Okay, good morning, everybody, and welcome to our first half results presentation. Thanks to those of you who braved the travel chaos and made it here in person. But good to see those of you here, but also welcome to everybody joining online. Apologies if my voice sounds a little croaky. I'm pretty sure it's not COVID, but I've unfortunately been struck down with a bit of a chest and throat infection with impeccable timing. But we will soldier on anyway. As usual, I'm gonna make a few opening remarks before we go into details of the presentation. The first and perhaps most obvious thing to say is the world feels and looks quite different to how it was just five months ago when we did our full year results presentation.
Clearly the geopolitical and macro environment is much more challenging and the general outlook less certain. As you'll gather as we go through the presentation, we feel confident about our prospects for further growth and outperformance. That's due to a number of factors, but principally our occupier markets remain strong, with new supply likely to remain low. Our own business is in great shape, and our proven strategy is continuing to deliver. It's really pleasing to see that in the first half of this year, the application of our clear and consistent strategy that we followed for over a decade is continuing to deliver great results.
Disciplined capital allocation is the main reason why we have such a fantastic portfolio, and it's the reason why we're able to produce consistently strong returns and why we expect to continue outperforming the wider market. Over the past 10 years, we've been incredibly selective about where we'll invest. We're disciplined on pricing, and we use our local network and market knowledge to go after new opportunities only where we have real conviction about the economics, and we don't hold on to assets that we believe will underperform. Our focus on operational excellence is about staying close to our customers and markets, serving their needs better than anyone else, and driving rental income and value growth from the portfolio we have. We're continuing to deliver excellent rental uplifts, offsetting higher construction costs on development and driving the income and valuation of the existing portfolio of built assets.
We're underpinning these two property disciplines with an efficient capital and corporate structure, which has given us an LTV of 23%, a low average cost of debt, and one of the longest debt maturity profiles in the sector. Meanwhile, Responsible SEGRO is at the core of our strategy and is being increasingly integrated throughout all areas of our business. As I mentioned, the industrial markets remain in good shape. We told you in February that demand was strong and coming from an increasingly diverse occupier base, and that's continued through the first half of 2022, with record take up in the period and agents predicting the full year to be similar to 2021's record volume.
The structural tailwinds often discussed continue to provide good support, and these trends are much broader and more enduring than the near-term behavior of any single occupier or indeed the next quarter's GDP outlook. Vacancy rates are also low across most markets, and we anticipate speculative development starts will most likely moderate in the months ahead, which all sets a good context as we go into the second half of the year. I believe our portfolio is in the best shape it's ever been in. We've spent the last decade carefully creating a super strong, modern, and well-located portfolio that will perform at all stages of the cycle. 2/3 of our capital is invested in urban markets, mostly London and the southeast of England and other supply-constrained locations.
These markets are likely to continue delivering strong rental growth, which we can capture as new leases are signed and rent reviews completed. Whilst most of the rest is in continental Europe, where indexation uplifts are coming through strongly on the back of elevated levels of inflation, but which are also being underpinned for new leases by higher construction costs on development. Of course, on top of that, we have an exceptional land bank, which offers a significant amount of very accretive development growth. We also have a very diversified customer base. There's no single name or industry that dominates, and the vast majority of our buildings are extremely flexible and adaptable to many different uses. Personally, I never cease to be amazed at the diversity of occupiers and the different types of uses our buildings are put to and the dynamic nature of these markets.
This is particularly true in urban markets. Our experience is that whenever you have large numbers of people and businesses clustered together, there's always gonna be demand for space from any number of new or existing occupiers. The bigger the city, the more diversity and dynamism we see. The more the city grows, the greater demand for our types of space and the greater the shortage of land to meet that demand, because so much of the brownfield land supply is taken up by residential development. Finally, I just want to comment on Responsible SEGRO, which continues to play a very significant role in how we are thinking about our business as we move forward.
The engagement of our colleagues in championing low carbon growth, investing in our local communities, and in nurturing talent across the group, is delivering some excellent progress already, and building a strong platform for the years ahead. It's becoming very much embedded in all our operational and investment decisions. We're doing all of this not just because it's good for business, but it's also the right thing to do, and an integral part of our purpose. We look forward to providing a full progress update at the year-end. Now on to the main body of the presentation. We produced an inflation-beating level of earnings growth, underpinned by strong operating metrics. We're continuing to take a disciplined approach to capital allocation. As I've already mentioned, we're confident in the outlook, even though there are some wider economic uncertainties at present.
Let me now hand you over to Soumen, who will take you through the financials.
Thank you, David. Morning everybody. As David's highlighted, the strategy's continued to deliver some very strong financial results, which I'll talk you through this morning. Starting on slide 9. Now this slide highlights our key financial metrics for the first half, which have all grown very strongly in the period. Adjusted profit before tax is up to GBP 216 million. That's an increase of 29%. Adjusted EPS is up 22% to 16.9 pence. You'll recall from the full year results that there's a performance fee from SELP due next year, potentially, and that's being recognized in part again in this period. Excluding that, EPS is up 13% to 15.6 pence. The half-year dividend is set at 8.1 pence.
That's in line with our policy of setting at one-third of last year's full year dividend. The portfolio is now valued at GBP 20.5 billion. That's an increase of 7%. That's led to a 10% growth in NAV per share to 1,249 pence. The balance sheet, as David's commented, is in great shape with a loan to value of 23%. Moving to slide 10. This is the usual slide that looks at the growth in net rental income, which is the key driver of the growth in earnings. Net rental income grew GBP 41 million in the first half, compared to the same period of last year. That's up to GBP 255 million, an increase of 19%. There's three main contributors to that growth.
Firstly, rent from the standing portfolio grew GBP 14 million. Now, we said for some time, and you can really see it in these set of results, that our portfolio is very well placed to capture rental growth in this high inflationary environment. The like-for-like growth rate was 7.1%, as you can see in that little box. In the U.K., the like-for-like growth rate of 8.9% has mainly come from the 29% re-letting spread on reviews and on expiries. As I think most of you are aware, the structure of U.K. leases means that we capture five years' worth of rental growth at each lease event. Andy will come on to talk to you shortly about how, the embedded growth we have in our portfolio through further reversion.
Now, on the other hand, in the continent, the growth of the like-for-like growth of 4.1% has come primarily from indexation. Now, virtually all of our European leases are index-linked, and the majority of those don't have a cap. Now, while the mechanism varies by market, over the course of the rest of the calendar year, we will pick up further significant increases in cash rent through the automatic contracted indexation that we have across hundreds of individual leases. Moving on, across the chart, the second big factor in the rental increase is the development completions, which again have had a big impact of GBP 21 million. Thirdly, investment activity has also had a material impact, as we've been active in the market across the last year or so.
