Britain's Crown Estate reports profit of 1.15 billion pounds, led by offshore wind

By Susanna Twidale

LONDON (Reuters) -The Crown Estate, which manages King Charles' public property, reported an annual net profit of 1.15 billion pounds ($1.57 billion) on Tuesday, similar to the previous year, with offshore wind leases its biggest source of revenue.

The Crown Estate, which comprises tracts of land and most of Britain’s sea bed, is an independently run, commercial business, whose profit - seen as the benchmark for the level of public funding for the royal family - goes to the UK Treasury.

Net revenue profit was 1.15 billion pounds for the year between April 1 2024 and March 31 2025, the company said in a statement.

The bulk of revenue, around 1.07 billion pounds, came from the offshore wind farm leasing tender Round 4.

The Crown Estate said revenue from the leasing round were expected to drop to 25 million pounds a year from January 2026 as more projects moved to the development stage.

"We always knew the boost to our profits due to offshore wind leasing option fees from Round four was short term, and we expect this year to be the high point for these returns," Dan Labbad, CEO of the Crown Estate said in a briefing with journalists.

Wind power, both on and offshore, was Britain's largest source of electricity last year providing around 30% of the country's power.

But offshore wind costs have risen over the past few years due to inflation and supply chain bottlenecks, leading to the cancellation of some projects.

In June, the Crown Estate said Equinor and Gwynt Glas won seabed leases to build floating wind farms in the Celtic Sea in its latest lease auction round 5. 

Labbad said revenues from this round were expected to show materially from the early- to mid-2030s.

Britain’s monarchy receives a sovereign grant to cover running costs of the royal households and travel expenses which is currently set at 12% of the profit from the Crown Estate.

The grant amount for 2025-2026 will be 132 million pounds, government documents showed.

($1 = 0.7304 pounds)

(Reporting By Susanna Twidale; Editing by Rachna Uppal)