19th Nov 2020 10:44
(Alliance News) - Grainger PLC on Thursday said it saw a "resilient" financial year given the challenges and upped its final payout despite its profit narrowing.
The Newcastle-upon-Tyne, England-based residential property business said pretax profit for the year ended September 30 narrowed 16% to GBP110.8 million from GBP131.3 million a year prior. Net valuation gains on investment property almost halved to GBP29.8 million from GBP57.5 million.
Revenue fell 3.9% to GBP214.0 million from GBP222.8 million.
Grainger saw an average rent collection for the year of 97% paid on time.
The company said: "The 2020 financial year has been another year of good performance, benefiting from our strategic transition into the private rented sector (PRS) and the strength of our in-house operating platform. Our business has performed well and proven resilient in a challenging market given the uncertainty from Brexit, a UK general election and the impact of the Covid-19 lockdown. Our performance has a greater alignment to the performance fundamentals of PRS which remain strong and are underpinned by an on-going undersupply of housing."
Chief Executive Helen Gordon added: "Our continued growth this year despite the challenging conditions of Covid-19 pandemic proves the strengths of our strategy, operating platform and business model."
Grainger announced a final dividend of 3.64 pence per share, up from 3.46 pence. This brings the year's total payout to 5.47 pence, up 5% from 5.19 pence.
Going forward, Grainger said: "Our strategic transition to a PRS focused business was rooted in the compelling, resilient, low risk returns that we believed we could generate, and the long-term supply-demand imbalance in rental housing that underpins this investment case remains as relevant as ever. In a year where the market experienced challenging events our business model continued to deliver a strong performance."
Grainger noted however that there may be some near-term economic challenges ahead, but added the fundamentals of the business "remain in very good shape".
Grainger shares were up 1.5% at 306.20 pence each on Thursday morning in London.
By Greg Roxburgh; [email protected]
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