Sirius Real Estate trades in line despite lower rent roll

(Sharecast News) - Property firm Sirius Real Estate has continued to trade in line with expectations despite its declining rent roll.
For the six months ended 30 September, Sirius Real Estate saw its annual rent roll contract rise by 4.2% year-on-year to reach €78.5m. However, this figure still marked a 2.6% improvement on the €76.5m rent roll reported by the group on 1 April.

Like-for-like annualised rent rose 0.9% to €77.2m over the half, driven by a 1.6% like-for-like rental rate to €5.92 per square foot. Like-for-like occupancy was flat at 85%.

Also during the half, Sirius wrapped-up its Titanium joint venture with AXA Investment Managers in July, selling 65% of its interest in five business parks and generating net proceeds in excess of €70m.

Sirius also agreed to an extension of its existing facility with real estate and mortgage bank BerlinHyp, almost tripling the size of its facility to €180.2m.

Chief executive Andrew Coombs said:" "It has been another encouraging six months for Sirius, during which we have completed the Titanium joint venture transaction with AXA, secured a new debt package at a historic low fixed interest rate for the company of 0.9% and made considerable progress on identifying and securing earnings enhancing acquisitions."

As of 0845 BST, Sirius Real Estate shares were up 2.24% at 73.92p.