20th Nov 2018 08:57
LONDON (Alliance News) - Big Yellow Group PLC on Tuesday said its half-year performance was "strong" on the back of increased occupancy and rate growth.
For the six months to September 30, the self-storage company posted revenue up 7% to GBP62.2 million from GBP58.1 million a year ago.
However, the firm's pretax profit slumped 22% to GBP61.4 million from GBP78.7 million a year prior due to a lower revaluation gain in the period. On an adjusted basis, excluding losses on property revaluation, changes in fair value of interest rate derivatives and disposal gains, pretax profit increased 9% to GBP33.3 million from GBP30.6 million.
Closing occupancy in the first half was 83.8%, up 0.4 of a percentage point from 83.4%. Meanwhile, store like-for-like occupancy was up 1.5 percentage points to 84.9% from 83.4% a year prior.
Property rates were up 6% to GBP5.5 million from GBP5.2 million.
Chairman Nicholas Vetch said: "We have continued to grow our like-for-like occupancy to 84.9% and remain focussed on our core objective of 90% across the portfolio. As we have reduced vacant capacity, our pricing model is delivering improved rental growth and we are pleased to have achieved growth in average net rent of 3.7%.
"It is self-evident that the current political and economic outlook is more uncertain than usual, but as a management team we cannot influence the outcomes. We remain focused on strengthening our market leading brand and operating platform, filling stores and then driving rental growth at higher occupancy levels and developing new high quality stores, while maintaining a conservative capital structure."
Big Yellow upped its interim dividend by 9% to 16.7 pence per share.
Looking ahead, the firm said it believes it is protected against the adversity arising from an uncertain political and economic outlook.
Big Yellow shares were trading up 0.8% at 927.00 pence each.
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