Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the NRR full year results call. My name is Francie, and I'll be the operator for your call this morning. If you would like to ask a question during the question and answer session on today's call, you can do so by pressing star followed by one on your telephone. I will now hand over to Allan Lockhart. Please go ahead.
Good morning, everybody, and welcome to NewRiver REIT's results presentation. I'm gonna start with the key highlights for the year. Will Hobman will then take you through the financials, and then I'll finish with a progress update on our strategy and what our key priorities are for FY 2023. During the last 12 months, we've seen a number of contrasting factors, the ending of COVID restrictions and some positive signs in the retail real estate markets, combined with the benefits of our strategic actions in focusing and strengthening the business. Came the dramatic rise in energy prices and wider increases in inflation, with the war in Ukraine further impacting consumer confidence and limiting visibility on the economic outlook.
Notwithstanding this, the key point we want to stress today is that we're very pleased with how the business is currently positioned and increasingly confident with the fundamentals of the NewRiver investment proposition. We ended the year in a much stronger financial and operational position, perhaps arguably our best position for three years. We've always been confident in the underlying resilience of our portfolio, and last year was no exception, with a strong leasing performance, high occupancy, excellent rent collection, and good progress on our ESG strategy. What has been most pleasing is that through the decisive actions that we took last year, we have delivered a material improvement to our LTV, reducing it to 34% through planned disposals, but also a better capital growth performance in our portfolio, which reassuringly returned to capital growth in the second half after a number of years of valuation decline.
As a result of our resilient operating performance, our UFFO and consequently our dividend has recovered well, and that is despite of the impact of planned disposals completed over the last two years. We end the year in good shape, and we believe that we're on track with our strategic objective to deliver an income-led total accounting return of 10% in the medium term. In June last year, we outlined our key priorities for FY 2022, for which we have either completed on or made excellent progress with. Our first key priority was the sale of our pub business, which we completed in August last year. At that stage, we had no idea that the Omicron variant was just around the corner. The price that we achieved is a vindication of both the decision to sell and the timing of that transaction.
Following the successful sale of our pub business, we outlined our revised retail strategy at our capital markets event in September, which is focused on owning and managing the most resilient retail portfolio in the U.K. to deliver income-led premium returns, and I will update you shortly with our progress here. Finally, we delivered on our commitment to reduce our carbon emissions with the publication of our pathway to net zero, and our progress has been recognized with an improvement in our GRESB CDP and EPRA ratings. For most of the year, the U.K. consumer has been in relatively good shape, given low levels of unemployment, record job vacancies, higher saving ratio, and a housing market that experienced strong capital growth. This, together with the reopening of physical retail, has meant that U.K. retail sales are now back to pre-COVID levels, in contrast to online sales, which are reducing.
That said, U.K. Inflation accelerated, particularly in our H2 , which is likely to impact household disposable income, especially as wage growth is tracking below inflation. Already, retailers are indicating that margins are likely to be lower this year as they struggle to pass on their cost inflation to their consumers. That said, it is the pure play online retailers that are most vulnerable to cost inflation, given that they operate with lower margins. In contrast, multi-channel retailers can run click-and-collect online fulfillment through their store distribution network and benefit from incremental in-store spend. Whereas it is more challenging for the pure play online retailers to mitigate costs. Liquidity returned to the retail real estate capital markets, in particular in the retail park sector, which recorded GBP 4.2 billion of transactions between April 2021 and March 2022, making it one of the most active years since 2010.
Our portfolio has proved to be very resilient due to its focus on providing essential goods and services and ease of access for consumers. Last year, we saw active demand for our portfolio from retailers either seeking new space or wanting to commit to existing space, culminating with us completing over 1 million sq ft of leasing transactions. For long-term leasing deals, which represented 75% of the total rent secured, over 50% of those leasing transactions were in our core shopping center and retail park portfolios at rents exceeding value of ERVs by 10% and 26%. Overall, the weighted average lease expiry profile for our leasing transactions was 6.4 years, with retail parks at 9.1 years and our core shopping centers at 6.8 years.
In terms of rent-free periods granted to tenants as part of the leasing transaction, we have seen a marked improvement with average rent-free periods of 2.3 months, with many occupiers not receiving a rent-free period at all. The COVID period has demonstrated the underlying resilience in our portfolio positioning, and our continuing focus on essential goods and services is the right place to be in a high inflation environment. Consumers will be facing difficult decisions around their spend, but they will continue to buy necessity-based items, and our essential-led portfolio is better insulated than assets that are focused purely on discretionary spend. For this reason, we believe that we have the right assets in the right locations in the right part of the market. At our half-year results in November, I said that our valuations were stabilizing after several years of decline.
