Full Year Results
Financial highlights
· Dividends declared in respect of 2015 totalled 6.0 pence per share, in line with our target.
· Total return for the year of 19.4%, compared to the FTSE EPRA/NAREIT UK REITs Index of 10.5%.
· We agreed a new £500 million debt facility, reducing our average cost of borrowing by 35bps to 1.42% above 3 month Libor and extending our average unexpired loan term to 4.67 years.
· The EPRA net asset value per share increased by 17.11 pence (or 15.91%) to 124.68 pence (31 December 2014: 107.57 pence).
· We raised £229 million of equity during 2015 under our share issuance programme which expired on 7 July 2015.
· The portfolio is 100% let, or pre-let with developer licence fee income, across 25 properties.
· Our investment properties were independently valued at £1.31 billion1.
· £106.75 million valuation gain on our investment property portfolio during 2015.
· The portfolio's contracted rental income has increased to £68.37 million1 per annum (31 December 2014: £36.16 million1), including forward funded developments.
Operational highlights
· We acquired 11 Big Boxes during the year, five of which were forward funded pre-let developments. The acquisitions further diversified the portfolio by geography, tenant and building size.
· At the year end, the portfolio contained 25 assets, covering approximately 13 million sq ft of logistics space.
· The total expense ratio for the year was 1.09%, down from 1.13% for the prior period, which compares favourably with our real estate peers.
· At the year end, the weighted average unexpired lease term ("WAULT") was 16.5 years (31 December 2014: 13.9 years), against our target of at least 12 years.
· The average net initial yield of the portfolio at acquisition is 5.8% against our year end valuation of 4.9% net initial yield.
· 33% Loan to Value ("LTV"). On a fully invested basis, including the fulfilment of our forward funded development commitments this increases to c.40%.
· Our shares were:
o included in the FTSE EPRA/NAREIT Global Developed Index from 23 March 2015
o included in the FTSE 250 Index from 8 June 2015
o included in the MSCI Global Small Cap Index from 30 November 2015
· This helped to attract new investors and broaden liquidity in the shares with daily average traded value of £2.2 million in 2015
Post balance sheet highlights
· On 16 February 2016, the Company completed a £200 million equity fundraising in order to fund its near term investment pipeline.
· Progressive dividend target of 6.2 pence per share set for 2016.