5.25% prime yield.
We are seeing more portfolios coming out into the market. I think that that improved, price discovery is going to manifest in a greater level of confidence, in the market more generally.
Great. Thank you. Next question is: Why is the share price still below pre-rate rise levels if the business is performing well?
Pre-rate?
Pre-rate rise.
Oh, pre-rate rise. Look, I think there's a real estate, to some degree, has been a little bit out of fashion in recent times. We've been a proxy for debt. We've been pegged against gilt rate movements, and I think one's got to accept that the, um, bond rates have been, you know, fairly stubborn. They are coming down now. I think that the mood music is changing, actually, and we're seeing that in our share price. We've performed very well over the course of the last 12 months, and particularly recently. I do think you're gonna see an increase in love, as it were, for real estate. It does take time.
You know, we could start seeing things start moving very, very quickly. We are now really closing the gap in terms of our discount to nav. I think really a case of watching that space, but don't worry, we'll be flying the flag.
Great. Thank you. Unfortunately, we can't see the names of people who've asked questions, but thank you very much indeed for your questions, and please do keep sending them in. Particularly, this isn't a question, it's a statement, but someone's written this, so thank you very much indeed. "Congratulations on moving to the FTSE 100.
Thank you. Thank you very much.
Thank you, which is great news. Next question is a little bit ambiguous. It says: Are you going to keep increasing it every year? We've interpreted that as perhaps relating to the dividend.
Okay, the dividend. That's certainly the target is to increase it every year. We've got a policy around growing the dividend on a sustainable basis, and I would point you to the target that we announced to the market in the middle of 2025, which was to grow our adjusted earnings by 50% by the end of 2030. If one assumes that the dividend, you know, should move semi-in line with that target, that's off a 2024 base position, and therefore, that's 50% growth over a six-year period. If you break that back, the growth, you know, it won't be completely linear, but that is broadly a 7% to 8% growth rate on adjusted earnings over that six-year period.
That is the target, and we believe that the business is very capable of delivering, that sort of return to shareholders.
Great. Thanks, Frankie. The next question is. This is a test of your memory here. What percent of rent comes from Amazon at the moment?
Yeah, I knew that, frankly. 13%. They are our largest client by rental.
An excellent, tenant to have in our lineup in terms of credit strength and resilient income.
Indeed. Absolutely. We own some of Amazon's most important buildings in Europe. We've developed a number of them for them. We've done more business with Amazon than anyone else in Europe over the last few years. Obviously, a superb covenant, and we know them very, very well. We have a great relationship with them.
Okay. Thank you. The question here is: Do you have any tenants in trouble?
Well, I think-- Look, I think, if we look back into the recent past, when our small urban portfolio was relatively modest, you know, one looks at our Big Box occupier lineup, and it was very, very strong. We had probably a couple of customers on our watchlist. They are no longer in our portfolio. I think that part of our business is in incredibly good shape. Of course, there's a risk-reward framework here that one has to consider in relation to how one thinks about real estate and customers. With the urban assets, you typically have, as your customers, smaller balance sheet as businesses.
The key, however, is that your risk is significantly mitigated by diversification. In that circumstance, it's about having the right buildings and the right parks in the right locations. If you have that, you will get demand, and actually, you do want shorter-term leases, and you do want vacancy from time to time because it gives you the opportunity to capture true market rents and drive those rents forward, and that's what Ian alluded to when he talked to the UKCM, 18% rental growth since acquisition. Pretty well 1% per month, which is an exceptional performance. I think on balance, our portfolio is in really great shape.
If I may, I'll just add to that because you'll have seen that we recently got upgraded by Moody's from Baa1 to A3 in part recognizing the overall strength of our tenant lineup and also that diversification that Colin alluded to, that actually the smaller assets provide as well within the portfolio. I think it's good to see that credit strength being recognized by, obviously, a well-respected rating agency. Next question is: Are any units currently empty?
Yes, actually, ironically, I just touched on that in the last answer. We have a vacancy rate of 5.6% on our portfolio. Underlying on our investment assets is 3.1%, and then we have 2.5% in development assets, which typically we would expect obviously to let up during the year. Now, there's a lot going on in terms of asset management, letting up buildings.
