Brixton, the listed UK industrial property company headed by Tim Wheeler, today produced a forecast-beating set of half-year results.

Net asset value was up 11.4% to 595p a share in the first six months of the year, driven by investor enthusiasm for industrial property in Brixton’s Greater London beat and rental growth of 4%. Pretax profits rose 49% to £192.3m.

‘In the first half of this year a significant number of London deals, several involving institutional purchasers, have reset the pricing level for industrial and warehousing,’ said Wheeler. ‘Enthusiasm for London investment product has been proven in our sector with high prices being achieved. It is this combination of transactional evidence and our own distinct rental growth that has led to such a strong like-for-like capital growth and net asset value performance.’

Brixton’s portfolio rose by 7.9% to £2.44bn. Around 40% of the uplift came from rental growth and 60% from a further fall in yields. This compares with 25% and 75% respectively in 2006 as a whole.

Wheeler said that ‘there is no evidence of the credit crisis affecting our operations’ and ‘we are not seeing any distress or increase in the very low level of bad debts.’ He said that the outlook for continued rental growth was positive.

Brixton's shares opened up 6.8% to 406p this morning before falling back and this afternoon were trading up 1.4% at 385.75p, reflecting a 35% discount to NAV.

Finance director Steve Owen said the company was not considering buying back shares, as Land Securities and British Land have started doing.

Topics