Town Centre Securities confident of increasing earnings despite Brexit

Leeds-based property investment and car parking company, Town Centre Securities’ lifted its dividend as net assets grew modestly but profit for the year were halved and the company cautioned about the heightened uncertainty around the Brexit vote.

Statutory profit for the year halved to £11.9m, which includes a property revaluation surplus which fell significantly by 76% to £3.5m.

The European Public Real Estate Association (EPRA) accounting standard profit before tax rose slightly by 1.5% to £6.6m, in line with expectations. The CitiPark car parking business generated an improved operating profit of 30% to £2.2m due to acquisitions over the last two years.

Chairman and chief executive Edward Ziff said the company was facing an extended period of uncertainty as a result of the Brexit vote.

“There is no doubt that the market increases in value we have seen in the last couple of years have come to an end, but our portfolio has not seen the Brexit effects reported in central London and the end of year values reflect the hard work we have done in recent times. In fact we have seen excellent valuation results from some of our assets, particularly the development sites."

He said the company's development programme, which will add three "top quality" assets to the investment portfolio while increasing rental income and net assets "significantly" should continue to generate gains through intensive management activities.

"We are now confident that the increases in income from these three schemes will flow through to earnings over the next two to three years."

Statutory earnings per share were down to 22.4p from 45.1p last year. EPRA earnings per share were up slightly to 12.4p from 12.1p.

Net assets and EPRA net assets rose 3.8% to £189.9m, representing 357p per share, as there was a 2.2% like-for-like increase in the value of the investment property portfolio, reflecting a reversionary yield of 6.4%.

Net debt increased by 3.7% to £185.8m due to expenditure on development schemes.

The company recommended a final dividend of 7.9p per share, which together with the interim dividend of 3.1p, gives a total of 11p per share, a 5.4% increase to be paid on 4 January 2017.

Shares in Town Centre Securities were up 1.11% to 317.50p at 0800 BST on Wednesday.