Great Portland Estates, the London office developer, reported a rise in vacancies and a fall in rents as demand dried up for office space in its core West End property portfolio.

The company said that the value of its properties had fallen 12.4% to £1.2bn in the three months to the end of 2008, a marked acceleration from previous quarterly losses but better than its comparative index.

As a result, its net asset value per share dropped by more than a fifth to 392p during the period to show a 36.5% decline for the full year.

Financial Times, Daily Telegraph