7th Feb 2019 10:16
LONDON (Alliance News) - Supermarket Income REIT PLC on Thursday said it swung to a profit in the first half of its financial year following a significant increase in rental income.
The investment company posted a pretax profit of GBP5.5 million in the six months to the end of December compared to a GBP3.3 million loss reported a year earlier.
Rental income almost trebled to GBP8.3 million from GBP3.2 million the year prior, boosted by the new property acquired in the period and the timing of invoicing for some existing assets.
As at December 31, the company's portfolio, worth GBP320.6 million, comprised of six supermarkets, benefiting from "highly attractive" leases to tenants such as Tesco PLC, J Sainsbury PLC, and WM Morrison Supermarkets PLC.
At the financial half-year-end, net asset value was 96 pence per share, unchanged compared to June 2018 and up 2.1% year-on-year.
Supermarket Income upped its quarterly dividend to 1.42 pence a share from 1.38p paid in the first quarter, taking the interim payout to 2.8 pence a share. The company also said it is on track to deliver full-year target of 5.63p per share dividend.
"The company continues to offer robust and growing returns through its investment in long-let food stores which have proved to be operationally and financially resilient despite the uncertainty caused by the ongoing Brexit process and the structural headwinds facing non-food and high street retailers," said Chair Nick Hewson.
"Using our specialist knowledge of the sector our portfolio continues to provide attractive inflation linked income for shareholders," added Hewson.
Supermarket Income REIT shares were trading 2.0% higher on Thursday at 102.00p each.
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Supermarket Income