Acquisitions added a further GBP 17 million, offset in part by GBP 7 million due to disposals. Looking forward from here, we'd expect rental income to continue to grow strongly through increased like-for-like growth from reversions and indexation, alongside new rent from the development pipeline. Turning now to slide 10, slide 11 on the rest of the income statement. You can see in the last column that the growth in rental income on the top line has fed all the way down through to growing profitability at the bottom line. I mentioned earlier that adjusted profit before tax grew 29% to GBP 216 million, and EPS was up 22% to 16.9 pence.
Now a quick recap on the SELP performance fee, which is up on the box at the top right, which you'll need to continue to bear in mind over the next year or so. Now to remind you, we're potentially due a fee from the SELP joint venture at the 10-year anniversary, which occurs in October 2023. SELP's strong performance means that based on current valuations, the net receipt could be in the order of EUR 185 million. Now, you have to note though, that this calculation is volatile, but we're required by accounting standards to make regular judgments on these things.
At this point, we've recognized a net fee of GBP 21 million, which is on top of the GBP 13 million we recognized at December. It will continue to be a matter of judgment until the fee is confirmed in 15 months time. Turning now to the portfolio valuation on page 12. The portfolio, as I mentioned, is valued at GBP 20.5 billion, an increase of 7%. The revaluation was GBP 1.4 billion, reflecting the value we add to the business through asset management and our development initiatives. This added 111 pence to NAV per share, accounting for all of the 10% growth in that metric. The U.K., which represents two-thirds of our portfolio, is up 8% and the continent is up 5%. The main differentiator between the two was rental growth, as you can see on this next slide.
Slide 13, you can see some of these drivers of the portfolio growth in more detail. The portfolio yield is 3.8%, the same as at December, and yields have stayed fairly stable across all of our markets. ERVs have grown strongly, 5.9% in a six month period, which is ahead of inflation over that same time period. Now the U.K. has shown better ERV growth than the continent, 7.3% versus 3.6%, but you can see that ERV growth in every market. The 4.6% rise in Poland is especially eye-catching.
That's the highest that any of us can recall in that market and just goes to show that the tight con-supply conditions, our own low vacancy, and that strong occupier demand that we're seeing will drive strong rental growth across our portfolio in every market. Just switching topics now and looking at the balance sheet and financing on Slide 14. We've had a very busy year already. We've raised over GBP 2 billion from a range of diverse sources, banks, bond market, and private placement investors. Given the volatility in the capital markets, this access to a large volume of capital across so many different markets at historically low interest rates remains a key differentiator.
We issued two new Eurobonds in March, totaling EUR 1.15 billion, and we raised a further EUR 225 million of private placement notes in June. The average maturity across these three instruments is eight years at an average coupon of 1.9%. Not very different to the debt book that we already had in place. We've topped this up with further liquidity from our banks, both in the form of new facilities and extending existing ones. All that activity means that our debt portfolio remains one of the longest and the most diverse in the sector. You see here on slide 15 that our debt maturity is just under nine years, taking into account the private placement we recently arranged, which we'll draw in September.
The graph illustrates we have debt stretching out to 2042, and maturities are well spread out over the next 20 years. We have no material debt refinancings at the SEGRO level until 2026. 94% of our debt is fixed or capped, which provides a very healthy level of protection against any rises in short-term rates. The outline bars show you the bank facilities, which are largely unused, and so provide us with a lot of further liquidity. On slide 16, we summarize our financial position, and you can see that we benefit from a balance sheet with low leverage and high liquidity. Loan to value is just 23%, and the cost of debt remains low at 1.8%. That strength is recognized in our credit rating.
We are one of the very few issuers globally in the real estate sector with a single A rating. Our liquidity remains high at GBP 2 billion, and that allows us to be very nimble around further capital investment. Looking forward, as you can see in the box in the bottom right, we expect to spend at least GBP 700 million on construction and on infrastructure this year to capture that current occupier market opportunity. On disposal, look, I've said before that we have no non-core assets in our portfolio, given the scale of the restructuring that was undertaken between 2012 and 2017. It is really good portfolio discipline to edit and to trim the portfolio around the edges. We continue to target around 1%-2% per annum on average, which would imply around GBP 200 million-GBP 400 million of sales each year.
Just wrapping up on the financial side here on page 17. I'm very pleased to report earnings growth of 13%, well ahead of inflation, driven by the capture of reversion and indexation within the existing portfolio and driven further by development activity to add new rent. We've seen significant rental growth in the period, whether you measure that by like-for-like growth of 7.1% over 12 months or ERV growth of 5.9% over six months. We have a strong balance sheet with low leverage, a long debt maturity profile, a low cost of debt, and high liquidity. This strong earnings growth and financial strength gives us the confidence to raise the half-year dividend by 9.5%, which is in line with our long-standing dividend policy. With that, I'll hand you over to Andy.
Thanks, Soumen, and good morning, everyone. Soumen has outlined the strong financial results we've produced. I'm going to give some color on current market conditions, and then I'll move on to discuss the strong operating metrics we've delivered, which have contributed to earnings growth. As you can see from the graph, vacancy remains at historically low levels across all our key markets. The U.K. has a rate of less than 2%, and even Spain, where the market traditionally has more speculative development, is still only 6%. There's generally been some more speculative development over the last 12 months, but we don't see that as a significant threat or disruption to our markets. For example, in the U.K., there's currently circa 2 million sq m underway, but half of that is already under offer.
Supply chain and materials availability issues, as well as increased financing costs, mean that speculative starts are highly likely to reduce in the second half of the year, further tightening availability. As David showed you earlier, provisional data points to European take-up being very strong so far in 2022, and it's estimated to get close to 2021's record level over the next six months. U.K. take-up hit a record level in H1 and has already significantly exceeded current supply. Occupier inquiries for space continue to be driven by long-term structural drivers, which result in strong, deep, and diverse demand. E-commerce take-up has returned to more normalized levels, which is to be expected with the end of the pandemic, but space is still being taken, and pure plays continue to grow, just at a slightly slower pace. That applies to Amazon too.
