11th Aug 2016 07:43
LONDON (Alliance News) - Grainger PLC on Thursday said it has seen no material impact on its business following the UK's vote to leave the European Union, and said its operational activity in the first ten months of its financial year had been in line with management expectations.
The residential landlord said that in the period ended July 31 there continued to be high levels of demand for its UK private rented sector homes, with good lettings and levels of rental growth. In its year-to-date, there was 4.9% rental growth on new lets and 2.8% rental growth on renewals.
On newly acquired assets, Grainger said it has seen rental growth increasing over the past three months, with rent increases on new lets in July averaging 5.8% and the time taken to let the properties falling steadily.
Meanwhile, there has been a strong performance in its sales division, in line with management expectations, the company said, noting that it has generates GBP91.0 million of revenue from sales of vacant properties over the ten-month period. A year earlier, it had generated GBP81.0 million revenue.
Grainger said its sales pipeline at the end of July stood at GBP188.0 million, up from the GBP172.0 million reported a year earlier. The non-core development land sale, which it completed in April, delivered revenue of GBP8.0 million and profit of GBP5.8 million.
Grainger said it has continued to progress its strategy to capitalise on the private rented sector market, having restructured the business to focus on this sector and regulated tenancies, with a target investment of GBP850.0 million in private rented sector assets through to 2020.
Since the beginning of the second half on April 1, Grainger said it has started construction on its GBP100.0 million Clippers Quay scheme in Salford and has progressed construction on the first two of the seven development sites in London.
Grainger said it was on track to achieve the 24% cost savings by financial year 2017 which it announced it was targeting in May.
Shares in Grainger were up 0.4% at 219.00 pence on Thursday.
By Hannah Boland; [email protected]; @Hannaheboland
Copyright 2016 Alliance News Limited. All Rights Reserved.
Related Shares:
Grainger plc