22nd May 2018 09:30
LONDON (Alliance News) - Big Yellow Group PLC said Tuesday revenue grew 7% in the financial year ended March, on the back of strong occupancy performance.
The UK self-storage company, operating in London and the South-East, reported like-for-like revenue of GBP114.7 million, up from GBP107.3 million year-on-year.
The company said revenue increased due to higher occupancy levels of its storage facilities reaching 81% up three percentage points of the year before at 78%.
The company said it expects further growth in occupancy over the summer.
Executive Chairman Nicholas Vetch said: "We remain focussed on our core objective of increasing occupancy to 90%. As we have previously indicated, higher levels of occupancy deliver more traction on pricing and drive rate growth and indeed we have seen that materialise in the second half of the year."
Pretax profit grew 34% to GBP134.1 million from GBP99.8 million in 2017. On an adjusted basis profit before tax grew 12% to GBP61.4 million.
The company lifted the year's total dividend 12% to 30.8 pence form 27.6p. The final dividend was increased 10% to 15.5p.
"Risks external to our business remain, and there will no doubt be setbacks in economic growth. It is for that reason that we keep the business very conservatively financed thus enabling us to plan and execute the next phase of growth," Vetch added.
Big Yellow shares were trading down 0.7% early Tuesday morning at 955.78p.
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