Part of a Citywire Article (26th June)2 Jul 2023 10:14
Regional looks oversold
Right at the top of the yield pile of UK-focused funds is Regional Reit (RGL), which offers investors a 14% yield – based on its 6.6p dividend for the 2022 financial year (which was fully covered by its earnings) and a share price of 47.1p.
Regional’s first-quarter update in May highlighted that its tenants were paying the rent (96.3% of rents collected on time), its properties were mostly occupied (occupancy was 83.4% as of 31 March), and its cost of debt is fixed at 3.5%.
Most encouragingly, where it has been re-letting property, it is securing decent rental uplifts over the end of December’s estimated rental values for properties.
So far, so good, but with the shares trading on a 38% discount to the 31 March net asset value (NAV), investors are clearly pricing in a disaster.
Investors are wary of offices because of the shift to home working and regional offices in particular. However, earlier this month Regional fund manager Stephen Inglis revealed that a survey of its tenants showed that 93% of employees had returned to the office when compared with pre-pandemic times, and on average were working there 4.2 days per week.
Regional’s borrowing is high, with a loan-to-value ratio of 50.5% at the end of March. It has since sold a building for £8.6m, which will help bring that down a little. The message was of ample headroom on all of its loan covenants and the plan was to bring down the ratio to about 40% over time. Nevertheless, further falls in property values will have an impact on this.
At the end of December, the equivalent yield from rental income on RGL’s office portfolio was 9% and the reversionary yield (based on what the properties are expected to be re-let for) was 10.3%. Regional was launched in 2015, so has no track record of operating in a higher interest rate environment. However, its prospectus did have a chart of regional property yields going back to the beginning of 2001.
This showed UK base rate last stood at 5% in 2008 before the financial crisis struck, when property yields were lower than their long-term averages at below 6% for prime regional property and around 8% for secondary regional property. If we go back to 2004, those figures were about 7% and just over 10%.