Kennedy Wilson Real Estate Europe, in releasing its interim results for half year ended 30 June 2015, have announced that the quarterly dividend is increasing by 25%, over the previous quarter, to 10p per share. The company say that this will be 40p per share annualised, which the board advise is a sustainable dividend level for the company.
During H1, the company completed £638.6 million of transactions, so that total portfolio valuation now stands at £2,218.8m. The company’s EPRA NAV per share increased by 9.1% to 1,114.5p per share and like for like NOI grew by 3.2%. The portfolio value movement is primarily owing to acquisitions and valuation surplus of £120.6 million. EPRA earnings per share were 18.9 pence per share (£25.5 million) and basic earnings per share were 110.2 pence per share.
The Period saw £5.0 million of incremental annualised NOI added through 105 leasing transactions across 408,100 sq ft. Occupancy has improved and now stands at 96.8%, an increase of 3.3 percentage points over year-end.
The company completed a £300m senior unsecured bond issue in June (rated BBB by S&P) and reports significant portfolio activity so far during H2 with £228.4m worth of acquisitions completed. This majority of this is a portfolio of nine offices, across the South East, acquired for £211m, which provides a yield on cost of 8.0%. This has raises annualised NOI to £149.2m and total portfolio value to £2,449.6m.
In terms of outlook, the company says that the general environments in the UK and Ireland are positive and that investment in key cities remains attractive, especially for offices as well as selected residential and retail properties. They are also seeing increasing opportunities in Spain and continue to look at other European markets, such as Italy.
Kennedy Wilson Europe Real Estate announces 25% increase in quarterly dividend : KWE