Soho Estates, the property group founded by the late porn baron Paul Raymond, swung back to a profit in its latest financial year as the value of its portfolio rebounded.
The group, which is now controlled by Raymond’s two granddaughters, owns dozens of offices, shops and restaurants in central London. Soho spans some 87 acres — Soho Estates is thought to own about 60 of them.
Fawn James, 35, a director at Soho Estates, and India Rose James, 30, inherited the property empire of their grandfather following his death in 2008.
The sisters have a net worth of £721 million, according to The Sunday Times Rich List 2021. Their mother, Debbie, Raymond’s daughter, died of a heroin overdose aged 36 when India Rose was a baby.
Soho Estates, which is managed by their father John and chaired by Steven Norris, the former Conservative minister, fell into the red last year after the value of its properties took a £16 million pandemic-induced haircut. However, in the year to the end of March, the value of the company’s underlying portfolio was lifted by £5.4 million, according to disclosures lodged with Companies House.
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The value of the total portfolio nudged up to £1.08 billion from £1.06 billion a year earlier, reflecting the revaluation and some purchases it made during the period.
Soho Estates also sold off three buildings during the year for £41.6 million, which it said was because of “the significant loss of rental payments” last year.
The group said that all three had been sold “at pre-Covid levels” as it booked a £5.4 million profit on property disposals over the year.
That, coupled with the upward revaluation, helped Soho Estates to post a pre-tax profit of £20.1 million for the year, compared with a loss of £2.7 million in 2020.
Rental income rose to £36.9 million, up 3.7 per cent from £35.6 million a year earlier.
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“We are now starting to see the first positive signs that the crisis could recede in the year ahead,” the company said in its latest accounts.
“However, the social and economic consequences of the disruption experienced this year will be important factors in the speed of recovery in the months and years ahead.”
Raymond’s property empire started with the Raymond Revuebar, his popular strip club, from which he used the profits to buy the freehold to the building in 1960 for £14,000.
He took advantage of a slump in property prices in the late Seventies to buy up other properties nearby. In 1977 it was reported that he was buying more than one freehold a week.
Soho Estates now owns a large chunk of Soho, including Kettner’s townhouse, Soho House and Queens House.
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It has been building a nine-storey development on Charing Cross Road, called Ilona Rose House, which is due to launch next year. The company said the building, which will house offices, shops and restaurants, is “on time and on budget”.
During the pandemic, Soho Estates wrote off £9 million worth of rent owed by some of its struggling tenants. It also offered to defer another £12 million of rent for up to three years.
Of the four directors, who include Fawn and John James, the best-paid, whose name was not revealed, took home £842,000 last year.
They did not recommend that Soho Estates pay a dividend to its shareholders, although this was a stance they had adopted even before the pandemic set in.
