16th Mar 2016 07:56
LONDON (Alliance News) - Tritax Big Box REIT PLC on Wednesday reported a rise in its net asset value per share in 2015 and increased its dividend, after expanding its portfolio over the course of the year.
The company, which invests in so-called 'big box' warehouse assets, said its net asset value per share was 124.09 pence for the year ended December 31, up from 107.02p in 2014, and it hiked its full-year dividend to 6.12 pence per share from 4.86p, in line with its progressive dividend policy announced in December. This meant share price total return for the year was 19.4%, compared to 10.4% a year earlier.
Tritax said it acquired 11 new assets in 2015, pushing its portfolio up to 25 properties, comprised of 20 completed assets and 5 forward-funded developments that have already been let. Combined, those assets cover 13.0 million square foot of floor space, of which 2.8 million square foot is under construction.
Tritax said its portfolio was fully let or pre-let, and the average net initial purchase yield across the portfolio is 5.8%.
As such, net rental income for the year was GBP43.7 million, up from GBP18.6 million in 2014. Tritax said the valuation of its portfolio had more than doubled over the year, to GBP1.31 billion from GBP619.0 million.
Tritax posted a pretax profit of GBP134.0 million, tripling from GBP41.8 million a year earlier.
Since the start of 2016, Tritax has raised GBP200.0 million in a subscription of shares, and said this put it in "a very strong position to diversify further our high-quality portfolio". It said there are good opportunities for it to acquire attractive assets and create capital value enhancement at both point of purchase and through asset management.
"Although we see the potential for further yield compression in the Big Box sector and logistics more generally, we expect this could be modest compared with 2015," said Chairman Richard Jewson.
"The balance of occupational supply and demand is, however, causing rents to rise in the sector and the balanced profile of rent review dates linked to a combination of open market, retail price index and fixed increases across our portfolio, provides the opportunity to grow income year on year. This underpins our ability to increase the dividend in 2016, with an ambition of further dividend growth thereafter," Jewson added.
By Hannah Boland; [email protected]; @Hannaheboland
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