Macdonald scores nine in a row

By JIM DOW

MACDONALD Estates has achieved its ninth consecutive year of profit growth and chief executive Dan Macdonald is confident that this momentum will be maintained despite challenging market conditions.

The Edinburgh-based development and investment company has posted a 14 per cent increase in profits to £5.1 million as the first year of a three-year strategy to address declining markets made a positive impact on the bottom line. This strategy was established in the belief that the markets would be close to the state they are in now.

A prescient Dan Macdonald said: “Our three-year strategy started in 2006 and has involved selling our entire created investment product at the earliest opportunity, project by project. We have also moved closer to foodstore anchored development projects where exposure to yield shift has less impact.

“The final aspect of this strategy was to spend more time using our expertise in planning to create more strategic development land opportunities. This is where we are today.”

The results are that the company is poised for further growth with the added benefits of minimal exposure to yield

Dan Macdonald - three-year strategy

shift and the availability of surplus cash.

Future developmentsplanned by the company include a £40m development of Glenrothes town centre, a £100m development at SECC, Glasgow, construction work on a £30m development at Falkirk Gateway this year, completion of the £25m development of Stenhousemuir town centre, ongoing masterplanning of 800 acres of strategic land development at Inverness, St Andrews, East Fife, and Braidbar, Glasgow; and a new £7m medical centre in Stenhousemuir.

The firm also intends opening an office in Dublin and plans are about to be submitted for a €40 million retail park at Portlaoise, an hour’s drive south west of the Irish capital.

Mr Macdonald said: “I am in no doubt that we will see recessionary times and that we have to hear more accounts of bank write-offs, a further slide in capital values, greater inflation, raised debt, high bank charges, fire sales and a restrictive residential market. We should not delude ourselves that the Scottish market will be affected to a great extent."