Tritax Big Box REIT (BBOX) has marked its promotion to the FTSE 100 with annual results demonstrating the momentum in the £4.6bn logistics fund after a year in which it advanced on its strategic fronts.

Shares in BBOX have have risen 20% since October when it bought a £1bn portfolio from Blackstone, ensuring its promotion next Monday to become the seventh investment trust in the blue chip top flight. The other six are 3i Group (III), Scottish Mortgage (SMT), Pershing Square Holdings (PSH), F&C (FCIT), Alliance Witan (ALW) and Polar Capital Technology (PCT).

The all-share transaction, which brought in Blackstone as a 9% shareholder, gave the real estate investment trust a 20% exposure to urban logistics when combined with the assets it retained from the acquisition of UK Commercial Property two years ago. 

Chair Aubrey Adams said the purchase of 32 urban logistic assets and nine “big boxes”, or modern warehouses, at a price “materially below” replacement cost, gave BBOX the opportunity to capture the full potential rent from that business. 

The company, which saw net rental income advance 10.6% to £305.3m, believes it can capture nearly three quarters of the 28% “rental reversion” across its entire portfolio in the next three years. 

Underlining its confidence, it declared an interim fourth quarter dividend of 2.25p taking the total for the year to 8p per share, up 4.4% on 2024. This was covered by adjusted earnings of 8.38p per share, up 4.1% on the previous year, which it has previously said it wants to grow by 50% by 2031.

Net tangible assets were more muted, gaining 1.2% to 187.76p per share during the year, although the total portfolio jumped 20.5% to £7.9bn, including debt, as a result of the Blackstone deal.

The company hopes its development pipeline will make a bigger contribution in future. It awaits a planning decision on 17 March from the government on whether it can go ahead with the construction of two data centres at Manor Farm near Slough, where it is negotiating terms with a “leading operator tenant”. 

Meanwhile it has 1.8m square feet of development projects with estimated rental income potential of £19.6m of which 53% has been pre-let.

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