From what we were seeing in the market, there were reasonable prospects for capital growth in 2022, and that has transpired, with our portfolio delivering 2.6% capital growth in H2 and a modest decline of -0.9% for the year as a whole. Capital returns were led by our retail parks, which delivered a 14.4% growth, driven mainly by yield compression, reflecting the increased liquidity in the market. While our core shopping centers have yet to benefit from yield compression, nonetheless, capital values increased by 3.3% for the year, driven entirely by like-for-like ERV growth of 3.6%. Our regeneration portfolio held firm over the year with -0.6% capital decline.
Our core portfolio, which comprises retail parks, core shopping centers and regeneration assets, which combined account for 85% of our gross assets, delivered valuation growth of 5.2% for the year, with 4.8% growth coming in H2 . The only part of our portfolio to experience material valuation decline in FY 2022 was in our workout portfolio, which now represents 14% of our total portfolio and which we're on track to exit by the end of FY 2023. Now, most of the valuation decline came in the first half, with the rate of decline materially reducing in the second half. Over the last twelve months, our shopping centers, including our workout assets and our regeneration assets, delivered a total return of 3.3% compared to the MSCI index of 1.4%.
Our retail parks delivered a total return of 23.5%, which, although less than the MSCI index of 13.2%, our retail park portfolio has outperformed the MSCI index over the past 3 years, reflective of our higher income returns and our average capital size, meaning the portfolio is more liquid and thus less volatile in periods of market disruption. Our core portfolio, which comprises of retail parks, core shopping centers, and regeneration centers, performed very well last year. Our core shopping centers and our retail parks are conveniently located in the heart of their communities, providing a range of essential goods and services to local people.
For NewRiver, these type of assets provide attractive income-led returns and so will form a key part of our long-term portfolio, with retail parks in particular expected to be the largest part of our portfolio in the medium term. Across all measures, as you can see on this slide, these assets are proving to be very resilient, whether that is occupancy, retention rate, liquidity, gross to net, or leasing versus ERVs. Our regeneration portfolio is now smaller compared to March 2021, given the successful sales we completed in Cowley and in Penge. Over the medium term, this part of our portfolio will naturally reduce further as we crystallize the capital growth through future sales following receipt of planning consents. We're proud to have been able to continue to make progress with our ESG objectives, which are embedded within our business.
During the year, we published our pathway to net zero, and our emission reduction targets have been validated by the SBTi as being consistent with a 1.5-degree future. Demonstrating our ESG progress, we were really pleased to have been awarded a B rating by the CDP for our management of climate issues, up from a C rating from the previous year. Our GRESB score increased by 13% during the year, and we achieved a gold in the EPRA Sustainability Best Practice Awards. Indeed, we were one of only two companies that jumped from bronze to gold in just one year. All of the energy supplied to our common areas, such as pedestrian walkways and car parks, is already carbon neutral, and we have achieved our target of zero waste to landfill by 2022.
We also continued our partnership with the Trussell Trust, providing funds, space, and time to help support the important work that they do to reduce hunger in the U.K. In fact, we're holding a Race Against Hunger event on the fifteenth of June to raise GBP 30,000 for the Trussell Trust, and even I will be lacing up my trainers, and of course, all donations will be most welcome. Finally, in line with our commitment to advance our ESG strategy, the appointment last week of Dr Karen Miller to the board will provide additional knowledge and expert experience in relation to climate challenges. With that, I will now hand over to Will. Thank you.
Thanks, Allan. Good morning, everyone. I'm Will Hobman, CFO of New River, and it's my pleasure to be taking you through our full year results today. It's been a busy and transformative year for New River, during which we've seen continued recovery in UFFO, with profits significantly ahead of FY 2021. In the first half, we benefited from GBP 7.8 million of UFFO contribution from the pubs prior to the Hawthorn disposal. Pleasingly, we saw an improvement in retail UFFO both year-on-year and half-on-half. Because our dividend policy is now linked to UFFO, our dividend has grown too, and importantly, it's comfortably covered.
Portfolio valuations have stabilized during the year, increasing by 2.6% in H2 , which means that retail valuations showed only a modest decline over the year of 0.9%, compared to a 15% decline in the prior year. NTA per share increased in H2, feeding into a H2 total account return of just over 5%, which is encouraging given our target to deliver a consistent return of 10% per annum in the medium term. We've materially strengthened our financial position, with LTV reduced dramatically from 51% a year ago to 34% today, due to over GBP 300 million of completed disposals, including the disposal of the Hawthorn pub business. At this LTV level, we have headroom to our 40% guidance threshold, which is a great place to be in this environment.
