The London-based firm‚ which is listed on the JSE‚ said on Thursday that profit increased to £602m in the review period from £200m a year ago. The profit was driven by an increase in the property revaluation gain to £547m from £61m and lower exceptional finance costs‚ among other factors

Intu‚ which owns and operates some of the largest shopping centres in the UK‚ declared an interim dividend of 4.6 pence per share. Underlying earnings‚ which exclude valuation and exceptional items‚ were £4m ahead in 2014 at £72m.

The company said taking into account additional shares issued to partly fund the acquisition of Intu Merry Hill and Intu Derby‚ underlying earnings per share fell 6% to 6.4p. Intu had acquired these two regional malls for £867.8m earlier this year.

At 9.58pm‚ the stock was up 1.86% to R58.63‚ outperforming the all share index that was off 0.23%.