Howard de Walden Estate counts cost of property value declines

An aristocratic family who can trace their lineage back to the Norman conquest will receive a reduced annual dividend of £44 million this year after a sharp fall in the value of their vast Marylebone property portfolio.
The value of the Howard de Walden Estate in central London, which owns 800 buildings on 95 acres of land between Oxford Street and Regent’s Park, fell by just over 8 per cent, or £332 million, between April 2023 and March 2024 to £4.17 billion.
It is the second year in a row that the portfolio has declined in value, having dropped by £200 million in 2023. Sir William Proby, Howard de Walden’s chairman, blamed the slide on higher interest rates, which “continued to adversely impact asset values in healthcare and offices and, to a lesser extent, residential [properties]”.
The valuation slide condemned the estate to a pre-tax loss of £254.2 million, more than double the £102.3 million it suffered in the previous financial year. Reflecting that, the family’s dividend was reduced to £44.1 million, down from £50 million in 2023.
The Howard de Walden Estate traces its history to the Domesday Book in 1086. It is one of the great aristocratic landowning estates in London, along with Grosvenor and Cadogan, and is best known as the owner of Harley Street, the favoured haunt of private dentists and surgeons.
The Howard de Walden family has controlled the estate since 1879, when the death of the childless 5th Duke of Portland resulted in the land being passed to his sister, Lucy Joan Bentinck, widow of the sixth Baron Howard de Walden. Today the family is led by Peter Czernin, 58, the 11th Baron Howard de Walden. There are three aunts and their descendants who also share in the payout. The actor Timothy Bentinck, who plays David Archer in the long-running radio soap, is another member of the family.
In the 12 months to the end of March, the portfolio generated rental income of £152.2 million, 3 per cent more than the record £147.8 million it received in the previous year. After excluding the valuation losses, pre-tax profits were broadly flat at £74.6 million, compared with £74.9 million in 2023, as the improved rental income was offset by higher operating costs.
Howard de Walden’s residential rents grew strongly, rising by 8.7 per cent year-on-year, with virtually all its flats occupied for the duration of the 12-month period. Retail, leisure and hospitality rents rose by 7 per cent as, in contrast with many British high streets, only 3 per cent of shop fronts and restaurant units in Marylebone are empty. Income from Harley Street and other healthcare tenants, which make up 40 per cent of the group’s revenue, increased by 2 per cent.
Offices make up just under a fifth of Howard de Walden’s portfolio, but rents from these slipped by 3.6 per cent last year. The estate blamed this on the more flexible lease options it is now offering, while it is also refurbishing offices to bring them up to the standard that businesses are increasingly demanding.
Proby, 75, said it had been a “testing time over the last four years” as soaring interest rates had dented values across the wider commercial property market. “However, there are signs that we may have reached, or are very close to, the bottom of the current property cycle,” he said.