We ended the year with substantial liquidity and improved debt maturity, because following the Hawthorn disposal, we repaid GBP 335 million of bank debt facilities. We reached agreement with our bank lenders to extend the maturity of our undrawn RCF to August 2024. These actions unlocked GBP 7 million of annual finance cost savings, while maintaining over GBP 200 million of available liquidity, including GBP 88 million of cash. I'll have more on the balance sheet later on, but I'd like to start today by looking at UFFO. You can see that overall, we've generated GBP 28.3 million of profits this year, which significantly exceeds the GBP 11.5 million we reported last year. The table on the slide shows the UFFO statement with the usual income and cost headings.
This time, consistent with the statutory disclosure, which shows Hawthorn as a discontinued operation, we've shown the net contribution from Hawthorn prior to its disposal as a single line item. It's shown below retail UFFO, given it won't recur next year. You can see that retail UFFO made a contribution to the year-on-year increase too, up by over 30%, and that its contribution improved half on half, despite the sale of almost GBP 150 million of retail assets throughout FY 2021 and FY 2022, with net property income, admin costs, and net finance costs all trending positively.
The contribution from Hawthorn improved too, prior to its disposal in H1 , with the increase due to improved trading conditions, and also due to the receipt of the income disruption insurance settlement of GBP 3.3 million during H1 of FY 2022, which related to the income disruption caused by the closure of the entire pub estate during the first national lockdown in FY 2021. Lastly, in line with our policy to pay out 80% of UFFO as dividends, today we've declared a final dividend of GBP 0.033 per share, taking the total fully covered dividend for the year to GBP 0.074 per share. Next, looking in a bit more detail at retail net property income, which has increased from GBP 47.2 million last year to GBP 51.8 million this year.
You may remember at the full-year results last year, that we identified GBP 15.2 million of income disruption as COVID impact, the majority of which was caused by increased rent and service charge provisions, and the decline in car park and commercialization income. In FY 2022, we renamed this as NRI Recovery. You can see we've made good progress, recovering around half of the COVID impact during the year. That's due principally to rent and service charge provisions, which showed a net improvement of GBP 4.9 million year-on-year, reflecting the conservative approach we took last year in providing against rent and service charge amounts we deemed unlikely to be received as a result of COVID, which we've not had to repeat this year due to the resilience of our rent collection.
Car park and commercialization income, which increased by GBP 2.9 million, still 30% below pre-COVID levels, but encouragingly and importantly, the rate of recovery has improved consistently throughout the year, with H2 back up to 80% of pre-COVID levels. Next on the slide, asset management fee income, which has increased by GBP 0.7 million, reflecting the continued growth of our capital partnership with Bravo and the expansion of our mandate in Canterbury. Finally, net disposals, which reduced income by GBP 3.4 million due to the full year impact of the GBP 71 million of disposals completed in FY 2021, and the initial impact of the GBP 77 million of disposals completed in FY 2022. Now our dividend, which we see as a key component of our total amount to return target.
Under our sustainable dividend policy, which we introduced at the full year results a year ago, we will pay out 80% of UFFO as dividends, thereby linking dividends directly to earnings and ensuring they'll be fully covered. This policy means that our dividend reflects the underlying trading conditions and enables NewRiver to make appropriate capital and operational decisions in the best interest of the long-term future of the business. Under the policy, we pay dividends twice per annum, announced within our half and full year results, and based on the UFFO reported for the most recently completed six-month period.
Today, we've declared a final FY 2022 dividend of 3.3 pence per share, which, including the 4.1 pence dividend we announced at the half year, takes the total fully covered dividend in FY 2022 to 7.4 pence per share, which compares favorably to the 3 pence per share we declared last year. Moving on to the balance sheet. This time, I've included a column showing the half year balance sheet too, so you can see the progress we've made in each half. In H1 of the year, we focused on completing the Hawthorn disposal and reducing our borrowings, ending the half with an LTV of 39%. In H2, we focused on completing our program of retail disposals and saw the benefit of our portfolio returning to capital growth.
The upshot of this activity is that we ended the year in a much improved position, with LTV of 34% and NTA returning to growth in H2. As you can see on this slide, which shows that NTA per share reduced from GBP 1.51 to GBP 1.31 during the first half, before increasing to GBP 1.34 in H2. You can see the two reasons for the decrease in the first half very clearly. The first is the reduction of GBP 0.11 per share due to the Hawthorn disposal, which, as explained at the half year, is primarily because we sold a business, including the cost of operating the platform, which are not included in the property valuations.
