Getting big investment calls right is key to success in the commercial real estate sector if you’re spending hundreds of millions of pounds developing major projects.
David Walker, chief financial officer (CFO) of one the UK’s largest listed property companies, British Land, understands that concept all too well.
In recent years, the £4bn market capitalisation company has spent hundreds of millions of pounds pivoting from big shopping centres to retail parks and London campuses in a strategy it describes as “contrarian”. Its high-profile sites in the capital include Regent’s Place in West London and the Broadgate Estate in the City.
Walker (pictured left) says that since he joined British Land eight years ago as head of investor relations, becoming interim CFO and then chief operating officer, before taking on the top finance role permanently, he has learned to “avoid the noise”.
That means committing to a strategic direction on investments based on the evidence from data and conversations with retail and office occupier clients, rather than changing tack in the face of continual news flow.
In that period, British Land’s business model has been impacted by Brexit, Covid and the war in Ukraine resulting in the cost-of-living crisis, each of which has hit rental revenues.
Navigating the challenges
Under chief executive officer (CEO) Simon Carter, British Land has navigated each challenge, staying on its set course by disposing of assets such as half of the giant Meadowhall centre in Sheffield for £360m in 2024.
In that year, Walker was made CFO, part of a leadership team mandated to transform one of the grand names of UK real estate into a more efficient machine. That process involved bringing closer teams such as comms and sustainability, marketing and operations, to deliver “better outcomes”, a process he helped instigate previously as chief operating officer.
“It reflected how we felt we could remove some noise from the system, get things done more effectively and quickly,” said Walker.
He describes British Land as a large business with a small leadership team coming together frequently to make decisions based on changing dynamics. An increased frequency of meetings was borne out of a need to respond more nimbly during the Covid crisis, when lockdown resulted in smaller businesses struggling to pay rent.
Strong balance sheet
Although a strong balance sheet ensured British Land was able to weather that storm, it led to a more flexible dividend policy reflecting how well the business was performing, set up by Carter when he was CFO. “We wanted the balance sheet to have embedded flexibility so that we can proactively take up opportunities,” said Walker.
That and a de-risking approach involving partnerships with major investors that ensure British Land is less exposed to uncertainty, has enabled British Land to continue to develop over the past 10 years when others in that space haven’t, said Walker.
Major investment decisions require effective engagement with shareholders, which Walker is comfortable with given his background in investor relations, having held that role at recruiter Hays before arriving at British Land, having previously held various positions at Deutsche Bank.
The relationships he has developed with senior figures at those organisations and non-executive directors on British Land’s board have further enhanced Walker’s skillset.
But would he like to take over the CEO role, given Carter is moving on from the top job at the end of the year? “Not at this point. I’ve got things to learn and things to do in this role that I am looking forward to,” he insisted.
Power of data
When it comes to ensuring the right decisions are made, Walker says British Land has established more rigour around how it analyses business performance.
“Three times a year we sit with teams and go through on an asset-by-asset basis, their performance, returns, outlook and practical operational matters, that inform our view of their future.
“We can see which assets we’d like to continue to hold, which assets we think we should be selling, and which assets we’d like to reinvest in and buy more of,” added Walker.
Walker said effective decision-making is based on a thorough understanding of the data underlying the performance of British Land’s assets.
Team work
That approach is paying off. Underlying profit at full year 2025 rose 4% on the previous year to £279m, and then the first half of 2026 underlying profit rose 8% compared to the same period last year to £155m.
“One of the features of real estate is that the finance team and the business are absolutely intertwined in how we operate, because we are making big financial decisions every day.
“Therefore, since I’ve been CFO, we have moved the strategy team, responsible for the production and analysis of data that supports, into the finance team,” he said.
He has also shifted an insights team into finance, which analyses performance of assets, “whether that’s the footfall we’re driving in our retail parks, the sales our retailers are making, how that compares to previous periods”.
Walker continued: “We looked at the demand profile and how that was evolving. As a result, we’re doing a lot of deals now with Lidl and Aldi.
“We can see how our campuses are performing from an operational perspective, what are the macro-economic demographic trends we should be aware of,” he said.
“You need to deliver best-in-class office space, which is highly sustainable and has the amenities employees want, such as gyms, bars, cafes and shops in and around where they work,” he explained.
“They are run by the head of our valuations team, so that we can get a much better link between the underlying insights into performance of our assets and the valuation of those assets and how each is driving the other,” revealed Walker.
Better insights
The ability to gain even better insights will be enhanced by implementing artificial intelligence (AI) rapidly and efficiently interrogating data and analysis to produce conclusions or recommendations, said Walker.
Across British Land AI tool Laiout provides floor plans based on inputs on the kind of organisation and intended numbers of staff in a building. “We’re also looking at AI providing a really useful context to help make good decisions, such as from investment committee papers,” said Walker.
In finance, AI-driven bots have been inserted to automate processes undertaken at scale, such as tax returns. “We’re also using AI to present data in the Power BI dashboard in a more effective way,” he said.
Walker is set to deliver an enterprise resource planning (ERP) transformation in British Land by October, replacing several legacy systems with an Oracle system, with flexibility to add AI products as and when they are required. “The worst mistake we can make is finding an AI product that can transform our processes, that we cannot retrofit into it,” he said.
But Walker is mindful that any AI adoption must be trusted to deliver outcomes and results that are accurate and can be relied on. “There’s a hearts and minds element to how we run our business with technology and how we embed it in the business, to bring everyone with us,” he said.