Market Tech builds digital-first Camden

Developing both sides of the business will take time, but the potential rewards are substantial. It currently owns around six acres of income-producing properties, and around 14 acres in total, and has planning consent to transform the area around Hawley Wharf - formerly Camden Lock Village - into more than 500,000 sq ft of mixed-use lettable space. Work on this has already started.

Although still at the early stage, the company also has a growing e-commerce division. When fully developed, this will give both MTH and the retail tenants tools that are usually the preserve of the big retailers, including revenue analysis, marketing, online logistics and access to a very large online customer base. For the company, it will provide useful data to understand consumer demand patterns. And to develop this, prior to flotation, the company bought Fiver London, the trading business of the online value fashion retailer everything5pounds. Since the IPO, it has also acquired e-commerce marketing platform Stucco Media and Berlin-based mobile marketing business Glispa.

It's not easy to read too much into the figures for the year to March 2015, because almost everything is at the development stage. Typically, while the shares trade at a nominal 80 per cent premium to net asset value (NAV), MTH reckons that once current developments are completed, adjusted NAV would be more like £1.12bn; that's the equivalent of 300p a share. Working towards this, the existing portfolio benefited from a valuation uplift of £67m or nearly 12 per cent in the reported period. In addition, chief executive Charles Butler pointed out that current passing rent of £27m will climb to around £86m post development, while current office rents within the portfolio are around £30 per sq ft compared with £60-£75 per sq ft in the adjacent Kings Cross area.

Finances are in pretty good shape, too, with the loan-to-value ratio on net debt a comfortable 28 per cent.