Warehouse REIT interim profit grows as revaluation gains double

Warehouse REIT PLC on Thursday said profit grew in the first half of its current financial year, as its fair value gain on property revaluations more than doubled.

The London-based investor in real estate, with a focus on UK industrial warehouses, said pretax profit for the six months that ended September 30 was £25.1 million, up 14% from £22.0 million the year before.

This was primarily due to the company’s fair value gain on the revaluation of investment properties more than doubling to £17.2 million from £6.8 million the year before.

Gross property income grew 7.7% to £25.1 million from £23.3 million.

The company declared in interim dividend of 3.2 pence per share, unchanged from last year.

Chair Neil Kirton said: ‘The occupational market for multi-let industrial continues to be resilient; rents are growing at an attractive rate, quality stock remains in short supply and, for the first time since March 2022, we have seen yield compression on multi-let assets which has supported a 4.1% increase in the value of the investment portfolio.

‘Our strategy continues to focus on maximising the income streams from our high quality portfolio of predominantly multi-let, well-located and highly reversionary warehouse assets. This approach goes hand-in-hand with reducing our debt and rebuilding dividend cover, which are strategic imperatives for the business. Key to this is executing on the sale of our Radway Green development, and we are pleased to have agreed terms on the first phase.’

Broker Shore Capital forecast full-year total property income of £52.3 million, which would represent a 2.5% growth from £51.0 million the year before.

Shares in Warehouse REIT were up 0.7% at 84.32 pence each in London on Thursday afternoon.

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