Christmas present from Canary Wharf

CANARY Wharf is to bring forward its plans to return capital to shareholders with a £375m special dividend payable around Christmas this year. This will account for half the £750m in structured returns Canary promised it would pay shareholders over the next three years. It has already bought back £501m of shares with a further £250m to go.

Chief executive George Iacobescu said its strong performance over the full year had enabled it to accelerate the cash-return programme.

Turnover, namely rents, grew by 30% to reach £206m and Iacobescu said rental income would double over the next two years as rent-free periods ended, rent reviews were triggered and more tenants moved in. While top City rents have fallen by around 10%, the top market rent at Canary Wharf has held at around £45.

Iacobescu said he remained 'cautiously optimistic' about the near term but 'highly optimistic about the longer-term future of Canary Wharf and this area'.

Full-year profits were boosted by £169.5m of exceptional gains made on the sale of an office building to banking giant HSBC which took pre-tax profits to £203m for the year to 30 June compared with £42.5m last time.

Net asset value per share rose to 705p from 697p before dilution.