Sometimes you purposely create vacancy, not just through developing speculatively vacant buildings, if they're not let prior to the completion of construction, but often to take a building back to have the opportunity to refurbish it from our investment portfolio before we then relet it again at a higher rental tone and driving forward profitability and rental advancement.
Great. The next question, it's actually written: Are data warehouses high-risk investments? I'm gonna assume that means are data centers high-risk investments.
I wouldn't class them as high risk. No, anything but in the current market. I think, you know, one's got to think about the context of where we seem to be moving in terms of tech. There's obviously cloud services, support, then AI with large language and model learning. The demand in that space is growing exponentially, supply has serious barriers to entry, particularly in the U.K. Where one sees, you know, a very favorable relationship between supply and demand, one has the opportunity for significant income growth.
Noting that the occupiers of data centers are either hyperscalers, who are some of the biggest balance sheet companies in the world right now, or a very well-respected co-locators, who in themselves often have very big balance sheets. You look at some of the U.S. operators, by way of example. Indeed, quite a lot of the co-locators who take leases, are backing off those leases against single contract use for hyperscalers. We'll often see a co-locator represented in a building that they're looking at, who may well have a contract that they're fulfilling, say, for Microsoft or Meta or someone. It's a very, very strong market, really attractive market. I think absolutely not in terms of higher risk. No, it's the opposite.
I'll just add to that, 'cause I think, again, if we just think about from our perspective as a business, we announced our data center strategy just over one year ago. Again, data centers are a very natural adjacency for us to move into, they look and feel a lot like the large logistics buildings that we are building for the likes of Amazon. Large, multi-deck buildings that have to be built to extremely precise standards. You know, we are very, very familiar with delivering these buildings to clients who are extremely demanding and exacting in their requirements. We've got a very good track record there. They fall under the same planning use class as well, again, this is a very natural step for us to make.
I think the key point I would make is that we are pursuing, a powered shell and pre-let model, which means that we're only deploying significant capital into data centers when we've got planning, and we've got one of the sort of high-quality tenants that, Colin alluded to on a, on a long-dated lease. Only then will we start the construction of one of these buildings. That income stream that's generated by that building, not only will it deliver a very attractive return, and we're guiding to anywhere between a 9% and an 11% yield on cost, that would be absolute kind of anchor income within the portfolio really underpinning the strength of the portfolio overall, and again, reiterating that point about cementing the real credit strength of the business as well.
Just, this is a very good point, and just to finish on that, our power-first strategy means that we have the ability to once we've got planning and a pre-let, to deliver the building swiftly. And, you know, it's not always the case. The traditional approach to this has been a purchase the land, go in for planning consent and apply for power. Power now is acutely difficult to capture in the U.K. in short order, in significant scale. Our power-first strategy absolutely is giving us an edge in this regard, and remember, power is portable, land isn't.
Great, thank you. The next question is: Do management get paid based on the share price performance?
The short answer is no, we don't. We have a fee based on the net asset value of the business. We take 25% of our fee in shares in Big Box. Those shares are locked in for a period of 12 months. The management team, over the last 12.5 years, insofar as I'm aware, has never sold a share. Collectively, we now have a meaningful holding between us. I think we're in the top 30 of shareholders in the business as a consequence.
Great. The next question is I think this question might be incorrectly worded, saying, "Dividend up by 8%. Are you able to continue this growth?" I don't think that's correct, is it, Frankie? The dividend was not up by GBP 0.08.
It was up by up to GBP 0.08 . It was up by 4.5% in the year. I think, you know, good progression in the dividend, a similar level to what we achieved in the prior year. I go back to the medium-term target around adjusted earnings for us. That's growth of 50% over a six-year period, translating into an annual 7%-8%, not necessarily totally linear, but over that six-year timeframe, an expectation and a target of growing earnings and dividends by that sort of level on an annual basis.
Next question is: What impact is being a FTSE 100 company going to have?
Do you want to take the sort of governance side of that, Frankie?
