Digital Joint Venture with BT signed

RNS Number : 2964E

British Land Co PLC

09 May 2013

 



British Land Signs Digital Joint Venture with BT to Provide

Free wi-fi across its Shopping Centres

British Land is pleased to announce that customers will be able to enjoy free wi-fi across its shopping centre portfolio in the UK following a deal with BT Wi-fi.  In addition to providing free wi-fi to its shopping centre customers, British Land has signed an agreement to work with BT to find a solution to deliver a robust wi-fi offering at a number of its open air shopping parks.

Digital evolution is an essential and growing part of the retail experience.  The integration of technological advances is essential to enhance the customer experience and improve the connectivity between the retailers and consumers. 

Following successful trials of wi-fi across a number of shopping centres, the framework agreement with BT Wi-fi enables British Land to build the infrastructure to further develop the service offer to the customer.  Free wi-fi will allow new innovations and trials such as Google Indoor Maps and Centre Buzz to help British Land to continue to evolve the portfolio and deliver exciting and convenient retail destinations.

A phased roll out programme has been devised and customers will be able to utilise the free wi-fi service from autumn 2013. 

Charles Maudsley, Head of Retail for British Land, said: "Digital is an essential and growing part of the shopping experience.  We believe that integrating technological advances is fundamental in a modern retailing environment to meet consumer expectation and to help retailers to maximise their sales potential.

"We continue to evolve our portfolio so that we remain a partner of choice today and tomorrow; working closely with retailers to deliver the right space in the right location, developing our assets to deliver an enjoyable retail experience as well as devising ways to enhance retailer and consumer relationships within our centres."

ENDS

Enquiries:

Investor Relations

Sally Jones, British Land                                                            020 7467 2942

Media

Jackie Whitaker, British Land                                                      020 7467 3449

Emma Hammond, FTI Consulting                                                 020 7269 9347

Pip Wood, British Land                                                               020 7467 2942

Gordon Simpson, Finsbury Group                                                020 7251 3801

Notes to Editors

About British Land

British Land is one of Europe's largest Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs) with total assets, owned or managed, of £16.3 billion (British Land share £10.4 billion), as valued at 30 September 2012. Through our property and finance expertise we attract experienced partners to create properties and environments which are home to over 1,000 different organisations and receive over 300 million visits each year. Our property portfolio is focused on prime retail locations and Central London offices which attract high quality occupiers committed to long leases. Our UK occupancy rate of 97.7% and average lease length to first break of 11 years are among the highest of the major UK REITs.

Retail assets account for 60% of our portfolio with around 28 million sq ft of retail space across 82 retail parks, 92 superstores, 13 shopping centres and 9 department stores. The retail portfolio is modern, flexible and adaptable to a wide range of formats and our active asset management delivers space which is attractive and meets the needs of both retailers and consumers. 80% of our retail parks have open A1 consent.

London offices, located in the City and West End, comprise 35% of the portfolio (which will rise to an estimated 40% on completion of current developments). Our 7 million sq ft of high quality offices includes Broadgate, the premier City office campus (50% share) and Regent's Place in the West End. Over the last 2 years, we have committed £1.2 billion to create Central London's largest committed office development programme which will deliver 2.3 million sq ft of high quality space by 2014, including a 700,000 sq ft building at 5 Broadgate, the 610,000 sq ft Leadenhall Building in London's insurance district and a 500,000 sq ft mixed office and residential scheme at Regent's Place in the West End.

Managing our environmental, economic and social impacts is central to the way we do business and deliver value for our shareholders. We assess the issues that matter most to us and our stakeholders on an on-going basis and, where appropriate, adjust our strategic focus to reflect this. We focus on managing our buildings efficiently, supporting communities, developing sustainable buildings and engaging our staff. For each of these priorities we are targeting our efforts and resources at initiatives where we can achieve the biggest impacts.

Further details can be found on the British Land website at www.britishland.com.

 

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