Tritax Big Box REIT to raise £200m to fund investment opportunities

Tritax Big Box Real Estate Investment Trust is to raise £200m in equity in order to capitilise on property investment opportunities.

The FTSE 250 company plans to raise the funds from a placing an offer of up to 147.05m new shares of 136p each, a 6.6% discount on the closing price of 147.2p last Friday.

Under the open offer, up to 100.51m new shares will be made available to qualifying shareholders at136p each.

The placing and open offer is subject to shareholder approval at the next meeting on 15 May.

The proceeds will be used to capitalise on investment opportunities in its pipeline with six months of the shares being admitted to trade on the London Stock Exchange.

Tritax is currently in talks to buy three assets, two of which are under offer, for a combined £155m. With these three assets and deals to two Howdens Forward Funded Developments, the Company will have invested the proceeds from its last equity raising in October 2016.

Separately, the company, which owns Amazon’s Peterborough depot among others, has declared a dividend of 1.60p for the quarter ended 31 March to be paid on or around 22 May.

The company said it has adopted a progressive dividend policy for 2017 with a target dividend of 6.4p each payable quarterly, representing a 3.2% increase from 2016.

George Salmon, equity analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown, said that despite the fall in the company’s shares, they are are still trading above the placing price of 136p, itself significantly above the most recently reported net asset value of 129p per share.

“Having motored through £350m raised last October, we wouldn’t be surprised if the group turned to shareholders again before the year is out”, he said.

Shares in Tritax Big Box REIT were down 4.69% to 140.30p at 1244 BST.