Crown Estate outstrips market with record profit of £163m
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Your support makes all the difference.Better management enabled the hereditary lands and property once owned by the monarchy to make a record £163m last year.
The profits, including rent from thecountry home of the Earl of Wessex in Surrey and the late Queen Mother's lodge in Windsor Great Park, will all be paid to the Government.
In its annual report yesterday, the Crown Estate showed that the portfolio, including properties on Regent Street and several farming estates, had outperformed the market, increasing profits by 10.6 per cent from £147m in 2000-01.
The estate's success comes in contrast to falling profits at the Queen's private estates at Sandringham, Norfolk, and Balmoral, Scotland.
Rents charged to tenants including the Earl and Countess of Wessex and the Duke of York, who will move into the Queen Mother's Royal Lodge, are set at commercial rates. But some members of the royalty have struck reduced rent deals. MPs are looking at why Prince and Princess Michael of Kent pay £67 a week for a seven-bedroom apartment in Kensington Palace.
Sir Denys Henderson, the Crown Estate chairman, described the performance of the estate as being "creditable" in a year hit by foot-and-mouth disease and damage to the London rental market after 11 September. He said the setbacks had been offset by "positive management action".
Sir Denys said: "By controlling costs and improving efficiency, we were able to exceed our target of a 10 per cent increase in our revenue surplus and also achieved a total return of 9.1 per cent on our investment property portfolio, compared to the [market] benchmark of 7.0 per cent."
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