Grosvenor posts £395m profit

Grosvenor, the property company behind £400m high-end residential scheme Neo Bankside, has posted pre-tax profits of £394.8m.

The performance this year of the Duke of Westminster’s business was vastly improved on the £235.8m loss it made in 2009.

Grosvenor currently has £10.9bn of assets under management globally, up £700m on the previous year. Ninety per cent of these assets are investment related, while around £1.1bn concern development projects.

In the company’s annual report chief executive Mark Preston said that in 2011 growth would continue to focus on those areas set out in a plan at the start of the recession, including the fund management business, the Asia business – Grosvenor opened a Beijing office in 2010 - and the London estate.

Developments in the UK capital include a joint venture with Native Land at Neo Bankside and a boutique hotel at 8 Balderton Street, Mayfair. The conversion of this Mayfair Deco building is due for completion in Q3 2012 and will include an inhabitable sculpture by Anthony Gormley.

Preston commented that the last three years have seen “an increase in regulation, a change in investors’ approach to governance and constrained availability of debt from conventional sources.

He added: “From the perspective of both a conservatively-geared investor and a long-term manager of third party funds, we view much of this as positive; we welcome the return of the supremacy of the property specialist, this role having been usurped by the power of financial ‘engineering’ in recent times.”