 SEGRO chief executive Ian Coull
SEGRO plc (formerly known as Slough Estates) meets occupiers' needs by
delivering ideal business space solutions, backed by high standards of
service, in prime locations such as at key transport hubs.
In managing today's space for tomorrow's environment, SEGRO is
determined to remain a leading world-class performer, for both
customers and investors.
It has 13 developments across Business Weekly's circulation footprint
alone. Headquartered in the UK, SEGRO plc has a listing on the London
Stock Exchange and on the Euronext in Paris. It is Europe's leading
provider of flexible business space and one of the largest REITs in the
world.
SEGRO's first half results to the end of June showed another excellent
performance with adjusted profit before tax up by 27 per cent. The
company also reported good Net Asset value growth with valuation
surpluses of 9.1 per cent in Continental Europe and 2.1 per cent in UK.
In a stirring start to 2007, SEGRO has already made acquisitions of
around €430m, an nounced development completions of 131,000 sq m (76
per cent let/sold), construction in progress of 263,000 sq m and
excellent letting successes (59,000 sq m of new pre-lets), with strong
occupier demand.
The firm paid a special dividend of £250m (53p per share) on August 31
and the interim divi dend was up 20.3 per cent. It expects the full
year dividend to show a similar increase.
Chief executive Ian Coull, said: "In the first half of 2007, the Group
delivered another strong financial and operational performance. We
benefited from yield compression across our portfolio (although modest
in the UK) but our results have been driven primarily by management
activity in all sectors of our business.
"NAV growth came from our development activity, good asset management
and our strong profitability, both in the UK and in Continental Europe.
"We also realised the signifi cant value we had created in our
biotechnology real estate business in California. Following the payment
of the £250 million special dividend, the remaining net proceeds from
this well timed sale will be invested in our focused European business,
with a growing number of prime assets located in key business centres.
"Across the portfolio we remain confident about the opportunities for
continuing growth, with a large and strong development pipeline and
with healthy occupier demand. Our business model is focused on growing
cash flows from the underlying real estate assets by concentrating on
our customers' needs, by delivering growth from development and through
earnings accretive acquisitions.
"We have an extremely robust income profile, serving a wide spread of
customers and industries, a long average lease length and mostly fixed
rate debt.
"We are continuing to find very attractive acquisitions in Continental
Europe where we can exploit the still very positive gap between
investment and development yields and the cost of borrowing.
Our Group's 2.2 million sq m development pipeline dwarfs that of any other UK based industrial company.
"Our portfolio predominantly consists of good quality, well located, resilient prime property.
For these reasons, whilst we have been and will continue planning our
UK business on the prudent assumption of a tougher investment market,
we do so with confidence in our team's ability to deliver.
"We are financially strong and have very good cash flow. I believe this
places us in an excellent position to take advantage of the
opportunities that will, undoubtedly, arise in the coming months."
www.segro.com
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