Morning briefing: British Land rents rise 4%; Workspace working hard to stabilise; plus TMT, GRIO, FGEN, ONWD

British Land (BLND), the £3.7bn real estate investment trust, says it delivered a good operational and financial performance in the half year to 30 September with its core sectors of prime London office campuses and retail parks delivering 4% like-for-like net rental income growth. “This, combined with a 12% reduction in admin expenses, more than offset higher funding costs and delivered earnings growth in the half,” said chief executive Simon Carter. The shares dipped 1.7% to 372p.

Workspace Group (WKP), the £729m London office space provider, made “steady progress” to stabilise and increase occupancy in the half-year to 30 September. Although occupancy fell 2.5% to 80% as the company expected, the enquiry to letting conversion improved to 17% in October from 16% in the first half and from 15% in the first half of last year. The like-for-like 12-month retention rate for customers in units under 3,000 sq ft improved to 85% from 83%. Net rental income fell 3% or £1.8m to £58.7m following disposals. Trading profit after interest fell 6.4% to £30.6m. The interim dividend was held at 9.4p per share. The shares dropped 5.6% to 380p.

TMT Investments (TMT), the $81m AIM-listed technology venture capital fund, has launched a $2m share buyback programme. Its London-listed shares jumped 7% to $2.60.

Ground Rents Income Fund (GRIO), the £23m real estate fund winding down partly as a response to the government’s leasehold reform, has appointed smaller companies fund manager Judith MacKenzie as an independent non-executive director. MacKenzie is a partner at Downing Fund Managers and ran the Downing Strategic Microcap investment trust until it was wound down this year.

Foresight Environmental Infrastructure (FGEN) reminds investors of the 12.4% yield its depressed shares offer as it declares a quarterly interim dividend of 1.99p per share in line with the annual dividend target of 7.96p. The company stands on a 39% discount to net asset value.

Onward Opportunities (ONWD) says its fund management group Dowgate Wealth has lifted its stake in the £38m UK smaller companies investment trust to 33.6% after subscribing for £560,000 of additional share at 139.3p. It has raised £1.31m through this and an additional subscription for fund manager Laurence Hulse to invest. Shares in the company stand at 133p.