REAL ESTATE - BriTel Fund Nominees, the trustee body for the British Telecom Pension Fund, last week upped its shareholding in real estate company Halladale to just under 4%.
Hamish Galpin of Hermes, which manages the pension fund, said: 鈥淲e鈥檙e a supportive shareholder of the business but there鈥檚 really nothing else to report.鈥�
A spokesman for Halladale said: 鈥淚t isn鈥檛 a takeover bid, if that鈥檚 what you think. We have shareholders with larger stakes than that.鈥� In May the firm identified the expansion of its institutional investor base as one of the reasons behind its 拢30m share issue 鈥� its third in two years.
The property firm also announced last week that it had acquired Langney shopping centre, on a 12-acre site in the coastal town of Eastbourne, for 拢26.24m via the acquisition of owner Langney Investments. The acquisition, made with co-investor Bank of Scotland Corporate, reflects a net initial yield of 5%.
Co-investment deals account for more than 80% of Halladale鈥檚 assets under management. They include the Halladale Opportunities Fund, co-invested with Kodak pension fund in 2003.
Earlier this year Halladale said it would convert significant segments of its portfolio to REITs from January 2007.
