Drama in theatreland spooks Capco investors
COVENT Garden landlord Capital & Counties’ cautious outlook sent investors running for the door.
The group, known as Capco, admitted it has no idea when trading will return to normal for its restaurant, shop and bar tenants – even though early indicators since lockdown measures were lifted have been promising.
Last week about 500,000 people visited its sprawling estate in the London food, drink, shopping and entertainment hub, which is near West End theatres, Piccadilly Circus and Trafalgar Square.
Virtually all its tenants are open now. But Capco is still under strain, with net rental income down 41pc to £18m in the first half of the year.
The company’s loss mushroomed from £8.5m to £441m during that period, and it reiterated numbers released last month showing that the value of its estate has shrunk by £400m to £2.2bn since the start of the year. Most tellingly for investors, it has deferred a decision on whether to pay a dividend until the end of the year.
The main difficulty for Covent Garden is that as a ‘destination’ area it relies on tourists and City workers for business, rather than on a local community.
With tourism still virtually in hibernation and many of those who work in the capital currently decamped to home offices, its streets, which have been even more radically pedestrianised than usual, are struggling to attract visitors.
Capco sank by 9.2pc, or 13p, to 128p, making it the biggest faller on the FTSE 250 index. Shaftesbury, the West End landlord in which Capco is buying a morethan 26pc stake, was hot on its heels, falling by 7.8pc, or 44.5p, to 527.5p.
If the shift to working from home is one of the things putting pressure on landlords, it is having the opposite effect for Avast.
Demand for its cyber security products grew during lockdown and is expected to continue.
Avast, which provides both subscription and free-to-use tools, saw revenues rise by 2pc to £332m between January and June. But shares slid 3pc, or 18p, to 582p.
The FTSE 100 had a positively buoyant day, shrugging off data that showed the economy shrank by a fifth between April and June. Traders, analysts said, were focusing on the more upbeat news that things had rebounded significantly during June.
The blue-chip index closed 2pc higher, up 125.78 points, to 6280.12, while the FTSE 250 rose 0.5pc, or 92.4 points, to 18,089.58.
Key commodities were also on the ascent. Gold clawed back some ground, rising by 1pc, or around $24, to $1,935 per troy ounce.
But this will be of little solace to those who had hoped it would stay above $2,000 an ounce for a while, after only pushing through that level for the first time last week.
Oil rose by 1.4pc to around $45 a barrel – nudging up shares in energy groups Royal Dutch Shell (up 2.8pc, or 33p, to 1204.4p) and BP (up 1.2pc, or 3.75p, to 311.3p). Specialist pension provider Just Group got a 0.8pc boost, rising by 0.4p, to 50.9p, after it appointed John Hastings-Bass as its new chairman. He chairs insurance broker BMS Group, and will take over from Chris Gibson-Smith.
Elsewhere, telecoms mast operator Helios Towers surged after announcing it had bought 1,220 sites from Free Senegal for £144m and inked an agreement to build another 400 masts.
This marks the Africa-focused group’s first foray into the west African country, where it will automatically become the largest independent tower provider. It closed 6.5pc, or 10.8p, up at 177.8p.