Regional REIT raising £50m to take advantage of 'substantial pipeline'

Regional real estate investment firm Regional REIT announced the proposed issue of further ordinary shares on Monday, to raise gross proceeds of around £50m.

The London-listed real estate investment trust was proposing the issue of up to 46,948,357 new ordinary shares under its capital raising, targeting gross proceeds of £50m.

It said qualifying shareholders would be offered the opportunity to participate in the open offer on the basis of one new ordinary share for every eight existing ordinary shares.

Qualifying shareholders would also be offered the opportunity to subscribe for new ordinary shares in addition to their open offer entitlements under the excess application facility.

The board said it had reserved the right to increase the size of the capital raising by up to 46,948,357 new ordinary shares.

It said the issue price was 106.5p per share, representing a discount of 1.8% to the closing price per ordinary share on 21 June, and a discount of 7.8% to the audited EPRA net asset value per share as at 31 December.

Regional REIT explained that negotiations were ongoing over the acquisition of a “geographically-diverse portfolio” of six office assets, which it said would provide a range of interesting asset management opportunities for the company.

Its asset manager, London & Scottish Property Investment Management, had reportedly identified a “significant pipeline” of assets in excess of £500m, including the target assets, which met the firm’s investment objective and policy and which could apparently be acquired in a “relatively short” time frame.

The capital raising was also expected to broaden the company's investor base, and enhance the size and liquidity of its share capital, as well as provide the group with the opportunity to capitalise on further economies of scale that an enhanced capital base could bring.

At the same time, Regional REIT also announced it was targeting a dividend of 8.25p per share for the year ending 31 December, up from the 8.05p distribution at the end of 2018.

“The board of Regional REIT is delighted to be announcing this fundraise to support the next period of growth for the group,” said chairman Kevin McGrath.

“The investment strategy of the group has returned considerable income returns together with capital growth for shareholders and, together with the asset manager's active property management approach, we look forward to continuing to meet the investment criteria of the company for both existing and new shareholders.”

Stephen Inglis, chief executive officer of asset manager London & Scottish Property Investment Management, added that the firm had identified a “substantial pipeline” of potential deals at prices where he said they could “readily achieve” the returns it was targeting for the company, and in a market with fewer investors for the type of assets it was currently reviewing.

“We continue to see beneficial occupational supply/demand dynamics in our core markets and expect this to continue.

“We are announcing this fundraise to maximise potential returns from the strong opportunities that we are seeing in our markets and we look forward to updating the market further on our progress in the coming months.”