There's still a significant opportunity for retailers on the continent. E-com penetration levels still have a long way to go, with most markets predicted to hit 20% by 2026. Distribution networks are not set up to deal with this, and will need to adapt and expand. More traditional retailers need to ensure an omnichannel offer to retain customers and market share, which generates both direct and third-party logistics space requirements. Demand has increased from other sources too. Manufacturing, and more generally from all sectors, a just in case requirement to hold more inventory for greater supply chain resilience. A 40,000 sq m letting to CEVA at our scheme in Venray in the southern Netherlands is a typical example. This strong take-up alongside tight supply bodes well for future rental growth in all our key markets.
Much of the data refers to big box rather than urban warehousing, as it's difficult to get reliable statistics for the latter. However, we can categorically say that the supply-demand imbalance is even more emphasized in urban markets due to the acute shortage of available land, so even greater potential for rental growth the more urban the scheme. Looking forward, we don't really see this market position fundamentally changing. Yes, there may be some short-term reduction in demand given economic conditions, but the chronic shortage of space, coupled with the entrenched long-term themes that are dictating requirements, are highly supportive. We're seeing this demand continue through the summer, with significant lettings transacted with VIRTUS in Slough and Bosch in Poland during July. We see a strong second half ahead. Turning now to our first half performance on slide 21.
Excellent asset and development management, coupled with supportive market conditions, have helped to sign GBP 55 million of new rent, just behind H2 2021, which was a record by quite some way. It included new leases signed with existing customers, such as Amazon and retailer Kaufland, the latter including a major regear on their current space in Gliwice. Some new customers, such as container shipping specialist Maersk at SEGRO Park East Midlands Gateway. The range of sectors is striking, as you can see from the various logos, emphasizing again the diversity of customers interested in our space. New pre-let signed contributed GBP 28 million to the total. This included our first pre-let at SEGRO Park Coventry Gateway with DHL for a 20,000 sq m parcel delivery center.
As you can see on the last gray bar on the graph on the left, new rent on existing space also contributed to the high level of new rent signed, GBP 14 million in total, and I'll return to that a bit later. The active management of our portfolio continues to deliver strong operating metrics. Our retention rate ticked back up again to 79%, even though we continue to actively take back space to re-lease, move rents forward, and capture reversionary potential. You'll notice we've switched to using occupancy as a KPI rather than vacancy. Letting success has meant that the occupancy rate has stayed high at almost 97%. Coming back to the GBP 14 million of new rent from existing assets, a large contributor was a very healthy 24% average uplift on rent reviews and lease renewals in the period.
29% in the U.K. due to the five-year lease structure and 2% from continental Europe, which as Soumen Das showed you earlier, benefits from annual index-linked leases. Either way, it's a great hedge against inflation. There's still significant reversionary potential embedded in the portfolio that we can secure over the coming years. During the first half, we captured GBP 13 million of the GBP 89 million reversionary potential we reported at our 2021 full-year results. That reversionary potential has itself grown during the period, and now stands at GBP 113 million. We'll be working hard to capture that opportunity. The chart on the right shows the GBP 65 million to go for in the next 2.5 Years. Moving now to our development program on slide 24.
We completed 330,000 sq m of new space during the first half in 15 projects. This equated to GBP 15 million of potential headline rent, with 87% already leased by the 30th of June. We managed our construction partners closely to ensure materials and labor shortages, coupled with supply chain disruption, did not unduly impact our program, and ensured we successfully delivered these projects within time and budget constraints. While costs have increased, we were able to maintain our margin through increased rents. The yield on cost, at 7.3%, shows development remains highly accretive when well controlled. We continue to be alert, building sensible cost inflation into our underwriting, and making sure we back construction contracts with suitable rental agreements to ensure we produce attractive returns.
2/3 of the program was big box warehousing, including our first unit at the High Tech Food Campus, SmartParc SEGRO Derby. This is a hugely innovative scheme which seeks to create energy efficiencies and reduce food miles by co-locating food production, assembly, and distribution all on the same site. A new multi-level data center on the Slough Trading Estate is another example of intensification, creating additional value. The same land area supported an increase in rent from GBP 1 million to GBP 4.5 million. We also completed highly successful speculative schemes in the supply-constrained markets of urban Frankfurt and inner Paris. The Frankfurt example on the slide was 82% leased at practical completion in June. Just a reminder, we're targeting BREEAM excellent or local equivalent on all our developments. With that, I'm now going to hand you back to David.
Thanks, Andy. Thank you, Andy and chairman. On to the next section, which is about our investment activity. Disciplined capital allocation, as I said earlier, has been the cornerstone of our strategy for a decade or more. As I also said earlier, it's the reason why we do have such a fantastic portfolio that's able to produce the kind of results you've seen this year, but has consistently performed, and we expect to continue doing so. So far this year, we've invested a net GBP 548 million of capital. Development continues to be the main focus of our activity with GBP 284 million going directly into the construction of buildings and the rest of it being about the hopper for the coming years.
That includes GBP 80 million of infrastructure, which is mostly at our schemes in Coventry and Northampton, GBP 220 million of land acquisitions, and GBP 145 million of asset acquisitions, which are mostly for mid-term redevelopment opportunities. We believe it always makes sense to prioritize capital investment to convert bare land into new income-producing properties. Beyond that, we do want to add to the pipeline of future opportunities to capitalize on occupier demand. In an increasingly competitive market, we've remained disciplined, focusing on our core markets, where we have real conviction over the occupier fundamentals and a clear plan to create value. Meanwhile, we continue to recycle around the edges, disposing of assets which we expect to underperform relative to the rest, as well as selling assets to our SELP joint venture on the continent.
Now, the investment market after a very strong Q1 is taking a pause for breath. We're convinced the fundamentals of our sub-sector, and especially for assets that can deliver inflation-beating rental growth over the medium term, will continue to appeal to investors. The good news is that having completed GBP 4 billion worth of disposals in the past decade, we have a super high quality portfolio of assets, which we believe will perform well even in a more inflationary environment. Now let's just touch on the outlook. The first thing to say is that we believe that the structural drivers will continue to provide support and drive demand, even in a recessionary environment.
There's a lot that's been written and discussed about the slowdown of one particular online retailer, but as Andy said, there are many others still playing catch up in the digital world and generating new demand for space. There are also many who are investing for resilience and better supply chain efficiency, and we have some good examples of that in the first half this year. Urban population growth will continue to drive demand from new and existing uses, and will place restrictions on land availability for new supply. Pressures around sustainability, as well as particularly right now, higher fuel costs, will continue to drive occupiers to want modern, well low carbon, and really well-located buildings. There's a real premium for being in the best location in our industry.
