6th Sep 2016 06:57
LONDON (Alliance News) - A&J Mucklow on Tuesday said high occupancy levels and steady letting enquiries for industrial property was expected to continue for some time given the lack of supply in the local Midlands market.
The property investment company said its gross rental income rose 6.0% during the year ended June 30 to GBP22.9 million from GBP21.6 million, driving revenue of GBP23.8 million compared to the GBP22.6 million reported a year earlier.
A&J Mucklow said investor demand for commercial property remained "relatively strong", though there were lower transaction volumes in the second half of the year.
The company said the referendum result was announced a week before the end of its financial year and as such there was "no transactional evidence between the referendum result and our valuation date for our valuers to reflect in the June 30, 2016 investment and development property valuation".
However, pretax profit fell to GBP25.2 million from GBP56.2 million due to the smaller gain made on the revaluation of its investment and development properties, coming in at GBP10.2 million from the GBP42.3 million a year earlier.
Despite this, the company's vacancy rate fell to a historic low of 3.2% compared to the 5.4% posted a year earlier. Midlands industrial property also continued to benefit from strong rental growth, due to steady occupational demand throughout the year and a supply of modern space.
A&J Mucklow said since its year-end and in light of the Brexit vote, the regional property market had remained buoyant and so far appears unaffected by the referendum outcome. This is reflected in the company's vacancy rate having fallen to below 3.0% since June 30.
A&J Mucklow proposed a full year dividend of 21.47 pence per share, up from the 20.84p per share offered a year earlier.
"Over the next 12 months, we intend to continue our strategy of actively managing our investment portfolio to realise the excellent reversionary potential it offers and when opportunities arise, selectively to acquire and develop low risk, income producing properties, in order to grow rental income and expand our property portfolio," said Chairman Rupert Mucklow.
By Hannah Boland; [email protected]; @Hannaheboland
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