LONDON (Alliance News) - Highcroft Investments PLC Thursday said its annual pretax profit rose by more than a third, boosted by strong rental income from its portfolio.
Pretax profit rose to GBP4.8 million, from GBP3.6 million in 2012, as net rental income rose to GBP2.6 million. Chairman John Hewitt said the increase was down to its commercial portfolio.
"This growth includes the effect of a full year's income from the warehouse unit in Bedford purchased in August 2012 and from our warehouse unit in Milton Keynes purchased in November 2012," Hewitt said in a statement.
"In addition, two new units were purchased in the year. The first was a retail warehouse property in Bicester let to Wickes Building Supplies Limited and the second a modern office investment in Cardiff let to Arriva Trains Ltd," he said.
"We have been very pleased with the performance of the portfolio with the only void, arising at the year end, being a single floor of our office building in Bristol. There were no bad debts in the period," Hewitt added.
Highcroft raised GBP2.4 million from selling two smaller assets at auction in December 2013, 31% in excess of the June 2013 valuations.
"The intention is to reinvest these funds into a mixture of both secure income assets and assets which offer the opportunity for further enhancement thus providing both capital and income growth," Hewitt said.
The Chairman was positive about the company's near-term future, stating, "We are very pleased with the results for the year and remain optimistic that we start 2014 from a position of strength upon which we hope to build through further attractive acquisitions. We have set ourselves some challenging objectives for 2014 and we expect that our actions will continue to improve shareholder value via increased dividends and asset values."
Highcroft Investments increased its full-year dividend to 33.75 pence from 31.80 pence.
Highcroft Investments shares were Thursday quoted at 819.00 pence, up 3.0%.
By Samuel Agini; samagini@alliancenews.com; @samuelagini
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