These structural tailwinds, along with the broader inflationary effects on construction costs and indexation, mean pressure on rents remains upwards. The pressure is being exacerbated by the continuing tight supply conditions, which as Andy alluded to, may get tighter still if funders of speculative development are put off by uncertainty and higher interest rates. On top of the extraordinary ERV growth we recorded last year, rents have increased further this year, averaging 6% for the first half, with good uplifts seen across all our markets, including Poland. We're confident, therefore, of achieving or even beating previous guidance on rental growth given these market dynamics. Of course, on top of that, we also have tremendous potential to drive profitable growth from our exceptional bank of land and redeveloped assets. Higher construction costs witnessed, particularly over the last six or 12 months, have been offset by higher rents.
As our expected development margins are being maintained with very healthy yields on cost. The scale of the upside potential has increased materially since 31 December as we've added in the development potential of some very attractive redevelopment sites acquired over recent months. As a consequence of those additions, the urban part of our development pipeline has also increased materially. Now, although it's a very big program, it's worth reminding you that firstly, the bulk of development, our development remains pre-leased. With construction periods being relatively short, we're able to lock in construction prices and quite often an occupier before we start on site. Secondly, we have tremendous optionality as to what and when we build and when we start. We're able to rapidly turn the tap on or off according to market conditions.
Let me just pull together the growth potential embedded within our business already. Here's the usual income bridge that we show you every six months. There's a lot of data there. I won't go through all of it, but let me just highlight a few points. GBP 540 million is the current cash passing rent. We expect to increase that by GBP 307 million, or 57%, by capturing the existing reversionary potential in the existing portfolio through our active asset management approach, and by completing the current and near-term development projects. We need to invest less than GBP 1 billion of capital to access that first chunk, which is about finishing off those developments. A lot of that. There's a lot of growth already baked in for minimal CapEx.
We have another GBP 386 million of opportunity on the remaining land bank and optioned land, and land that's under contract. As of the end of June, the overall potential is now GBP 1.2 billion of cash passing rents. At today's rents, that's 20% higher than it was in December. Of course, we do expect these figures will increase further as inflation will drive additional indexation uplifts and ERV growth will add to the reversionary potential. Furthermore, we haven't included the additional uplift from redeveloping and intensifying income-producing industrial assets that currently sit within the investment portfolios. It's only assets that we've acquired for redevelopment that have been added into the bank of opportunities. There's loads to go at. Let me summarize on the outlook. As I hope you've already heard, occupier demand continues to be strong.
There's, of course, plenty of speculation around the risks of business or a consumer-led slowdown. Of course, we're not blind to that. As Andy said, we're not seeing any evidence of it right now. We're still seeing a good volume of deals. Agents are telling us occupiers are screaming out for space that they just can't find yet. We think the structural tailwinds will continue to provide ongoing support. Meanwhile, it's unlikely we'll see an increase in speculative supply. The supply-demand balance is likely to remain favorable, even if there were to be a reduction in take-up.
Our modern, sustainable portfolio in prime locations is designed to perform at all stages of the cycle, and it's ideally placed to capture further rental growth from index uplifts, from reviews, and new leasing, which should continue to drive income growth and valuations across our asset base. Our exceptional land bank has tremendous optionality and offers us the ability to develop a lot of new space within a very attractive yield on investment. All of these things, combined with our pan-European operating platform and our strong balance sheet, form a unique competitive advantage which we think bodes well for H2 and beyond. Just to recap, first half of 2022 has been another great year for SEGRO. We've delivered inflation-beating earnings growth with strong operational metrics. We continue to take a disciplined approach to capital allocation, and we remain confident in the outlook.
Thank you for listening, and we'll be very happy now to take your questions. I'm hoping most of them are gonna be directed at Andy and Soumen. We're gonna go first of all in the room. If anyone wants to ask a question, please put your hand up. Yes, Oz?
Morning. Congratulations on the solid results and outlook. I think one of the really fascinating slides you put up was showing the expectation that 2022 demand will be as high as 2021, or leasing rather than take-up. I know this is kind of crystal ball gazing, but can you give us a feel for beyond the second half of this year? What? How do you think 2023 will evolve on the same basis?
Did you say that one's for Andy? I think you did, didn't you?
I think, I mean, it's very difficult to, you know, forecast as you're bound to expect me to say. If you think that the, you know, the speculative supply, land's not getting any more available. Speculative development we think will reduce, so that would be the supply for 2023. We're seeing all the major themes that we've discussed in quite some detail over a number of results presentations still playing through. You know, tremendous demand for data centers, for example, manufacturers are coming into play. We'd hope that, you know, what we're seeing this year will continue forward. Difficult to predict, but supply is not gonna get any larger and, you know, all the themes of demand are still there.
That's particularly the case in the urban markets, I have to say, which we're clearly more oriented to.
Sure. The second question, I guess, related to this, is on tenant performance. I just wonder, given all of the pressures around, I guess, labor cost inflation, fuel inflation, how are you seeing the health of your tenants as you look across your very diverse base? Have you got a watch list of tenants that you're concerned about, looking a little more troubled given the pressures that they might be facing? Or, is your tenant base looking as healthy as it was, say, six months ago?
In some ways looking stronger, because the quality of our portfolio and locations and the prime nature of the real estate is attracting premium rents. Actually, the covenant quality of occupiers taking that space is improving. Yes, we do have a few on a watch list, as you'd expect. Our debt sort of, or bad debt rate is about less than 1% and has been consistently, even through the pandemic, dare I say. You know, we check it regularly. We check covenants when people join us in space. We regularly check covenants on an ongoing basis, but we're very comfortable that we've got a very healthy set of occupiers in our space.
Thank you. Maybe just one more for you, Soumen Das. Look, obviously the share price performance this year has been, now it's down around 30%. I guess there are many levers that you have to pull. You've got balance sheet capacity. One of the levers that you could pull is a buyback. We haven't had any, I think, mention of this or any indication that that's just something you're thinking about. Could you just recap what your thinking is around a buyback? I guess given that there are many ways that we could interpret the fact that you're not looking to do that, maybe you could just give us your thinking around it, please.
Yeah, of course, Oz. Look, you're right. I think it's important that any company has every option on the table to create value. The reality is, I think you've heard us say consistently through the whole of this presentation, you know, we see a terrific opportunity to really kind of build into this occupied demand and to grow our overall rental potential. I mean, David showed you the slide that our yield on cost is still 6.5%. You know, the yield on marginal capital, you know, the yield on build costs 'cause the land is already funded, is nearer 10%. We weigh up the different options in terms of the best use, the best risk-adjusted use of that marginal capital.
