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LONDON (Alliance News) - Self-storage company Lok'nStore Group PLC on Monday said its pretax profit doubled in the first half, after the company received a further GBP5.5 million from sales made in both in the period and in previous financial years, and reported a rise in revenue.
Lok'nstore said pretax profit came in at GBP3.8 million for the six months ended January 31, from GBP1.5 million for the same period a year earlier, largely coming from proceeds from sales made in the past two financial years.
Lok'nstore said it had seen revenue growth of 4.7% to GBP8.0 million from GBP7.6 million. However, profit was driven up further by the receipt of an additional GBP2.0 million from the purchaser of the Reading store site, which was originally sold in October 2014, taking the total consideration for the site to GBP4.9 million.
Lok-nstore said during the six month period to the end of January, it had also completed the sale and manage-back of its Swindon East store for GBP3.5 million in cash.
The company said occupancy increased 2.4% year on year on a like for like basis to 63.6% of current lettable area, which was combined with a healthy year on year price increase of 3.3%. Self storage revenue for the period came in at GBP6.9 million, up 3.3% from the GBP6.7 million reported a year earlier.
Lok'nstore hiked its interim dividend by 15% to 2.67 pence per share, from 2.33p per share a year earlier, in line with its progressive dividend policy.
The company said it is on track to open new stores in Southampton and Bristol in early May 2016, and will be opening other stores in 2017 and 2018. It noted the agreement of a new banking facility with the Royal Bank of Scotland PLC in January, a GBP40.0 million five-year revolving credit facility, will provide funding for further acquisitions.
"With the high barriers to entry to the self-storage industry created by the strong demand for property in South-East England and the difficulties of the local planning process, we believe that the increased capacity which Lok'nStore has already and will continue to create will provide the opportunity for significant further growth" said Chairman Simon Thomas.
By Hannah Boland; hannahboland@alliancenews.com; @Hannaheboland
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