Bruntwood records £75m profits as major Leeds office scheme moves forward

The company is in the process of transforming its existing West One Estate in Leeds into a premium development due to open later this year called West Village Leeds and involving the Castle House scheme.

It is part of the company’s ‘Pioneer’ series of developments around the country.

Bruntwood said its existing Pioneer buildings, which are focused on high-end amenity and shared spaces in core city centre locations under its Works brand, are now 100 per cent let following strong customer demand for workspace from innovation-linked industries such as tech and digital.

The company said a major driver of the profitability figures was the growth in income from its Manchester-based Bruntwood SciTech 50/50 joint venture with Legal & General, which had the best year since its formation in 2018.

Profitability there was boosted by the completion and successful letting-up of several key assets and the growing recognition of life sciences as a distinct real estate asset class, all of which contributed to significant revaluation gains.

Within the Bruntwood SciTech portfolio, the company unveiled a £76.2m investment into the purchase and regeneration of Glasgow’s famous Met Tower, to create a new tech and digital campus and marking Bruntwood and Bruntwood SciTech’s first development in Scotland.

Plans were also submitted in Manchester for the £93m The Alberton scheme, which will create a new 18-storey, wellbeing-led workspace with the highest workplace pool in the UK, and the Ev0 building, which is set to become the UK’s lowest carbon new build workspace.

Demand for flexible workspace continued to strengthen with occupancy averaging 90 per cent across the year in Bruntwood’s Works portfolio.

Chris Oglesby, CEO of Bruntwood, said the figures showed the company’s approach is working.

“We have always looked beyond the short term to base our investments around the strategic trends we see reshaping our towns and cities.

"This approach, from the formation of Bruntwood SciTech in 2018 to the Pioneer programme of forward-thinking, flexible workspaces that we launched long-before the pandemic, is the foundation of this year’s strong financial performance.

“We have aligned our products and proposition with the businesses and organisations driving the future of the UK economy in innovation-linked sectors like tech and digital, life sciences and their supporting ecosystems, all of which continue to show huge potential in many of our regional cities.

“As we now lean into the challenges presented by the end of another economic cycle, this will remain our focus.

"We will continue to focus our energies on investing in assets, whether that’s for Bruntwood SciTech or Works, in such a way that meets the needs of modern business and industry, targeting growth into new and existing cities around the UK.”