19th May 2015 07:15
LONDON (Alliance News) - Big Yellow Group PLC Tuesday reported higher pretax profit for its last financial year, as higher occupancy and prices bolstered revenue and it booked gains on property assets.
The self storage company said it made a GBP105.2 million pretax profit in the year ended March 31, compared with GBP59.8 million in the prior year, as revenue grew by 17% to GBP84.3 million.
Without including gains on property assets, operating profit increased to GBP48.4 million from GBP39.5 million, but was up to GBP114.2 million from GBP67.9 million after taking the gains into account.
Occupancy in its units rose to 73.2% from 67.9% and average net achieved rent per square foot rose to GBP24.95 from GBP24.32.
Big Yellow increased its dividend for the year to 21.7 pence from 16.4p.
Executive Chairman Nicholas Vetch said the group's aim is to grow its earnings and dividend payments to shareholders at a "compelling, but sustainable rate over a long period of time without taking undue risk".
"We make no attempt to judge the economic cycle as it is a fruitless task and never more than now. We have now positioned the group for the long-term so that we can enjoy the benefits of a strong economy and also adequately accommodate any reverses," Vetch said in a statement.
"The most important contribution to performance will be growing the occupancy and increasing rental rates in the existing platform of stores. In addition, there is scope to add more stores but the availability of land, and competition for it, makes this challenging. That said, there will be opportunities and we are well positioned to exploit them," the executive chairman added.
Shares in Big Yellow were up 1.8% at 667.00 pence on Tuesday morning.
By Samuel Agini; [email protected]; @samuelagini
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