It's got to be weighed against the opportunity that we have in front of us, which is to grow our income base to 10% per annum on that land. A one-off hit by, you know, by buying back shares at a discount to NAV weighed up against that future growth opportunity, right now we don't think is the right thing to do, but we do keep it under review, as you'd expect us to.
Thank you.
Anybody else in the room? I think we have a question on the conference line, so let's open that one up.
We have a question registered from Peter Werges of Kempen & Co. Peter, please go ahead.
Yeah, good morning, team. Thanks for taking my question. I was wondering, how do you look at the risks in your current pipeline? Demand is still very strong. Say it will weaken maybe with cash rationing in Germany. We should consider doing less speculative or scale back the runway.
Question on our view on development.
Development.
Take that.
Development. Yeah. Delighted. Yeah, so we obviously keep things under a watchful eye, as David said in the presentation. I think the thing to say is that the vast majority of our development program is pre-let, which as long as we back, as I was saying in my piece, the agreement for lease with a construction contract, we are very de-risked in our development program. So income is there, and we have a construction contract with a fixed price that is backing that. So we know the margins. Speculative development, we do some. I have to say it's largely urban, so in the very tightest supply markets with the deepest depth of diverse demand.
The space that we've been putting into the market has been carefully picked and chosen, and has gone extremely well. You mentioned Germany, but we've had a terrific success in Frankfurt. Had a great run in Cologne. Our two big sort of Düsseldorf schemes are great. In fact, we launched a speculative unit of 50,000 sq m on our site at Oberhausen. That leased three months before practical completion, and we had three parties chasing it for us, chasing us for it. You know, quite a lot of price tension. We set a record level of rent with that. We're careful, we're prudent, we think about it. We de-risk it as much as we possibly can.
When we launch speculative development, we put it into the most supply constrained markets. So far, that's worked well for us.
I guess, Pete, just one small thing to add, as you go to your crystal ball earlier. The best thing about, you know, our construction and development program is it takes so little time to build a warehouse. We don't need a very long or large crystal ball here. We can see the market that is in front of us. We can see this very low vacancy rate. We know what the construction starts are for speculative development. Piecing that together, we can very much kinda take the risk dial up or down as we see it at any given point in time. You know, Andy says 70%+ of our pipeline is typically pre-leased. It's a very measured risk in it, but with a lot of ability in terms of near-term foresight.
Thank you. Any-
Thanks very much.
Any more questions?
Yeah, thank you so much. I got a second question on acquisitions. Investment yields on acquisition seem to move out now. Are there yield levels which you would consider becoming more of a net buyer in the market?
Acquisitions and would be a net buyer.
I'm not sure I quite heard thee.
Peter's asking whether we're interested in acquisitions, and given where the market's going, would we potentially consider becoming more net buyers?
Do you wanna go?
Yeah, of course. Look, I guess it sort of again sort of tacks on what the answer I gave around share buybacks. We keep all of our different options on the table. The reality is, you know, a number of years ago, we felt the best use of our marginal capital was through development, so using our capital to buy land and then construct and generating a very healthy premium to the kind of the equivalent asset had we bought it on market. There's nothing really that's changing our view on that right now.
You've seen us over the last couple of years acquire assets in some of our key strategic markets, you know, particularly in London and Paris, where we believe there's a potential for us through our asset management to really do something by driving rents to create additional value over and beyond what the market was pricing in. I'm not sure Andrew Pilsworth or David Sleath should comment, but I don't think I can. I'm not sure we could see any particular change to that approach going forward. I think the growth will be largely development-led. It'll be largely pre-let led within that development program. We've got a great land bank to really leverage into the occupier market. We obviously will look to opportunistically acquire assets if we think we can drive better returns than the wider market from them.
That's very clear. Thanks. No more questions.
Okay. Unless there are any more questions in the room or on the call. Have you got any on the-
Our next question.
Okay. Go ahead.
We have a question on the line from Colm Lauder of Goodbody. Colm, please go ahead.
Good morning, Jasmine, and my apologies for not being with you in person today. A couple of questions which I'd maybe like to sort of tease out on the diversity of your occupier demand, and particularly how that mix has evolved over the half. I thought it was notable, and you certainly highlighted in terms of the evolution, whereby you've seen less take-up from the online retailer space and 3PLs, b-ut, you know, increasing take-up from the likes of the tech, TMT sectors, et cetera. One area of particular interest to me was that 17% of take-up from data center operators.
I'd be curious to understand in terms of how you see that sector evolving, given the obvious infrastructure requirements, and all potential infrastructural deficits in terms of energy use and residents or planners perhaps to grant new data centers given the strain they will place on the electricity grid. One, just how you see that sector evolving given infrastructural challenges. As a follow on from that, thinking about how well your sites are placed in terms of being able to provide the right infrastructure, and particularly from again an energy perspective.
Quite a lot in there, too. Andy, do you want to-
Shall I kick off?
Touch on that? You kick it off.
Yeah, sure. Data center demand, first of all, very strong. Quite a high proportion or large proportion driven by the three main hyperscalers, who are very active in the market at the moment, but also some very good colocation inquiries as well. I mentioned VIRTUS in my presentation, taking another chunk of space from us in the half, and we've got other data center pre-lets and inquiries on Slough coming through, which I think will convert pretty shortly as well. Demand-wise, I'm very strong. I guess there's still that move to the cloud, particularly both individual and businesses taking things to the cloud, and people need those data centers to support that move. In Slough, we're the...
I've got to get this in 'cause I always like to do this one. We're the biggest agglomeration of data centers outside Ashburn, Virginia. We've got over 30 now on the trading estate, so it's an absolute sort of epicenter for data centers in the U.K., and they're all termed London one, two, three, so they're seen as the kind of London supply of data centers. We feel we've got a very, very active program on the trading estate where we're taking back space, intensifying the land that we get back and creating multi-level data centers. We see that continuing because we have power and fiber and particularly power.
We have a very special position on the trading estate with an availability agreement with Scottish and Southern Energy that gives us a particularly strong position in the market, which is why Slough is so favorable. The more you get together, they create an availability zone, they talk to each other and interconnected with each other, so the more you get, it becomes a honeypot. We are looking to expand that activity both in the U.K., probably West London is the most obvious. We do have a data center in West London and one in Croydon actually as well. We're really looking at the continent.
