The company has a net asset value of around £160 million, including some £120 million cash on deposit. Borrowing facilities from BTPS and third parties provide further working capital.

A number of joint venture projects have been financed with external borrowings.

Recently, Argent secured £200 million of syndicated debt from, amongst others, HSBC, Lloyds TSB, EuroHypo and HypoBank to finance The Brindleyplace Limited Partnership with an additional £10 million of mezzanine debt from Bank of Scotland.

We consider our funders to be joint venture partners. Their long-term support is as vital to the successful completion of a project as any other member of the professional team.

The majority of our projects have also involved the vendors of the land in some form of profit participation, for example overage, once a hurdle rate of return has been achieved, or as equity partners.

Since 1997, when BTPS acquired Argent for £234 million, £167 million has been returned to our shareholder, mostly in the form of dividends, and a return of over 35% has been achieved on the capital employed in the group's projects. A further £60 million has been generated for our other joint venture partners.