The second is the valuation decline in H1, all of which was on the workout assets, which now account for only 14% of our portfolio and which we've targeted exiting by the end of FY 2023. Looking at the H2 pleasingly, our portfolio returned to capital growth, up 2.6% in H2, with a 4.8% increase in our core portfolio, excluding the workout assets, which led to the increase in NTA in H2 that you can see on the slide. Next, LTV, which has decreased substantially from 51% a year ago to 34% today. Importantly at this level, LTV is within our guidance of less than 40%, with the key drivers of the reduction being the Hawthorn disposed in the first half and retail disposals in H2.
The reduction is a significant achievement and one we're proud of because having been net sellers over the last two years, we are now in a vastly improved financial position with headroom to our 40% guidance and significant cash and liquidity available to us. Which leads me on to our debt structure and maturity, and specifically the impact of the actions we've completed this year. First, we've reduced drawn borrowings by GBP 335 million. We're paying GBP 170 million of drawn RCF and canceling our GBP 165 million term loan in the first half. In doing this, we reduced our annual finance costs by GBP 7 million, and we saw a full half of that benefit in H2. We improved our already significant covenant headroom on both our LTV and interest cover ratios. We ensured compliance with all of our financial policies.
More on those in a moment. We now have only one drawn debt instrument on the balance sheet, the corporate bond, which carries a fixed coupon, so we currently have no exposure to interest rate rises on our drawn debt. Second, early in H2, we resized and agreed a plus one extension on our RCF, so that we now have a GBP 125 million RCF that's fully undrawn and expires in August 2024. This means we currently have GBP 230 million of cash and available liquidity, and it means we've improved our weighted average debt maturity to just under five years. Because the RCF is currently undrawn, our closest maturity on drawn debt is in 2028.
We end the year with significant liquidity, increased maturity, no exposure to interest rate rises, and having unlocked material finance cost savings, all the while ensuring our balance sheet remains fully unsecured. Next, I'd like to update you on our financial policies, and specifically where the metrics we've reported today are versus those policies and versus our position reported last year and at the half year. You can see clearly that we are now comfortably in compliance with all policies with significant headroom across the board. The dividend policy introduced at last year's full year results has ensured full cover and continued compliance. The actions we've completed this year improved our position materially across all other policies at the half year and again at the full year.
The slide shows that the strength of our financial position is not just dictated by LTV, but by all of our policies. Indeed, our net debt to EBITDA and interest cover ratios have recovered particularly strongly. Those aspects were recognized by Fitch, along with our sustainable dividend policy and resilient portfolio characteristics when they reaffirmed NewRiver's investment grade credit rating in December at BBB with a stable outlook and BBB+ on the bond itself. Ratings we're proud to have maintained since our corporate bond was issued just over four years ago, and which we see as a real endorsement of our business, especially given the disruption we've seen over the last two years. Which leads me on to capital allocation.
When I presented at the half year with an LTV of 39%, I said that as we completed the disposals we had exchanged and under offer, and with valuations stabilizing, we expected to have surplus capital in the near future. As a reminder, we define surplus capital as the amount of capital we have available to invest while keeping LTV below our 40% guidance threshold. I'm pleased to say that as I stand here today with an LTV of 34%, having completed those disposals and with our portfolio returning to capital growth in H2, we are now in a surplus capital position, which we believe is a great place to be in this environment. It's taken a long time to get into this position.
While we maintain our guidance and we've earmarked a modest amount of investment into our existing portfolio during FY 2023, we will not rush to redeploy to the 40% level in the near term, given the currently elevated level of macroeconomic uncertainty. As we make progress on the GBP 55 million of disposals we have planned for this year, as we see further improvement in our valuations, and as we begin to build a clearer picture about the impact of current global uncertainty on our business, we will continue to review this position. Right now our position is clear. In the near term, we plan to keep some headroom to our LTV guidance to give us maximum optionality. Lastly from me, I'd like to walk you through the key areas we expect to contribute to UFFO growth looking ahead.
You can see on the left-hand side of the slide that we start with the GBP 28.3 million of UFFO we've just reported. This is adjusted to remove the GBP 7.8 million contribution from the pubs in H1 prior to the Hawthorn disposal to give us a UFFO from the continuing retail business of GBP 20.5 million, which we then adjust to remove the impact of retail disposals completed in FY 2022, giving us GBP 17.6 million as a start point. We then add in the savings we've unlocked or identified during FY 2022, highlighted as number one on the slide. That's GBP 3.5 million of further benefit from the finance cost savings we unlocked during the year and the benefit of the admin cost savings we've targeted unlocking by the end of FY 2023.