The main sort of markets, the FLAP-D markets, as they're known, so Frankfurt, London, Amsterdam, Paris, and Dublin is in that, although we're not active obviously in Dublin, are very tight, very difficult from a power perspective, difficult from a planning perspective. We think we've potentially got more opportunity in tier two markets, which are really coming forward. Markets like Madrid, Marseille, because you have the link with the African continent coming into Marseille. Warsaw, outside Frankfurt in Germany, probably Berlin is the kinda next one. There's a number of markets that we're looking at using our knowledge of data center development and the knowledge and relationship we have with customers to move them across the continent.
We've done a full recce, if you like, a full look at all of our existing sites, and we've got a number that are potentially capable, and power is the big determinant. We're also looking at acquiring more, particularly in the markets I've mentioned. We see it as a very active part, small, you know, small in context to our industrial. It'll never be the lead piece of SEGRO. We're doing it on a kinda shell or powered shell basis, so we don't get involved in the fit-out and the operation of the data centers, but we see it as a really interesting and active adjunct to demand and diversity of customer base that we can appeal to.
Don't know if you wanted to.
Very detailed. Thank you, Andy. Just one second, point as well, just to ask on sort of construction cost inflation. I know you're seeing that trending. Obviously, I know from the results that you have mitigated that through rental growth. Just sort of your general view on the second half in terms of what you're expecting around construction cost inflation.
Yeah, sure. We have, you know, it's well documented, we have seen construction cost inflation, I guess, over the last 12 months. On average, overall across the group, about sort of 20%. Some elements more than that. Steel, for example, it's really the kind of energy-driven components that are the highest. As you say, we've been able to, you know, clearly, pass through that inflation to our customer base, keeping rents moving forward. In fact, it's been yet another contributor to onward rental growth. Anecdotally, I think it would be too early to call this at the moment. Anecdotally, we just feel there's a little more capacity perhaps in the construction market coming through. Maybe that's other sectors sort of backing off a little bit.
Anecdotally, we think some of the pricing pressure has come back a little bit. You know, I'd be cautious about calling a forward look. We've obviously got labor costs, labor inflation. There's obviously energy issues in the sort of autumn, so I wouldn't want to speculate on that. Just anecdotally at the moment, it just feels like it's come off a little bit. Still increasing, but not at the rate that we've previously seen.
That's helpful. Thank you for the detail. Thank you for taking my question.
Okay.
Our next question comes from Frédéric Renard of Kepler. Frédéric, please go ahead.
Hello, good morning. Thank you for taking my question. I have three questions, actually. Just the first one, on a scale of one to 10 , how would you assess today the occupier demand entering Q3? Excluding, of course, all seasonal effects we could consider, and then maybe considering also that the other quarters, I mean, like Q1 and Q2 would be a ten. I'm just trying to figure out a bit the demand there.
Frédéric, it's a very bad line. Could you repeat that?
Is it better now or not?
Yeah. If you speak slowly, we'll hopefully pick it up.
Okay, great. No, I'm just wondering, the strength of the occupier demand there. I would say, according to you, on a scale of one to 10, how would you assess the occupier demand entering to Q3, excluding all seasonal effects obviously we can expect from the summer, and maybe knowing that, the previous quarter were at 10.
Okay. I think I heard you. The strength of the occupier demand kind of Q3 relative to kind of where we saw in Q1 and Q2.
Do you wanna take that?
Yeah. Well, if our current conversations are anything to go by, maintained and strong, I have to say. We're always sort of working ahead of ourselves, if that makes sense. The deals you see in this half, we're really working on deals now in the second half and the first half of next year. That's just the length of time things take to work through, particularly on a pre-let basis, where you're obviously agreeing specification and planning and things like that. As we've been saying all through the presentation, from a very diverse sources. Manufacturing has been interesting that has come back in. In the first half, we saw Alstom take space. We saw Stanley Black & Decker take space.
Interesting that that's increased a little bit. We're seeing as a theme, this resilience piece is very strong, with people wanting to get inventory close to customer base or close to producer so that they don't run out. The pandemic has really sort of led to that just in time, going to just in case. We're seeing a lot of it, and I mentioned a few in the presentation, a lot of inquiries on that basis as well. As we sit here today, as David said, confident outlook, and we've got some really good conversations ongoing.
Don't forget, though, that Q3 has two holiday months in it, so don't necessarily expect Q3 data to be. It's sort of one, two, tends to be the weakest quarter in terms of take-up data, and then Q4 will make up for it.
It's really big one. Yeah.
True. Okay, thank you. Then maybe just to follow up on the rent affordability going forward, because in there, I really mention and focus on 2023, because there today you announce revising rent of 29% in the U.K. upon renegotiation. We can expect business rates really climb through the roof, I would say, next year. Maybe we can expect also some kind of normalization going forward, at least I hope, in terms of fuel cost, labor cost, et cetera. I'm just wondering how it will impact your tenants at some point that you will charge them and going forward with the reversionary potential that you have a higher rent.
I know that the logistics cost is rental cost or even logistics cost is really a small part, but I'm just wondering and curious to see how is it possible to continue to increase the rent at double-digit factor.
Do you want me to take it?
Yeah.
Sure. No, it's a good question. I think in part, you sort of mentioned the answer. Certainly, you know, putting it on the table, if you don't need to be in the location, then you won't be in the location and paying the highest rent. Our schemes are in the best locations with the best space, and we command premier rental levels. You know, we're appealing to a diverse group who need to be there. The reason they need to be there is their delivery promises to customers, the transport costs that they would incur if they're in the wrong location, and their own employees and labor that they would incur if they weren't in the right location.
When you look at rent and even with rates in, it's a small proportion of the overall occupational cost of an occupier. You know, we think rents are clearly sustainable going forward. We've had no real affordability issues. We've had a couple of people who've wanted to move to slightly more cost-effective locations. When we get that, we try and work with them, and we try and move them in our own portfolio. As an example, we've moved some people from the North Circular on the east side of London, where we bought, if you remember, a scheme in Canning Town, where we've had rental progression of 14% in place, 21%, 29%. Next deal will be north of 30%.
We've taken them out along the A13, for those that can picture that, into some more competitively priced space. Still very, very good rents for the area, you know, circa sort of GBP 12 million-GBP 15 million range, but we're working with customers to do that. If you need to be there.
Labor, transport, other costs, and indeed your customer promise will dictate that you'll need to pay the rents, and we haven't had a problem with that to date.
Okay.
Thank you very much. Maybe I'll add my final one. At which point do you think the rising interest cost will counterbalance the ERV effect on yield, in your view, as we already can sense some kind of a slowdown in the investment market, which I guess will reflect higher bidding yields?
Rents for yields.
