24th May 2016 08:32
LONDON (Alliance News) - Hibernia REIT PLC on Tuesday said it expects the volume of transactions in Dublin's investment market to remain above long term averages in the near term, after almost doubling its full year dividend on a strong set of results.
The Irish real estate investment trust saw its revenue surge in the year ended March 31 to EUR32.8 million, up from EUR18.8 million a year earlier, after rental income grew to EUR27.9 million from EUR14.7 million a year earlier.
Hibernia posted a gain on revaluation of investment properties of EUR125.1 million, up from EUR80.8 million a year earlier, which was assisted, in particular, by the valuation uplift in Cumberland House following the pre-let of the majority of the building to social media firm Twitter Inc. As such, pretax profit for the year came in at EUR136.8 million, higher than the EUR92.2 million Hibernia posted a year earlier.
Hibernia proposed a final dividend of 0.8 euro cents per share, up from 0.5 euro cents a year earlier, which took its total dividend to 1.5 cents per share, higher than the 0.8 cents per share offered the prior year.
The company said it invested EUR179.0 million in nine acquisitions during the year, and said its development programme made progress. It currently has four committed development schemes which will deliver 354,000 square feet of high quality office space in 2016, 2017 and 2018, currently 27% pre-let.
Its longer term pipeline expanded to six schemes totalling 610,000 square feet of office space post completion. In September 2015, it has two schemes totalling 530,000 square feet in its long term pipeline.
"We are delighted to report strong results, benefiting from our strategy of focusing on prime office assets in Dublin's city centre, the area we have consistently said would deliver superior rental growth and tenant take-up," said Chief Executive Kevin Nowlan.
"We have continued to be disciplined in deploying our capital into selective acquisitions which we believe will enhance our portfolio and we grew our longer term pipeline of development projects substantially in the year. Our committed schemes, which will deliver 354,000 square feet of high quality office space in Dublin's city centre, are progressing well and will be completed over the next 24 months when new supply is expected to be limited," Nowlan added.
Shares in Hibernia were untraded on Tuesday, having last traded at EUR1.29.
By Hannah Boland; [email protected]; @Hannaheboland
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