Next, COVID impact. As covered in the retail net property income slide, our full year results for FY 2021 explain that we experienced GBP 15.2 million of income decline as a result of COVID impact. As explained earlier, we've recovered GBP 7.3 million of this during FY 2022, leaving a further GBP 6.6 million to recover in the future, once the impact of sold assets has been factored in. Now, it'd be unrealistic to assume that we will recover all of this income, but we've made good progress in FY 2022, and we expect to make further inroads as we look ahead. Finally, number 3, surplus capital deployment.
As I've just communicated, we will not rush to redeploy to the 40% LTV level in the near term, but we've included an illustrative GBP 60 million of acquisitions here at a 7% yield to give an indication of the optionality we now have available to us. Thank you all for listening this morning, and I'd now like to hand you back to Allan.
Thanks, Will. At our capital markets event in September, we outlined the revised strategy for our retail-only business, and our strategy is designed to do two things, to deliver a consistent 10% total accounting return underpinned by recurring income-led returns, and secondly, to ensure that we have a resilient portfolio with a low risk profile for future years. Our strategy is focused around three areas, capital recycling, capital partnerships, and regeneration. I'm now going to take you through the progress that we've made in these areas, starting with capital recycling. We completed GBP 305 million of sales, with the key disposal being the sale of Hawthorn, but we also completed GBP 77 million of planned retail sales.
This now puts us in a position to redeploy that capital to deliver superior risk-adjusted returns, which we will do so in a highly disciplined manner while taking account of market conditions. Exiting the workout portfolio will improve the underlying risk profile. Will provide capital that we can redeploy to deliver superior risk-adjusted returns in accordance with our capital allocation policy. We've made good progress in FY 2022 on reducing our workout portfolio. We began the year with 15 assets, and we closed the year having delivered 4 sales, with 2 sales in progress and 3 further sales planned for the year ahead. For the remaining 6 workout assets, we are progressing our asset management strategies that once completed will deliver attractive forward-looking returns and transform the income and risk profile.
A good example of this work is in our workout asset in Cardiff city center, where we have received planning permission last quarter for the change of use and associated works to facilitate the letting to Commune, who will operate a food village, co-working space, events, and incubator space. Our proposals also include the extension to the gym at the first floor, the introduction of more experiential leisure, refacing the external facades, and a rebranding of the center. Once completed, this asset will have been completely transformed from a retail-focused center to an experience-led center in the heart of this vibrant city center. We'll be shortly commencing the works, and we should complete those works in the autumn.
This asset currently represents around 22% of the workout portfolio, and once our asset plans have been fully implemented, Cardiff will become a core holding based on the attractive anticipated forward-looking returns. Capital partnerships are an important part of our business, as we can enhance returns in a capital-light way through asset management fees and the potential to receive financial performance promotes. Our partnership with BRAVO is performing very well, and during FY 2022, we completed the sale of 2 retail parks at prices well in excess of what we paid for them. We're also making excellent progress with the implementation of our asset management plans for the remaining retail parks in that partnership and are well on track to deliver attractive returns. In April last year, our BRAVO partnership acquired The Moor in Sheffield for GBP 41 million, with NewRiver REIT taking a 10% equity stake.
This asset has outperformed our underwriting case, with income well ahead of expectations and sales of part of the estate already ahead of target. As an endorsement of the quality of this asset and NewRiver REIT's asset management capabilities, Bank Leumi have recently provided an attractive loan facility. All of this means that we have nearly recovered all of the equity used to acquire this asset, further enhancing returns. Based on what we've achieved so far and what we expect to deliver, the prospects of receiving a financial promote have increased. We were delighted that our asset management mandate with Canterbury City Council had been extended, but it's also been expanded too, to include the riverside leisure development which they funded.
Our regeneration assets offer the opportunity to deliver capital growth by redeveloping surplus retail space principally for residential. During FY22, we completed the sale of two of our regeneration projects in Cowley, Oxford and Penge in London. These sales clearly demonstrate the value creation opportunities that we're able to unlock from regeneration assets. Cowley was originally acquired for GBP 24.6 million back in 2012, and we sold it for GBP 38.8 million. To put that into context, U.K. shopping centers today are worth 50% less than they were in 2010. It's the same at Penge, where during a period of market disruption, our regeneration proposals facilitated a sale at GBP 12.4 million versus an entry price at GBP 6.9 million in 2015.
