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(Alliance News) - Sirius Real Estate Ltd on Monday said it continues to experience rental growth in the UK and Germany, citing high demand.
Sirius Real Estate is a London and Johannesburg-listed property investor.
For the half-year that ended September 30, it reported a like-for-like annualised rent roll at Sirius Germany of EUR115.2m, up 2.4% from EUR112.5m at March 31. This was "driven by a 3.3% increase in like for like rate per square metre to EUR6.53," compared to EUR6.32 in March, Sirius stated.
During the same six-month period in the UK, like-for-like annualised rent roll rose 4.1% to GBP46.5 million from GBP44.7 million in March. Like-for-like rate per square foot rose by 8.4% to GBP12.64 from GBP11.67 in March.
For the full-year ending March 31, trading and funds from operations are to be in line with consensus and management expectations, Sirius said.
Looking ahead, the company cites "high demand for all of its product offerings" despite concerns in Europe over the war in Ukraine. "The company is in a strong position to be able to deal with any shortfalls in gas or electricity supply or further hikes in prices, having fixed rates for its and its occupiers' gas supply until the end of next year," it explained.
Further, Chief Executive officer Andrew Coombs said: "We are confident that we can continue to grow our dividend as planned and believe that our ability to re-finance a substantial amount of debt so far in advance of expiry and in these markets demonstrates both the strength of our relationships with our financiers, as well as the confidence they have in our business model and Sirius' ability to continue to perform in good times and bad.
"While we continue to review opportunities, we have deliberately held back on acquisitive growth in the period and further improved our balance sheet so that we can be on the front foot once we feel it appropriate to begin investing again."
Sirius Real will release its half-year results for the six months to September 30 on November 21.
Sirius Real shares were up 2.2% at 70.50 pence each in London on Monday morning, while rising 0.2% to ZAR14.00 each in Johannesburg.
By Tom Budszus; tombudszus@alliancenews.com
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