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LONDON (Alliance News) - Irish commercial property investor Sirius Real Estate Ltd on Monday posted a rise in pretax profit for the financial year to the end of March, as it said it was considering making applications to move to the main markets of both the London Stock Exchange and Johannesburg Stock Exchange.
The group's pretax profit rose to EUR57.1 million from EUR32.7 million a year earlier, boosted by the EUR44.2 million uplift from property revaluations net of capital expenditure.
Sirius Real Estate's net rental income rose to EUR40.0 million, up from EUR30.3 million a year earlier, as like-for-like gross annualised rent roll increased to EUR53.0 million from EUR50.0 million and its average rental rate across the portfolio on a like-for-like basis rose to EUR4.99 per square metre from EUR4.75 per square metre.
Sirius Real Estate said occupancy rose to 80% for the year ended March 31, up from 79% a year earlier.
In total, the group achieved new lettings in the period of 150,864 square metres at an average rate of EUR5.33 per square metre, having achieved 119,992 square metres at EUR5.02 a year earlier.
Sirius Real Estate raised its final dividend to 1.30 euro cents per share from 0.84 cent a year earlier, which will make its total dividend for the full year 2.22 cents per share, up from 1.61 cents a year earlier.
Sirius Real Estate said that, due to its longer-term ambitions, it was considering making applications to move to the main markets of the London Stock Exchange and Johannesburg Stock Exchange during the course of the next financial year and will be consulting with its advisers and major shareholders in the coming weeks. The company is current traded on AIM.
"Sirius is well placed for the next year as it is set to benefit from significant increases in like-for-like rent roll as well as increased scale following over EUR100.0 million of acquisitions, including EUR22.2 million since year end, whose impact is yet to be fully reflected in the financial performance. In addition Sirius has significantly lowered the cost of debt to 2.2% post year end from 4.3% and a buoyant German rental market, together with our capex investment programme, is fuelling rent roll and valuation growth," said Chairman Robert Sinclair.
By Hannah Boland; hannahboland@alliancenews.com; @Hannaheboland
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