What point would the rise in interest rates start to compromise the rise in ERVs and yields, did you say, Fred?
Absolutely.
In terms of ERV, it's exactly what Andy just talked about, actually, which is you've got this terrific level of demand from a very wide diverse sort of set of sources, and they're coming up against a supply situation on the ground where vacancy rates are incredibly low, and there really isn't a lot of new space coming through. I've got to say, we've shown you that rental growth slide, you know, our sort of medium-term guidance. I think in the short term, we're going to exceed that because of where inflation is right now, but we're certainly not minded to feel that we're not gonna hit those numbers over the medium term at all. There's just a simple supply-demand imbalance that I don't think is particularly interest rate sensitive.
In terms of yields, look, yields are a function of lots of different things. I don't particularly wanna speculate, I don't think we want to speculate as to where yields are going to go or may not go. I think, as David said, there's been a bit of a pause for breath in the investment market as it sort of digests what's going on in the world right now. I think when the market sort of comes back to life, you know, assets like ours that are very modern, that are able to capture inflation and more in terms of their passing rent, I think will prove themselves to be very smart and attractive investments.
Thank you. Thank you very much for taking my question. Have a nice day.
Okay.
Thank you, Fred.
Our next question comes from Paul May of Barclays. Paul, please go ahead.
Hi, team. Thanks for the presentation and the sort of results. Just a couple from me on just first on the ERV growth, obviously coming in below inflation at the moment, and also it seems below where some of the brokers are sort of mentioning their rental growth has been achieved in certain markets. I just wondered, do you think there's a bit of a lag in those numbers with regard to sort of hitting that market evidence? 'Cause we're hearing market rents growing faster than inflation, as opposed to what you reported today. Or do you think there's just parts of your portfolio that may not be achieving that level of growth and therefore may not keep up? Then the second question, marginal finance cost.
I think you mentioned in your sort of all-in finance cost around 0.9%, but obviously on more recent stuff is in the fours. I think marginal finance cost is probably somewhere between 3%-5% at the moment. Does that impact on any of your sort of uses of capital, whether that be acquisitions or developments? And do you think you'll see more opportunities to deploy more capital, moving forward, given you do have a very strong balance sheet, good access to finance markets, maybe better than others? Do you sort of see the higher rate environment as potentially an opportunity for you, versus some of the other competitors? Thanks.
Yeah. I mean, you can pick it up. The ERV point, Paul, is that we've reported six months ERV growth.
Paul, the ERV growth in the six-month period is 5.9%. You can correct me if I'm wrong, but I've checked, you know, every market that we operate in, and the inflation numbers for the six months year to date vary from 4.5% to about 5.8%. As far as I can work out, 5.9% is ahead of the inflation rate in any of the eight markets that we're in. The like-for-like growth of 7.1%.
Yeah.
It is a 12-month figure. Remember, that's a trailing figure, because as I say, as we go through the year and we have each indexation event, we will catch up to the level of inflation at that time. So it. You know, some markets ratchet on first of January, but most of our leases in Europe will ratchet on the anniversary date of their leases. So there's a little bit of a lag in terms of catching up the indexation that's inherent in the portfolio. I say I'm afraid I'm not seeing what you're seeing, which I think our rents are growing at least at inflation, and I think they're actually growing ahead of inflation.
Yeah.
Relative to, sorry, just to confirm that, relative to market rents where we're hearing, you know, U.K. rents up 10%+ year to date, across the board, which you realize London is probably up at sort of 15%-20% year to date. Obviously you've got quite a large London weighting. Just wondered, again, is that a slight lag figure in terms of that sort of uber prime numbers, and obviously it just takes a while to filter through the portfolio? I suppose what I'm trying to get to is, are you expecting that, you know, additional strong rental growth to continue in the next sort of 12, 18 months?
Well, we've given you our rental growth expectations. We update them every year with that chart with the supply and demand dynamics, and we update that again when we get to the end of the year. You know, I would say we are likely to exceed that guidance at least for this year. The other thing you've got to remember is ERVs change when there's evidence. Now, I think we're very happy with the ERV growth we've delivered in the first half, but we shouldn't get too preoccupied with what it is in any one particular market, in any one particular period because sometimes there's evidence to support an increase in it, and sometimes there isn't. It tends to be lumpy.
Overall we're very comfortable that we can deliver rental growth at or above inflation over the medium term.
Paul, just taking your second question on the higher rate environment. As I think we talked about in the presentation, we've got better access to capital than most. I think you've seen that through this period. Remember the 4% coupon on the most recent piece of debt we did was on the 19-year debt instrument, and that complemented the sub-2% coupons that we achieved in March on a slightly shorter term debt. I would say that if we were in the debt market today, I suspect the coupon would probably have a 3 on the front of it. I'd say that single A rating does give us, I think, better access to capital than the most out there.
Do we think it's an opportunity? Well, certainly in terms of the supply side, we've mentioned this a couple of times, we do think the higher costs of funding, the higher construction costs are going to reduce any speculative starts that might otherwise have come to market, and therefore, that will keep the occupier market tight. I think therefore, we're in a very good position to benefit and capitalize on that.
Thanks very much.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Our next question comes from Paul Sherlock of Citi. Paul, the line is yours.
Hi, all. Thanks for taking the questions. Just a couple from me. The first one is, I know you obviously don't wanna comment on the outlook for yields and the trajectory, but there's been quite a lot of press about kind of deals falling out of bed, and kind of, you know, the Javelin portfolio is one close to home that's been talked about, but there are various ones. With the kind of asking prices, maybe 10%-15% different from the offer price, I should say, 10%-15% different from the asking prices.
I wondered if those are sort of numbers you recognize and whether you can comment a bit on whether that is indeed kind of what you're seeing on the ground in the investment market today, even if the yields kind of haven't actually reflected that yet.
Do you wanna go?
Yeah, of course. Look, as you said, as I said earlier, I think the reality is there is very little happening on the ground right now. Therefore it's quite difficult to give you a proper view or clear view as to kind of the in terms of yields. I say I think it's, it would be the wrong thing of us to try and speculate as to where they're going to go. In terms of specifically on deals not happening and on the Javelin piece you mentioned. Look, you heard me say it, we've got no non-core assets. We don't need to be selling anything. It's good investment discipline to be doing so. The reality is if the market isn't there's no need for us to kind of really push anything through.
You know, we're very happy to hold those assets for the long term. We think they're gonna perform pretty well through the long term. It's, I'm not sure there's much I can really give you in the sense of we're not seeing it because we're not really there to be doing anything at the moment.
