In a move which Capco said could be formalised as soon as the end of this year, it would launch Covent Garden as a prime central London retail-focused REIT, led by current chief executive Ian Hawksworth, and form a London development company, led by managing director Gary Yardley, centred around the Earls Court masterplan.

Capco’s latest annual results highlighted the differing performances of its two core estates with a £100m writedown on Earls Court acting as a drag on the group’s annual figures, driving net asset value (NAV) down to £2.84bn in 2017 from £2.89bn in 2016, despite Covent Garden increasing in value to more than £2.5bn over the same period.