Headline profits at Tritax Big Box REIT (BBOX) for the six months to June were boosted by a healthy valuation uplift on its portfolio of large warehouses, but rental income also jumped more than a third. These two combined to push adjusted net asset value (NAV) ahead by nearly 10 per cent to 146.2p.
Four 'big box' facilities were acquired, three of which were forward funded on a pre-let basis and with an unexpired lease term of 26 years. When completed, these will increase the rent roll by £9.4m a year. After the half-year-end, Tritax also secured a forward-funded development pre-let to Amazon.
Having fully invested funds raised in 2017, a further placing in April raised £156m, and at the half-year there were £160m of assets under offer. And there is still plenty of room for increased gearing, with the 25 per cent loan-to-value ratio comfortably below the medium-term target of 35 per cent.
A lack of speculative development means that there is currently only one new building of over 500,000 sq ft available in the UK, and this has helped to underpin rental growth, with only the East Midlands reporting flat income.
Prior to these numbers, analysts at Liberum were forecasting adjusted NAV at the December 2018 year-end of 150p (from 142.2p in 2017).
| TRITAX BIG BOX (BBOX) | ||||
| ORD PRICE: | 153.1p | MARKET VALUE: | £ 2.26bn | |
| TOUCH: | 153.1-153.3p | 12-MONTH HIGH: | 158p | LOW: 139p |
| DIVIDEND YIELD: | 4.3% | DEVELOPMENT PROPERTIES: | nil | |
| PREMIUM TO NAV: | 6% | NET DEBT: | 28% | |
| INVESTMENT PROPERTIES: | £2.75bn | |||
| Half-year to 30 Jun | Net asset value (p) | Pre-tax profit (£m) | Earnings per share (p) | Dividend per share (p) |
| 2017 | 132 | 81 | 6.9 | 3.2 |
| 2018 | 145 | 107 | 7.6 | 3.35* |
| % change | +10 | +33 | +11 | +5 |
| Ex-div: | 19 Jul | |||
| Payment: | 9 Aug | |||
| *Interims paid quarterly. XD and pay dates refer to second-quarter dividend of 1.675p | ||||
