Great Portland Estates today posted a stunning set of annual results – by far the strongest of the March year-end companies with central London office exposure

Net asset value soared 40%, or 36% after including the cost of converting to a REIT, to 594p a share in the year to 31 March. The value of the West End office-based portfolio rose by 24.8% to £1.54bn and it generated a return of 33.2%, which was well ahead of the Investment Property Databank Central London Index of 24.9%.

JP Morgan analyst Tim Leckie described the results as ‘fantastic’, while Cazenove retained its ‘outperform’ recommendation on Great Portland’s shares.

The market was cheered by the performance of chief executive Toby Courtauld and his team and marked the company’s shares up 2.8% at 708.5p in response on Wednesday.

This means they are trading at a 5% premium to analysts’ forecast for next year’s NAV of 675p a share. British Land and Land Securities are both trading at 20% discounts to their forecast NAVs.

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