Invista Foundation Property Trust announced plans to sell off more assets as it admitted that it had not predicted the ferocity of the commercial property slump. Financial Times.

It had been impossible to predict the 'timing, speed and sharpness' of the slowdown, said Andrew Sykes, who chairs the Guernsey-based vehicle.

Net asset value per share dropped from from 142.2p on March 31 to 137.2p on September 30 as the fund’s property assets fell from £717.4m to £673.2m.

Duncan Owen, chief executive of Invista – the former property wing of Insight, part of HBOS – said there was still strong occupier demand for commercial property, in contrast to previous downturns. There was also a risk to future performance of the fund if problems in the financial market “contaminate” the wider UK economy.