We also made good progress with our major regeneration project at Grays, where we're pursuing a high density residential led scheme of around 900 units. We expect to submit for planning in the autumn following the completion of the community engagement and the consultation process with Thurrock Design Review Panel. Moving now to the year ahead, which I'm sure will be another active year for us. Our focus will remain on our strategy to deliver our target 10% total accounting return through capital recycling, capital partnerships and regeneration. For each of these areas, we have key priorities which I'm sure we will deliver on. Will and I have already spoken about our surplus capital position, which is likely to be further enhanced through our planned disposals this year of around GBP 55 million.
We do have circa GBP 14 million of planned investment into our portfolio, which we expect to be accretive to both earnings and value. In the near term, we believe that it is prudent and in our shareholders' interests to operate with a higher cash holding given the uncertain macroeconomic outlook and our determination to deploy capital in a highly disciplined manner. With our strengthened balance sheet, resilient portfolio and a clear strategy, we believe that we're well positioned and on track to deliver a 10% total accounting return in the medium term. Now, before we move to Q&A, I just wanted to thank all of our advisors for their support last year, our team at NewRiver REIT for their incredible hard work, and of course, our shareholders, who Will and I are very much looking forward to meeting in the coming weeks.
We'll now move to Q&A, and we'll start with questions from the live webcast and then move to questions from the dial-in facility. Thank you.
Ladies and gentlemen, as we come to the question - answer- session, if you wish to ask a question, please press star followed by one on your telephone. If you change your mind and wish to remove your question, please press star followed by two. When preparing to ask your question, please ensure that your phone is unmuted locally. To confirm that will be star followed by one. I will now hand back to Allan Lockhart to take the live questions.
Thank you. Before we go to questions on the conference call, we have a few questions on the web link. Will, I think you're gonna read those out.
Yeah, okay, Allan. The first question from Mati Aloni says, Obviously the main market concern is the workout continued decrease in valuation. We're a few months into the 2023 H1. Can you talk about the current five target properties valuation standing for sale versus their valuation at the end of the year, as well as how should we think about the remaining six workout assets?
Thanks, Will, and hi, Mati. Thanks for your question. Well, just in relation to the workout, as I said in the presentation, we're planning to dispose of five of the workout assets this year. We're reasonably well advanced on two sales. Those are at prices in line with valuation, and for the remaining three planned sales this year, we're confident that we'll be able to execute those at or very close to valuation. With the remaining six workout assets, you may have heard in the presentation, a good example of how we are implementing an asset management strategy to transform both the income and risk profile, and that was in relation to our workout asset in Cardiff city center, where we've made substantial progress.
That asset represents about 22% of our workout portfolio, and we're confident that once we've completed those works, that asset will be delivering very attractive forward-looking returns. Another good example of the work that we're doing in one of our workout assets is where we're in advanced discussions with two of the major food discounters to provide them with a modern food store facility which will completely transform the asset. We've got a lot of optionality. We're working hard on that, and we're confident, as we said in the presentation, that we're on track to exit our workout portfolio by the end of FY23.
I've got two questions from Nicholas Lewis. The first one is, what visibility do you have on rent expiries being exercised?
Well, we always have good visibility, Nicholas, because as a business, we pride ourselves on having really good contacts and relationships with our retailers. We do talk to them well in advance of lease expiries. I think it's interesting that last year of our leasing performance, which was a good year for us, of the long-term deals that we did, 66% of those were lease renewals, and that was a significant increase on the prior year.
I would also sort of highlight that within our core shopping center portfolio and our retail parks, we enjoy very high retention rates, and by that, we mean when the retail tenant comes to lease expiry or when they have the option to exercise a break in their lease, the vast majority of them choose to stay with us. I think you'll find that in our retail park portfolio, our retention rate is around about 98%. Within our core shopping center portfolio, it's close to 90%. What that really demonstrates is that our retailers are trading profitably, and therefore, they want to remain within our assets, which I think is really positive.
Okay. The second question from Nicholas Lewis is: What retail assets have been disposed of in H2?
Well, the key disposals that we completed in H2 was Cowley, which we sold for GBP 38.8 million. I did mention that in the presentation as a great example of the value creation that we can unlock through our regeneration assets because we bought that asset back in 2012 for GBP 24.6 million. We've seen very good capital growth from that asset in a period where the U.K. s hopping center market today is worth 50% less than it was in 2010. Same story at Penge. Those are two important sales that we were delighted to complete. Other two key sales for us was our retail parks in Poole and Newport, Isle of Wight. Both of those are in our partnership with BRAVO. We were delighted with the prices that we achieved.
