Regional REIT has reported its COVID hit results for 2020.
Operationally, the results were robust, but EPRA net tangible assets (NTA) was down 12.4% in the year to 98.6p per share, driven by a 7% drop in the value of its portfolio to £732.4m.
The group collected 96.1% of rents during the year (98.2% with monthly rents and deferments included), which is not far off the 99.4% it collected in 2019 at the equivalent time.
Meanwhile, rent roll remained stable at £64.2m (2019: £64.3m).
EPRA earnings per share was 6.5p (2019: 7.8p), which fully covered a reduced annual dividend of 6.4p (2019: 8.25p).
Since it launched in 2015 the group has produced a total return of 36.3%, representing 6.2% annualised returns.
The group, which has previously announced plans to exit all industrial (11.1% of portfolio) and retail (5.4%) holdings to focus entirely on regional offices, has a loan to value of 40.8%, with a weighted average debt duration of 6.4 years and cost of debt of 3.3%.
Stephen Inglis, chief executive of Regional REIT’s asset manager, said: “We have taken significant steps to capitalise on the changing landscape in our market by tilting the Group’s focus to take full advantage of the mispricing that we are seeing in quality regional offices.
“We look forward to updating shareholders on further progress as we continue to reposition the portfolio to take full advantage of our active pipeline of compelling regional office opportunities.”
RGL : Regional REIT reports COVID hit results