Boston Properties plans to spend $20 million to $30 million over the next two to three years renovating its newly acquired Bay Colony campus in Waltham, and the company is bullish on its Back Bay portfolio, according to a recent investment presentation.

Boston Properties President Douglas Linde, speaking at a presentation to the International Strategy and Investment conference in New York, said he anticipated profits from Bay Colony, "in very high single digits or low double digits once renovations finished over the next couple years."

Linde also outlined the firm’s strategy behind the purchase of Boston’s iconic John Hancock tower last year, saying that long term trends including bank mergers and the proliferation of boutique investment firms tend to favor the city’s Back Bay neighborhood over the traditional financial district.

While the financial district is "sitting on the precipice of a lot of availability and it will take time for it to be occupied," Linde said, the smaller firms which have been migrating to the Back Bay are "price inelastic – [they’re more] concerned with getting a fair deal relative to what other people are getting."

Only two firms in the city – State Street and Fidelity – are capable of committing to a 1 million-square-foot lease generally require by developers in order to start new high-rise construction, Linde estimated. With State Street locked in to its current location for many years and Fidelity moving many employees out of Boston, he argued that the Hancock is likely to find itself with little in the way of new competition, meaning its upper-floor rents would be on the rise for the foreseeable future.

The building is very close to fully leased at the moment, he said. Though the bulk of renewals are not set to come until 2015 or 2016, the firm is in talks with several companies currently subletting space from Manulife Financial Corp.

Linde also expressed confidence in the continued buoyancy of the Cambridge market, but expressed some concern of the potential impact of an acquisition of Genzyme by international giant Sanofi-Aventus, since the firm occupies so much space in the city.

While Linde said that "in our particular markets things have clearly hit bottom and begun to improve," said Linde, the firm does not anticipate huge growth this year.