British Land to exit mainland Europe amid economic woes Unveiling its full year results today, the FTSE 100 property developer, reported a 1.9pc rise in underlying pre-tax profits to £274m although the statutory figures show a drop in full-year pre-tax profits to £260m from £479m. Mr Grigg declared it was a "highly active and successful year." "Our access to low-cost financing is an important competitive advantage,"he said. Our core business will be resilient as we benefit from our focus on the better-performing markets in London and the Southeast and on high-quality retail around the U.K. Like its rivals Hammerson and Land Securities, British Land has been focusing on its core office and shopping centre businesses in London and key UK regions to combat the tough economic outlook facing property markets in Britain and Europe. In March, it raised almost £1bn to spend on new acquisitions by selling off a skyscraper in the City of London and raising new equity from shareholders in a placing. The company, which is building the Cheesegrater skyscraper in the City, has snapped up £213m of property in the last few months, including Ealing Broadway shopping centre. British Land owns half of Meadowhall shopping centre in Sheffield as well as the Broadgate office complex in the City, which is the home of UBS. Earlier this month, British Land won approval to develop three sites with about 300,000 square feet (29,000 square meters) of office space in Shoreditch, a central London area that's the centre of the country's hi-tech industry, according to the developer, Bloomberg reports.