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German business park investor Sirius Real Estate upped its dividend after notching an improvement in its underlying profit amid a rise in revenue.
The company declared an interim dividend of 1.82c per share, up 2.8% year-on-year.
Pre-tax profit for the six months through September decreased 22% to €62.2 million, down from €79.7 million year-on-year, owing to lower gains on the value of its portfolio.
Sirius Real Estate said underlying profitability had risen 33%, when adjusting for valuation gains of €33.5 million, below the €58.2 million of year-on-year gains.
Funds from operations grew 7.4% to €29.1 million while revenue rose 9.8% to €79.3 million. Net asset value per share rose 5.0% to 81.18c.
'In what has been an unprecedented year with the Covid-19 pandemic causing widespread disruption to businesses the world over, Sirius' strong first half results are all the more impressive,' chief executive Andrew Coombs said.
Coombs said that although recent news of a potential vaccine had provided 'some much needed light at the end of the tunnel', uncertainty about the speed of any recovery remains.
'Nevertheless, I take great confidence from the fact that the wide range of competitively priced flexible and traditional office, storage, as well as industrial and manufacturing spaces we offer will continue to appeal to our growing customer base and drive income growth,' he added.
'Looking ahead we have a strong cash position and other liquid resources available to deploy into our healthy pipeline of opportunities as the investment markets begin to open up. '
'Additionally, they allow us to continue to execute our disciplined capital expenditure and asset management programmes, which have delivered highly attractive returns over the years, in order to unlock the potential of our value add assets which comprise just over half of our €1.2 billion portfolio.'
'Through organic and acquisitive growth we believe there is an opportunity to grow our funds from operations over the next few years, which should support a growing dividend.'