The Crown Estate, a property portfolio owned by the Queen of England, has reported record profits for the year ended March 31. Its portfolio value went up 7.2 percent to reach $12.3 billion, according to several media reports.
For the financial year 2012, Crown estate recorded a five percent profit to $407 million. Value of the firm's infrastructure and energy assets went up 8.2 percent and that of the coastal and rural assets increased by 3.2 percent.
Total returns on the estate's portfolio were 11.3 percent, around 1.4 percent more that the industry benchmarks. Rents paid by retailers for its urban properties and the income from its energy-based assets account for most of the growth in the Crown's portfolio., reports The Telegraph.
The management of Crown Estates is focused on "moving the organization from a more traditional landed estate into one of active asset management. One of a number of ways of doing that is through joint ventures," Alison Nimmo, CEO of Crown, said in a phone interview with Bloomberg.
More recently, Crown Estates agreed to sell 50 percent stakes of a commercial real estate project in London to the real estate unit of Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System for an undisclosed amount. The two entities will be developing the project in a joint venture.
About Crown Estates
Crown Estates was founded back in 1760, when George III surrendered management of the country's infrastructure and lands to the parliament in exchange for annual payments. Since then, the firm has been operating as a separate entity but pays a certain percentage of its profits to the royal coffers. Considering the profits the Crown earned this time, the Queen is also expected to receive a higher share.
Crown's portfolio includes the famous Regent Street Shops, large parts of London's West End, multiple retail parks and shopping centers. It also manages the world's largest offshore wind-farm that powers almost half a million homes. It holds about 144,000 hectares of the country's agricultural and forest lands and has residential properties outside urban areas too.
