SpaceandPeople wins promotional deal with British Land

Glasgow-based marketing firm SpaceandPeople has won a 'significant' contract with retail property specialist British Land.

SpaceandPeople hopes to extend the deal with British Land, owner of the Drake Circus shopping centre in Plymouth

The company, which manages promotional space in shopping centres and other high-footfall areas such as train stations, said the “multi-year” deal will initially focus on British Land’s Drake Circus shopping centre in Plymouth.

But SpaceandPeople said it expects to extend the contract across 40 other assets, “covering the majority of British Land’s multi-let retail portfolio in due course”.

Fiona Orford-Williams, analyst at Edison Investment Research, said: “Coming hard on the heels of the Network Rail contract, won last September, and the pilot project for Immochan in France, this is further validation both of the group’s strong market positioning and of the importance of experiential in the marketing mix.”

British Land also owns the Fort Kinnaird retail park in Edinburgh and Glasgow Fort.

Matthew Bending, chief executive of Aim-quoted SpaceandPeople, said the contract was a “significant win” for the company, which is due to report its annual results on 29 March.

He added: “2015 has been a transitional year for the business with a major contract being agreed with Network Rail for the first time, the successful launch of our mobile promotions kiosk programme (MPK) and the agreement with Immochan to launch a pilot scheme in France for the first time.

“The company continues to progress and with the announcement of a new relationship with British Land we have had a positive start to 2016.”

Bending said trading during the second half of the year had been in line with management’s hopes, although he cautioned that pre-tax profits of about £1 million would be “slightly” below City forecasts.

“The principal reason for this is due to a timing difference following a decision to recognise an element of promotional revenue that is now derived from MPKs on the same basis as we recognise revenue from retail merchandising units,” he said.

“This change has resulted in the deferral of £150,000 of net promotional revenues from 2015 to 2016. The decision to account for revenue in this manner gives management better sight of future revenue and will be the standard accounting treatment applied to this type of revenue going forward.”

Bending also said that SpaceandPeople was targeting a final dividend of 2.2p a share, which would mark a 10 per cent increase on last year’s payout.