I think from a governance perspective, everything that is expected of a FTSE 100 business is equally expected of a FTSE 250 business, and we are fulfilling, so sort of no real change from a governance perspective on that step up.
No, I think in terms of the market more generally, I mean, I think one's under more scrutiny. There are obviously different pools of capital because the index tracker stocks that follow the FTSE 250 are different than those following the FTSE 100, one would hope that as a consequence of the increased scale of our market cap, that we would have the opportunity to welcome some new shareholders to our register. That's something that we'll be doing on our travels as we promote the business around the globe.
Great, thank you. There's another question on acquisitions. I think we've tackled that already. We'll skip over that one. Next question is: What happens to your valuation if U.K. pension funds keep selling property?
Well, look, I think the sell from U.K. pension funds has not been helpful in the recent past, but the market has stabilized at really in the aftermath of that. We've now had stable prime yields in industrial logistics of 5.25% since 2022 from memory. The sell-off that you're talking to has been ongoing throughout that period. Look, I think there are new entrants to the market that see opportunity. In that period, we've seen a significant rise in private equity in the markets that have, to some degree, stepped in to fill the void of the traditional institutions.
You know, with investors obviously voting with their feet, and taking, you know, direct investment decisions, often with closed-ended funds, which means that they don't have the same liquidity as they might do if they invested in a business such as ours, by way of example, where you have a share that you can trade, which is one of the attractions, the liquidity. Look, I think what we're seeing is a change in the constituents of the marketplace, but the marketplace holding in good shape. In fact, I do believe that, as I alluded to earlier, that there's opportunity for real estate to really bounce back.
Some of the, you know, some of the structures that we've seen in the market, of old will be changed forever, undoubtedly.
Great. Thank you. This is our final question, which is Manor Farm, which is the name of our first data center site for those of you not familiar with that. Manor Farm, what more are you able to tell us on the progression there, and are there more data centers in the pipeline?
Okay. Do you want to take that one, Frankie?
Sure. We are in for planning at Manor Farm. That planning has been called in by the Secretary of State, and we are expecting a decision on or before the seventeenth of March. That's the planning aspect. We have been in negotiations with a number of potential occupiers for the building on a prelet basis. We have narrowed that down to one party, so we're in advanced negotiations with one party. One could expect the chain of events to be planning consent on or before 17 March, and swiftly moving into execution of an agreement for lease in the prevailing time thereafter. That would then allow us to effectively start on site from a construction perspective.
Broadly, we would be looking at an 18-month construction timeframe for the development out of that first data center, with a target PC of the end of 2027. Fully income producing for 2028. That's the broad program as it stands today on the first scheme. Further beyond that, there is a second project that is in the pipeline. We have secured the land for that project during the course of 2025, and equally, we have submitted a planning application for a data center on that site. Timing-wise, that will sit a little bit behind the Manor Farm scheme, and there'll be further updates through time as we make progress with that scheme. Beyond that, there is a 1 GW or potential 1 GW pipeline.
We are, you know, working our way through that. We are pulling together the necessary pieces of the jigsaw to bring in schemes three and four and schemes subsequent to that. There's a lot of analysis and diligence that's ongoing, and as Colin alluded to, we are adopting a power-first strategy, so it's all about securing the power, and securing the applicable land and site for development of future data centers.
Great. Thanks so much indeed, for your time. I'll just hand over for Colin for a few final remarks. Then I think Evie is going to close for us.
Thanks, Ian. Thank you very much, everyone, for joining us and for your support. We are particularly pleased with the FTSE 100 milestone after 12 and a half years, and perhaps I can take this opportunity to thank our shareholders that have supported us on this journey, all of our stakeholders, the board of Tritax Big Box and my colleagues and our advisors, everyone, in fact, that's contributed to the growth and success of the business in that time. We really do appreciate it.
With that, thank you very much for joining us today, and hope you enjoy the rest of your afternoon. Thank you.
Thank you to the management team for joining us today. That concludes the Tritax Investor Presentation. Please take a moment to complete a short survey following the event. The recording of this presentation will be made available on Engage Investor. I hope you enjoyed today's webinar.