It was 30% above what we paid for in 2019, which means we've crystallized very, very attractive returns for our partner and for ourselves. As I mentioned in the presentation, we've made excellent progress with our capital partnership with BRAVO, which means that the prospects of receiving an attractive financial promote have now increased.
Question from Chris Spearing, Liberum. You mentioned that you expect your retail part weighting to increase going forward. While returns in FY22 were driven by yield compression, are you now seeing opportunities to acquire assets with rental growth potential?
Thanks, Chris. You're right. We do expect our retail park portfolio to be an increasing part or a larger part of our total portfolio over the years ahead, and this is something that we outlined in our capital markets event in September. We do have capital available. We said on the presentation that in the near term, you know, we think it's prudent and in our shareholders' interest to operate with a higher cash holding given the macroeconomic, uncertain outlook. That said, we're planning GBP 55 million of disposals during the course of this year. While we'll be able to maintain some headroom, we'll have the opportunity to redeploy that capital as and when those assets are sold.
We do believe that there will be opportunities for us within the retail park sector to acquire assets that will deliver rental growth. You may recall from our capital markets event last year, we've done a lot of detailed research into the market to identify, you know, which assets that today provide resilient cash flows with the potential to grow those cash flows and will still remain resilient in 10 years' time. We see more opportunities within the retail park sector than other areas within the retail real estate markets.
Okay. Thanks, Allan. Just to kind of follow on from that from Mark Bentley, he says, please explain the difference between retail warehouses and retail parks. Both are referred to in the results.
Really, we sort of refer to them as the same thing. You know, retail parks and retail warehousing are the same thing.
Another question from Mark. What was total property management fee income in FY22? Well, asset management fee income in FY22 was GBP 1.9 million. That was up from GBP 1.2 million the prior year, principally because the continued growth of the partnership with Bravo and also because we expanded our remit, as Allan mentioned, in Canterbury.
I think it's fair to say we'll, when we talked about capital partnerships in our capital markets event in 2019, you know, we were highlighting that this is an important area of the business, and we have good growth potential. I think we indicated at the time that we could see this part of our business to grow to deliver somewhere between GBP 3 million and GBP 5 million of annualized asset management fee income. I think we're very much on track to achieve that.
Okay. A question from Paul Hawkins. How does your medium-term guidance of 10% accounting return translate to your estimates for NAV growth?
Well, we feel we're on track to deliver our 10% total accounting return, Paul. You will have seen that in our materials that in H2 of the financial year, our total accounting return was around 10%. Sorry, 5%. The strategy is very much designed to deliver a 10% total accounting return through capital recycling, capital partnerships, and regeneration. I think one of the advantages that we enjoy is that you know, a lot of our accounting return is really gonna be underpinned by the income return. That's why, you know, we're confident you know, that we can achieve that 10% total accounting return given the sustainability in our cash flows.
Okay, question from Greg Johnson, Shore. Given the market backdrop, are there increasing opportunities in the capital partnership going forward?
Yeah. Capital partnerships is, you know, as I said, is an important part of our business. We think there'll be opportunities for us to grow that part of our business going forward. NewRiver REIT is one of the leading platforms operating in the U.K. retail real estate markets with a lot of experience and expertise. You know, we're seeing more capital that wants to come into the market and, you know, we think we're a great platform to partner with outside capital and deploy that capital into the market. We're confident we can grow this part of the business.
Another question from Greg. Given a more prudent stance on capital redeployment, would you potentially look at slowing down the disposal program, and do you have a minimum threshold for LTV?
Well, we've not changed our operating guidance. It's still at 40%, but we think, Greg, that in the near term, that it is prudent to be operating with a higher cash holding, given the economic uncertainty. Plus our determination to deploy capital in a highly disciplined manner and to really take account of market conditions. You know, I would take you back to last year, you know, as an example why cash gives you a lot of optionality. You may recall, we acquired The Moor estate in Sheffield. We knew it was a fantastic transaction. We felt at the time we were acquiring that asset at probably a 25% discount to fair value.
It's performed extremely well since then but at that time, we were only able to take a 10% equity stake because we didn't have the capital resources at that time to really take advantage of that situation. Operating with a higher cash holding gives us great option value. We're confident there'll be opportunities for us in the market as we move forward into this year.
Okay. We've got a question from Christopher Sheridan. He says: Will you be using any of the surplus capital to buy any shares in the market?
