Shaftesbury PLC was a British real estate investment trust which invests exclusively in the heart of

London's West End The West End of London (commonly referred to as the West End) is a district of Central London, England, in the London Boroughs of Camden and the City of Westminster. It is west of the City of London and north of the River Thames, in which ma ...

. It was headquartered in London and was listed on the

London Stock Exchange The London Stock Exchange (LSE) is a stock exchange based in London, England. the total market value of all companies trading on the LSE stood at US$3.42 trillion. Its current premises are situated in Paternoster Square close to St Paul's Cath ...

until it merged with Capital & Counties Properties to form

Shaftesbury Capital Shaftesbury Capital, formerly Capital & Counties Properties plc, (Capco) is a United Kingdom-based Real estate investing, property investment and Real estate development, development company focused on sites in the West End of London, West End o ...

in March 2023.

History

Shaftesbury was founded in 1986 as a private company by the Levy family, with an initial injection of £10 million. The family had a long history in UK real estate, having founded the London-based estate agency DE & J Levy, and co-founded the major post-war development company The Stock Conversion and Investment Trust, in the 1940s. The company's first property acquisition was a group of 26 buildings in London's Chinatown. The company secured a listing on the main market of the London Stock Exchange in October 1987 when it was valued at £26 million. In its early years, the company had a UK-wide investment strategy but, following the UK real estate recession of 1990 to 1993, it focussed its investment activity solely in London's West End. On 2 March 2023, the company announced the implementation of a proposed merger with Capital & Counties Properties. The merger proposals saw Capital & Counties Properties changing its name to

Operations

Shaftesbury's portfolio extends to nearly 15 acres in London's West End. It comprises nearly 600 buildings, located close to the West End's major visitor attractions, and mainly clustered in

Carnaby Street Carnaby Street is a Pedestrian zone, pedestrianised shopping street in Soho in the City of Westminster, Central London. Close to Oxford Street and Regent Street, it is home to fashion and lifestyle retailers, including many independent fashion ...

, Seven Dials and Chinatown, together with substantial ownerships in east and west

Covent Garden Covent Garden is a district in London, on the eastern fringes of the West End, between St Martin's Lane and Drury Lane. It is associated with the former fruit-and-vegetable market in the central square, now a popular shopping and tourist sit ...

Soho SoHo, short for "South of Houston Street, Houston Street", is a neighborhood in Lower Manhattan, New York City. Since the 1970s, the neighborhood has been the location of many artists' lofts and art galleries, art installations such as The Wall ...

and

Charlotte Street Charlotte Street is a street in Fitzrovia, historically part of the parish and borough of St Pancras, in central London. It has been described, together with its northern and southern extensions (Fitzroy Street and Rathbone Place), as the ' ...

. In addition, the company has a 50% interest in a further 1.9 acres in Covent Garden, held in its Longmartin joint venture. In late 2017, the company increased its investment in the

Seven Dials, London Seven Dials is a road junction and neighbourhood in the St Giles, London, St Giles district of the London Borough of Camden, within the greater Covent Garden area in the West End of London. Seven streets of the Seven Dials area converge at the ...

area. The company's property interests were independently-valued at £3.1 billion at 30 September 2022.

References

External links

* {{Authority control Companies based in the City of Westminster Real estate companies established in 1986 Real estate investment trusts of the United Kingdom 1986 establishments in the United Kingdom Companies formerly listed on the London Stock Exchange