19th Nov 2019 09:28
(Alliance News) - Big Yellow Group PLC on Tuesday said it has made "good" progress building the pipeline of new stores, with its earnings growing in the first half of its current financial year.
The self-storage company said pretax profit for the six months to the end of September rose by 56% to GBP95.8 million from GBP61.4 million, as revenue climbed by 3.4% to GBP64.3 million from GBP62.2 million. On a like-for-like basis, revenue advanced by 4.2%.
Dressing pretax profit, Big Yellow recorded a GBP60.9 million gain on disposal of investment property versus a GBP27.6 million gain a year prior.
Average achieved net rent per square feet increased by 1.6% to GBP27.40 from GBP26.97 year-on-year, while occupancy rate slipped slightly to 83.4% from 83.8%.
The FTSE-250 listed company lifted its interim payout by 2.4% to 17.1 pence from 16.7p paid last year.
"The economic and political environment is currently less than helpful; however despite this we have continued to deliver growth in revenue, cash flow and profit," said Executive Chair Nicholas Vetch.
"As we open new stores from Spring 2020, we anticipate that shareholders will see an increasing contribution in our performance from that expansive strategy," added Vetch.
Big Yellow shares were trading 3.7% lower in London on Tuesday morning at 1,148.10p each.
By Evelina Grecenko; [email protected]
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