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TWST: Any other features of the company that an institutional investor should monitor?

Mrs. Rogers: Another thing they'd want to be interested in, is that the company is an inveterate trader and really keeping an eye on how that progress is going. Sometimes one may be expecting something to be sold and it doesn't quite come through, and you have an impact on the numbers and an adverse effect the share price.

TWST: Are there any valuation stories that you'd like to highlight in the sector?

Mrs. Rogers: One company that I think is cheap is obviously British Land; it's at a near 40% discount to net assets. It has traditionally looked a little expensive in terms of its return on capital employed model, and the reason for that has been that the company has been a major acquirer of assets — it bought an awful lot of property, and of course when you do that your initial yields are low, and there hasn't been a very significant advance. The shares are also suffering from the fact that John Ritblat could be regarded as having lost his spat with Donny Gordon. Against that, however, what I would say is that we are going to be looking at useful rental growth in the City of London over the next couple of years.

TWST: Is that where the bulk of its portfolio is concentrated?

Mrs. Rogers: Yes. At the moment, it's one of those stocks that everyone thinks, they're never going to get it right, they're never going to do it properly, we don't like them any more. It's normally when it's totally unloved that something can happen, and I think at that sort of discount something can happen.

TWST: What's the strategic plan for the company over the next 24-36 months?

Mrs. Rogers: Essentially, the strategic plan is to improve their level of rental in their existing holdings and to invest in any opportunity as they come up. This is an opportunistic company rather than a company with a proper business plan, which is one of the reasons why, in that respect, one would regard perhaps as slightly old-fashioned.

TWST: And the whopping discount to net asset value, what opportunities does that create for people interested in consolidating?

Mrs. Rogers: Just thinking of MEPC, which had been a rather unloved company — when shares are standing at that sort of discounting, the management themselves must feel that their assets are been unduly unloved. I would never expect British Land to be subject to a hostile take-over, there must be a chance that at some stage that management is going to get fed up with running a company that nobody's interested in hearing about and decide to do something with it themselves. The risk is that they'll have to do it at a smaller discount than 40%.

TWST: Did you set a price target for British Land?

Mrs. Rogers: Our price target for British Land is about GBP4.60, against the current share price of GBP4.26.