I think generally in the market there are some buyers that think there will be opportunities, and obviously they are sitting on their hands through the summer to see what happens. Equally, there aren't many sellers out there that are motivated, which is why a number of deals that were rumored to be happening have not happened because there's clearly a gap between buyer and seller expectations. It's clear that in an interest rate environment where the cost of funding drops materially, it's gonna have some impact. It's gonna make the funding model more expensive for those that are reliant on debt. Equally, as we said earlier, you know, if you've got assets that can deliver rental growth above inflation, they're gonna perform well.
We're pretty comfortable with the shape and the makeup of our portfolio.
Okay. Yeah, great. That's useful color. Thanks. Just the second question is related to the outlook for your cost of debt really. I think it's 75% of the issue is floating. I know there are caps above that level, but I don't think they're kind of not sort of struck yet. You know, I know you won't guide specifically to the figures, but you know, can you just give us some color for where you think that could be end of the year, end of 2023 based on you know, or all that you know based on funding or based on the forward curves, kind of you know, the trajectory for cost of debt and there aren't major refis coming up for the group.
Maybe you can comment on the new stock refis and how that might improve as well. Yeah, just whether it's 2% by the end of the year, you know, 2.2 for 2023 or broadly, you know, where those numbers might be.
Sure. Look, in terms of the existing debt book, you know, we've got, as I said, 74% of our debt is fixed. 94% is fixed or capped. Those caps are we put them in at the time around a point or so out of the money, so they're in the money today given the moves in short-term rates. The hedging structure is very similar to the average debt maturity, so it's call it over 8 years. We're really not exposed in terms of the existing debt portfolio to rising rates. It'll, you know, that last 10% sort of moves a little bit, but not really very much at all.
Now, in terms of incremental debt we're putting on, as I say, I think new debt will have a coupon in the three area. If you look at the business as a whole, well, we're looking to deploy, call it GBP 700 million per annum in terms of construction CapEx, which needs to be funded. That's, you know, and therefore that has a relatively small impact on the average cost of debt because, you know, it's just the law of averages. You're starting with a debt book of call it GBP 5 billion. So it will tick up 10-20 basis points, but it's of that order. Now the one thing I just would also mention is obviously there's two parts to the coupon.
One is the underlying swap rate or the underlying interest rate, and the second is the credit spread. I think what was interesting when we issued the private placement notes last month is that the credit spread that we achieved was actually slightly tighter than we achieved two years ago. Yes, interest rates have gone up, but interestingly, the perception of risk from the investor side had actually come down.
Yeah, okay. Sorry, just one quick follow-up there, Soumen. I just maybe missed this, but on the caps. When you say they're in the money, do you mean that the caps have effectively kicked in to limit-
Yes. Yeah
The uplift? 'Cause I thought the caps were set at kind of, you know, Euribor at 1% or something like that. Obviously, with Euribor today, that's not, you know, they haven't kicked in by a million of this.
No, no. Our cap portfolio is typically been put in at around 1% above where the market was at the time we put them in. Most of them have kicked in, or they will kick in the relatively near future if the market is right in terms of expectations of short-term interest rises.
Okay. Understood.
It's actually there's not a lot of sensitivity to short-term interest rate fluctuations on the existing debt book.
Thank you. I'll now hand back to the management team.
Thank you. We've got one more question, I think, on the web. Claire's got it.
Yeah, we have a few actually.
Oh, okay. More than one question.
We'll handle as many as we can. What do you see the risk to occupier demand from a potential recessionary environment and the impact that might have on purchasing power?
Well, I think we covered it during the presentation, which is that we, you know, we're not blind to it. We're talking to our customers and staying close to them. Fundamentally, we believe that the tailwinds, the structural tailwinds are gonna be very important in sustaining demand. If there is a slowdown in take-up, it's most likely to be accompanied by a slowdown in new development starts. Overall, we expect it to be still a positive environment.
Thank you. In terms of the future development pipeline, what are your thoughts on the timing of those starts? If you have a view on that, Andy.
As soon as we can get planning consents and zoning through, which is probably one of the biggest constraints. As soon as we can get materials at the right price and in as many cases as possible, as soon as we can get a customer signature on a piece of paper. Those are the three key things because we're mostly doing it through on a pre-let basis. Andy, anything to add?
No.
Thank you. In terms of yields, it's interesting to see some yield compression in Germany and France, in a rising interest rate environment. Can you add any color on what rationale applied there by the valuers?
Again, I think we've covered it broadly, which is it comes back to investor demand for quality modern assets that are, you know, well located in a space-constrained environment that are able to capture inflation and more in terms of rental growth.
Thank you. Rising rents are currently offsetting construction cost inflation, but does that extend to the infrastructure spend required to open up sites for development?
Yes, is the answer to that. When we're talking about construction costs, you know, land, infrastructure, building cost, it's in a sense all in the same pot, and we are moving rents forward that make all of those elements make sense and make margin and return for us, and we're able to maintain our margins.
Another question. Could increased business rates and logistics likely dampen rental growth next year? Do you have a view on that?
I think that kind of returns to the affordability argument, so I won't kind of rehearse that again. We still think even with elevated business rates, and they will go up, the proportion of sort of rent and business rates is still a relatively small part of the occupational model. Transport costs are much, much bigger.
Perfect. One final question. You mentioned that speculative development in the broader market may fall given increased uncertainty. However, is there any chance that supply will stay high, but developers will seek greater pre-lets, and therefore that might limit rental growth? They'll basically cut their rents to be able to pre-let. Is there any risk of that?
I don't think so because, well, I mean, we talk about speculative development and building availability, but land availability is also incredibly constrained. I mean, particularly in the urban markets that we're working in. As David sort of just mentioned, trying to get permitting, and actually sort of land released as zoned, permitted is very, very difficult for big box as well as urban. I don't see some sort of glut of supply, be it speculative or pre-let.
Yeah
Coming through to dampen rental growth.
You know, most speculative development in the market is done by traded developers who are facing increased land prices, increased construction costs, and they're reliant on finding a funding partner who's got an increased cost of funding and maybe less confidence in the outlook. Our view is it's this kind of environment. We saw it with the pandemic actually.
Mm-hmm.
We saw it after the Brexit referendum. Spec supply drops off when markets are uncertain, and we expect that'll happen here.
Perfect. I think all of the others we've covered in other questions.
Very good.
You can flip from the webcast.
Okay. Thank you all very much for listening and straining your ears. We look forward to seeing you next time. Thank you.
Thank you.
Thanks.