British Land has announced it is selling its 50% stake in the Meadowhall Shopping Centre in Sheffield to its joint venture partner Norges Bank Investment Management for £360m.

The deal is part of British Land’s strategy to focus more on retail parks and reduce its exposure to enclosed shopping malls after the pandemic, which accelerated online shopping trends. Out-of-town retail parks have proved to be successful due to the ease of accessing shops and the opportunity for a greater leisure experience.

Including the recent £7m sale of some ancillary land, the total valuation of the Meadowhall estate is £734m, which is 3% above the September 2023 book value.

After repaying around £200m in net debt, British Land expects to receive proceeds of approximately £156m from the transaction.

The deal, which is anticipated to close in July 2024, will lower British Land’s proportionally consolidated loan-to-value ratio by 2.7 percentage points for the first half of 2024. British Land will remain as the asset manager for Meadowhall and continue earning fees.

The sale proceeds will be used for general corporate purposes, including reinvesting in retail parks aligned with British Land’s strategic shift away from enclosed shopping centres that have been under pressure.

“Following the sale of Meadowhall, 93% of our portfolio is now in our preferred segments of retail parks, campuses and London urban logistics,” said Simon Carter, Chief Executive of British Land.

“We will continue to grow our retail park portfolio; with low capex requirements parks offer attractive cash returns and at 99% occupancy we are delivering strong rental growth.”

Last week we felt that the index could attempt a move back up to fresh all time highs, so the continued strength in recent days has been as expected.

Recent consumer sentiment on the US stock market is at multi year highs and the VIX is at multi year lows, so this must mean everything is looking hunky-dory, right?

Well, unfortunately when these indicators are at “positive” extremes like this they are often useful contrarian indicators. Essentially if all is so good, who is left to buy. This does leave the index as looking vulnerable to some minor weakness in the days ahead.

It is important to state that this “weakness” is relative and is only a weakness when compared to the strong gains posted in the past 6 months. But a move back towards the internal support line, black line on chart, currently around 5100 would seem probable as needed to keep the buyers interested going forward.

This is not an opportunity to open shorts on the index in our opinion, as the trend is so bullish, but it could be an opportunity to take profits and lighten up on certain risk-on segments, as the index does look vulnerable to a minor pullback next week.

The FTSE 100 dipped on Friday after a poor session in the US translated into a weaker start for European stocks.

A lack of fresh catalysts and no major corporate stories culminated in a quiet session for UK stocks. The FTSE 100 traded down marginally at 8,410 shortly before midday.

“After notching up new record intraday highs yesterday, US markets ran out of steam towards the end of the session and left Wall Street limping towards the finish line,” said Russ Mould, investment director at AJ Bell.

“A sea of red at the market close left US markets below where they started and that negativity set the tone for European markets on Friday. The FTSE 100 struggled to find direction while key indices in France and Germany slipped.

“Asia was in a better mood, helped by Chinese industrial production figures coming in significantly ahead of expectations, although there was a big miss for retail sales in the country – hardly a surprise on the latter given negative signals from the likes of Apple and Burberry in their recent updates about consumer spending in that part of Asia.”

The better sounds from China helped the mining sector to rise, with Rio Tinto among the few gainers.

A steady yet convincing rally is underway in housebuilders as markets gear up for rate cuts. Barratt Developments added to recent gains as shares ticked 1% higher.

XL Media revenue fell sharply in 2023 as the advertising group’s North American declined heavily.

Group revenue for the year sank to $50m from $70m, a decline of 70%. The decline in revenue game despite expanding its footprint to additional states during the period.

The poor sales performance ultimately hit profits and adjusted EBITDA dropped 36%.

The company disposed of a number of website during the year and will focus on costs going forward as the top line disappoints.

“Following the announcement of the sale of the Europe Sports and Gaming business on 1 April 2024, we are focused on driving organic revenues in the North America market, while continuing both to expand our footprint in preparation for new state launches when they happen, while also right sizing the Group’s cost base for 2025,” said David King, Chief Executive Officer of XLMedia.

Land Securities shares fell on Friday after the Real Estate Investment Trust said it would wipe around £625m off the value of its property portfolio as it contends with higher interest rates.

Despite the write-down, the company revealed positive trends across central London rents, which may have helped limit Friday’s share price losses.

Land Securities shares were down 1.6% at the time of writing.

“Real estate specialist, Land Securities Group, has reported a pre-tax loss of £341m as it writes down the value of its property portfolio. There has been a negative step change in market conditions and investor sentiment, which has led to a significant valuation deficit,” said Sophie Lund-Yates, lead equity analyst, Hargreaves Lansdown.

“For all the challenges, the group sees brighter spots on the horizon. The group’s said property valuations should move up from here, but this won’t be enough to boost earnings per share above last year’s levels”

The company has been hit hard by the higher interest rate environment over the past year but with the outlook for rates now more stable, the company may be past the worst of it. Land Securities said they were encouraged by improving investor sentiment around property which they attribute to the outlook for rates.

That said, trends in working from home may continue to drag on valuations of their West London office portfolio.

“High rates and inflation have been Landsec’s worst enemy in recent times and this is demonstrated by another hefty loss for the year, albeit a smaller one than expected,” said Adam Vettese, analyst at investment platform eToro.

“This is in addition to the burden of the pandemic hangover threatening to decimate office rent due to the increase of hybrid working. The firm has had to battle these challenges by optimising their portfolio, disposing non-performing assets such as their hotel portfolio which managed to give the coffers a £400m boost.

“The firm will be hoping that this week’s softer than expected inflation print in the US gets us one step closer to kicking off rate cuts which can’t come soon enough as refinancing of cheaper debt acquired pre-2022 remains a hurdle to overcome.”