13th Mar 2025 10:06
(Alliance News) - Empiric Student Property on Thursday reported like-for-like rental growth as it said its focus remains on deployment and delivery of its recent equity raise.
The London-based owner and operator of student accommodation in the UK said like-for-like rental growth grew to 9.3% in 2024, rising from 7.0% in 2023.
EPRA earnings per share grew 5.0% to 4.2 pence from 4.0 pence. EPRA net tangible assets per share fell 0.9% to 119.6p from 120.7p, which Empiric attributed to its recent equity raise.
Empiric raised GBP56.1 million in October to fund a pipeline of "accretive investment and postgraduate refurbishment opportunities".
Its portfolio value rose 3.4% to GBP1.14 billion from GBP1.10 billion the prior year.
Pretax profit fell 36% to GBP34.4 million in 2024, from GBP53.4 million the prior year. This was despite revenue improving 4.6% to GBP84.2 million from GBP80.5 million.
The weaker profitability can be attributed primarily to changes in fair value and loss on disposal of investment property.
Empiric reported a GBP4.2 million loss on disposal of investment property for 2024, widening from GBP0.6 million.
It also recorded a GBP15.4 million increase in fair value of investment property. However, this compares to GBP30.1 million the year before.
Its shares were down 3.7% at 80.60 pence on Thursday morning in London.
Empiric declared a final quarterly dividend of 1.075 pence per share, bringing the total dividend to 3.7p per share. This represents a 5.7% uplift from 3.5p the prior year.
For the 2025/2026 academic year sales cycle, it expects like-for-like rental growth of 5%.
Chief Executive Duncan Garrood said: "The business has delivered another year of great progress against its strategic objectives, most pleasingly in respect to our growth agenda. Having successfully concluded the company's first equity raise since 2017, our focus remains squarely on its deployment and delivery.
"2024 saw us add three fantastic new sites to the portfolio growing our existing clusters in Bristol, Glasgow and Manchester. We also unlocked value from existing sites with planning consent achieved at Victoria Point in Manchester, and have continued to make good progress on our programme of refurbishment, driving enhanced rental growth."
By Christopher Ward, Alliance News reporter
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