BRAEHEAD owner Intu Properties believes it is well placed to benefit from rising consumer confidence and is pressing ahead with its £1.9 billion development pipeline.

The company, which also owns the likes of the Trafford Centre in Manchester and Gateshead's Metro Centre, saw underlying earnings increase from £140 million to £162m in 2014 while its net rental income rose from £370m to £397m.

Across the 12 months it agreed terms on 210 new leases which are equivalent to £34m of annual rent. The average terms were said to be around five per cent ahead of the previous passing rent.

However investors were underwhelmed by the performance.

Alison Watson, from Investec, suggested the results were worse than expected in spite of the improving retail backdrop.

She believes this should prove to be the "earnings trough" but "we see poor growth prospects due to slow capture of rental reversions and major developments still far off".

Ms Watson also suggested sales of smaller shopping centres may be made to help Intu keep investing in its major sites.

Intu stated that its proposed town centre style expansion at Braehead would create 475,000 square feet of new space and cost it around £200 million.

There was a long battle for the planning to be approved, with Glasgow City Council among the objectors, but it was passed in August last year to the delight of Renfrewshire Council.

The project includes additional retail and leisure units along with a 5,000 seat arena and a 200 bedroom hotel.

Intu did not offer any further updates on the project, which forms part of its £1.3bn pipeline in the UK with a further £600m allocated for Spain, but noted the timing for the development was between 2020 and 2022. It has previously been suggested up to 5,000 jobs could be created at the extension.

In the Intu annual results Braehead's current market value was given as £599m.

The centre has more than 1.1 million square feet of space. The 121 retailers, including Marks & Spencer, Primark, Next, H&M, Topshop, Superdry and Sainsbury's brought in £25.5m of annual rental during 2014. Occupancy was said to be 92 per cent.

Into also owns the Soar leisure complex adjacent to Braehead which has an Odeon cinema, Snow Factor ski slope and miniature golf along with more than one dozen restaurants.

David Fischel, Intu chief executive, said: "Intu's improved 2014 results demonstrate we are well positioned to benefit further from rising consumer confidence and strengthening demand from retailers for quality space.

"As the UK's leading owner and manager of prime regional shopping centres, we welcome over 400 million customer visits through our centres each year and our clear focus on delivering outstanding customer experience under the Intu brand is proving a powerful factor in the successful performance of our centres.

"Following excellent acquisitions both in the UK and Spain in the last few years, we also look to the organic growth opportunity from driving forward our £1.9 billion development programme."