Custodian REIT has announced its annual results for the year ended 31 March 2017. During the period, the company provided an NAV total return of 8.5% (2016: 6.4%) and a share price total return of 10.3% (2016: 3.5%). The company’s chairman, David Hunter, says that during the year the company invested a total of £105.0m on the completion of 25 acquisitions and one ongoing pre-let development, funded by £92.4m raised from the issue of new shares and £25m of new term debt. He says that increasing the scale of the Company and a continued focus on controlling costs has reduced the overall capitalization rate (excluding direct property expenses) from 1.3% to 1.2%. David says that the company plans to achieve further growth to realise the economies of scale offered by the Company’s relatively fixed cost base and the recently announced reduction in Investment Manager fees.
Financial highlights
- The company has provided the following financial highlights for the year:
- NAV per share total return of 8.5% (2016: 6.4%)
- EPRA earnings per share of 6.6p (2016: 6.8p), basic and diluted earnings per share of 8.1p (2016: 5.5p)
- Portfolio value of £415.8m (2016: £319.0m)
- Profit after tax up 116% to £24.2m (2016: £11.2m)
- £92.4m of new equity raised at average premium of 5.1% to NAV
- 2018 target dividend per share increased to 6.45p (2017: 6.35p)
- £105.0m5 invested in 25 acquisitions and one on-going pre-let development
- £8.9m valuation uplift from successful asset management initiatives, £2.9m net valuation increase6
- £1.6m profit on disposal of six properties for an aggregate consideration of £18.9m
CREI : Custodian REIT benefitting from economies of scale