LONDON-Great Portland Estates has agreed an early lease renewal with insurance giant Willis on a key City building, which could form a part of a much larger development site towards the end of this decade.

LONDON-Legal & General has been granted planning permission by Swindon Borough Council for a 225,000-sf distribution warehouse on Keypoint, its 62-acre logistics park in Swindon, Wiltshire.

LONDON-Airports operator BAA has completed its exit from the factory outlet business with the pounds 165 million ($260 million) sale of its remaining stakes in the McArthurGlen malls at York; Mansfield; Livingston and Ashford.

LONDON-Institutional investors moved out of property in a big way in the final quarter of 2002, according to new government statistics, with the highest level of disinvestment by insurance companies and pension funds since records began 20 years ago.

LONDON-The government's draft Housing Bill has split the world of estate agency with many agents opposed but with groups including the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors broadly in favour.

LONDON-Avon Capital Estates--the new investment vehicle for ex-Saville Gordon Chairman David Saville--has bought a second portfolio from Capital & Regional. The three industrial estates cost pounds 11.35 million ($17.8 million).

LONDON-Hammerson has reduced its exposure to the office sector by selling two Central London office buildings to the German open-ended fund CGI, raising pounds 192 million.

LONDON-Capital & Regional and Morley Fund management's Mall Fund has received its first outside investment with a pounds 31.2 million ($49 million) cash injection from the Prudential