Few property companies have been as busy as LondonMetric over the past 12 months. A quick trawl through the PropertyWeek.com archives reveals a regular trail of deals - both acquisitions and disposals -punctuating 2014 and early 2015, with £453.2m of investment activity being racked up during a particularly frenetic six-month period last year. This flurry of activity was sparked by a seismic shift in the REIT's strategy, which in turn was initiated by the 'seismic shift' occurring in the UK retail scene, as a result of the rise of online shopping. It's a strategy that appears to have paid off in spades. In its latest results for the half year to 30 September, the FTSE-listed company posted a 58% increase in reported profit to £69.7m and a net asset value per share of 128.8p - an increase of 6.4% since March 2014. Speaking from the company's boardroom at One Curzon Street in central London - formerly home to the British intelligence agency MI5 - LondonMetric CEO Andrew Jones (pictured left) and asset director Mark Stirling reveal why they made the switch from offices, residential and primarily out-of-town retail to retail distribution and how their strategy will evolve over the next few years and what the secret of their success has been to date.
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