Well, we've been very clear of what our capital allocation policy is, Christopher. We have the options of investing in our existing estate, which we plan to do this year. We're planning to invest GBP 14 million. We believe that that investment will be accretive to both earnings and value. We have the opportunity to invest in the direct real estate market and, you know, the team at NewRiver REIT are, you know, monitoring the market very closely and carefully. Clearly, we have an opportunity to deploy capital via a share buyback. As I said, you know, in the medium term, we feel that it's prudent and actually in our shareholders' interest to operate with a higher cash holding.
As and when we complete the disposals that we're planning this year, you know, we will then have capital, you know, available to deploy in accordance with that capital allocation policy.
Okay. Christopher also asks: What is the total area in terms of acres of all the sites owned by NewRiver REIT?
Yeah. It's probably around about 330 acres, Christopher. If you take account of NewRiver REIT's share, that would equate to something in the order of around 220 acres.
Okay. I don't think we have any more questions from the web, so I think we're ready to take questions from the conference floor.
Okay.
The first question comes from the line of Clive Black from Shore Capital Markets. Please go ahead, sir.
Thank you. Thank you, gentlemen, for a very good presentation. Well done last year. A couple of questions from me. Could you just give a bit more color, please, on the GBP 14 million of investment in FY 2023? Where are you going to prioritize that? Also just on The Moor in Sheffield, A, do you see further opportunities of that nature, or was it a little bit just of a one-off? B, you've talked, Allan, about the potential for performance bonuses. I just wondered at what, over what time frame that may come to you. Thank you.
Thanks, Clive, and good morning. Yeah, just on our GBP 14 million of CapEx that we're planning to invest this year, which we believe will be accretive to both earnings and value. About 30% of that is being invested into our retail park portfolio. Around 23% or so is being invested into our core shopping centers, and the balance between workout and our regeneration portfolio. In relation to The Moor estate, it's been a great asset for us, performing extremely well.
You know, I think we'll have opportunities going forward, and hopefully, you know, we'll be able to identify other assets that will deliver the type of returns that that The Moor is currently delivering. You know, that's all feeding into the increased prospects of us receiving a financial promote. It's really crystallized on when the assets within the partnership are sold. As I mentioned in the presentation, we've already sold two of the retail parks and we're well on track in terms of the implementation of the asset management strategy.
You know, the prospects have now increased of that payout, based on, you know, what we've achieved so far and what we expect to deliver over the next sort of 12 months or so.
Over the next 12-24 months, you'd expect any benefit to come through?
Yeah, I think that's probably the right sort of timeframe, Clive.
Just finally for me, you're obviously very pleased with Canterbury, and you've touched on rates coming through. In terms of that, you know, the regeneration platform, particularly given the, you know, the growing need for urban regeneration in so many towns, how do you see the sort of medium term in that respect on your deployment of capital, please?
Well, we're very much focused on our own regeneration assets, Clive, which, you know, between March last year and end of March this year, our regeneration portfolio has got smaller through the successful sales of Cowley and Oxford and Penge in London, with three assets remaining in our regeneration portfolio. Our focus is very much looking to extract the inherent capital growth potential within those assets by pursuing, you know, planning consents and then looking to sell those assets and crystallize that capital growth. We're gonna remain focused on that. We've got plenty to do. That's where our priority will be.
In terms of sort of capital deployment as we move into the year ahead, once we've completed further disposals, you know, I think you should expect that our priority is really gonna be investing that capital into the retail park sector, which we think is gonna be more resilient over the longer term to deliver those sustainable growing cash flows, which we think will form an important component of our total accounting return target of 10%, which we're, you know, confident we're on track to achieve in the medium term.
Good. Thank you very much. Really helpful, guys. Welcome.
Thanks, Clive. Do we have any further questions? I don't think we do. Well, I think that is all the questions. Just before we sort of leave, I just wanna sort of say that it's actually our final set of results in our current office here in Mayfair before we move next month to London's fabulous 80 Charlotte Street building in Fitzrovia, one of the greenest buildings in central London, which will be really supportive of our ESG commitments and actually saving us around half a million pounds a year in doing so.
Let me just sort of finish just to summarize that, you know, although the macroeconomic outlook is uncertain, you know, the battle-hardened NewRiver REIT team, together with our strengthened balance sheet and resilient portfolio, we are well positioned. We do look to the future with genuine confidence, because our experience does show that often with uncertainty, opportunities do arise. With that, we'd like to thank you for attending and listening in to our full year results presentation. We very much look forward to meeting our shareholders over the coming weeks. Goodbye, everyone. Thank you.
Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's conference. Thank you for joining. You may now disconnect. Goodbye.