Over the year to 31 March 2016, LondonMetric Property’s EPRA NAV increased from 140.6 to 1467.7. EPRA earnings increased from £40.9m to £48.5m which equates to an earnings per share increase from 6.6p to 7.8p. The dividend has been increased to 7.25p from 7.0p. They are implementing a policy of paying quarterly dividends the first of which will be 1.8p payable in October 2016.
Within the portfolio, WAULT remains at 13 years, occupancy is 99.3% and only 6.0% of rent expires within the next five years.
During the year, they acquired GBP155 million of distribution assets let to occupiers such as Next, Poundworld and DHL. They successfully delivered 1.9 million sq ft of developments and distribution developments in Wakefield and Warrington are on track to complete later this year. These two developments along with pipeline developments at Stoke, Bedford and Crawley will add a further GBP11.8 million of rental income. Distribution assets now account for 58% of the portfolio.
During the year LondonMetric took advantage of a strong property market and sold over GBP200 million of assets, the proceeds of which have been recycled into attractive investments yielding 100 bps more than the sales.
Looking at the balance sheet, average debt maturity is 5.6 years, cost of debt is 3.5% and the loan to value ratio was 38% at the year end.
LMP : Increased focus on distribution for LondonMetric