21 Sep 2012 16:19
21 September 2012
Northacre PLC ("Northacre")
Receipt of £13.56m Dividend and Update on The Lancasters
Northacre PLC announces that it has today received an interim dividend from Lancaster Gate (Hyde Park) Ltd, our joint venture with Minerva. The sum received was £13,559,500. This receipt represents the third interim dividend from the project, with the total received to date now £17,707,059, and we are now receiving 50% of the profits under the profit waterfall structure. The proceeds of this third dividend will be used to repay debt and other outstanding obligations of the business. The Debt remaining after this will be c£1.25m (excluding the pension fund loan), although over and above this we have a healthy cash balance available for working capital and to finance interior design project costs.
Our interim statement (for the 6 months to 31 August 2012) will be published in November 2012, however we would like to take this opportunity to provide further guidance on our expectations for profit share from the Lancasters development. We reported in our year-end Statement (published on 24 July 2012) that our estimate of the Fair Value attaching to our interest in the Lancasters was £40.8m, which we are now able to clarify, with an upward revision. Given that just 5 of the apartments remain unsold, we now estimate that our total profit share (net of Corporation Tax) is likely to be in the region of £49.0m to £51.0m assuming sales continue at the price levels achieved thus far and once the remaining 5 apartments are sold. As noted above, we have received £17.7m to date and we therefore estimate that a further £31.3m to £33.3m will be forthcoming. The timing of the receipt of further dividends is not known.
As we stated in our Annual Report, our priority on receipt of further dividends, once all debt and other obligations are repaid and working capital provided for, is to make a distribution to our Shareholders and we hope to be able to make a further announcement about this in the coming months.
Enquiries:
Northacre PLC
Ken MacRae (Chief Executive Officer & Finance Director)
Klas Nilsson (Chairman)
Tel: (020) 7349 8000
Hudson Sandler Ltd
Michael Sandler
(020) 7796 4133
Peel Hunt LLP (Nominated Adviser and Broker)
Capel Irwin
Harry Florry
Tel: (020) 7418 8900