Sirius Real Estate trades in line despite lower rent roll

For the six months ended 30 September, Sirius Real Estate saw its annual rent roll contract rise by 4.2% year-on-year to reach €78.5m. However, this figure still marked a 2.6% improvement on the €76.5m rent roll reported by the group on 1 April.

Like-for-like annualised rent rose 0.9% to €77.2m over the half, driven by a 1.6% like-for-like rental rate to €5.92 per square foot. Like-for-like occupancy was flat at 85%.

Also during the half, Sirius wrapped-up its Titanium joint venture with AXA Investment Managers in July, selling 65% of its interest in five business parks and generating net proceeds in excess of €70m.

Sirius also agreed to an extension of its existing facility with real estate and mortgage bank BerlinHyp, almost tripling the size of its facility to €180.2m.

Chief executive Andrew Coombs said:" "It has been another encouraging six months for Sirius, during which we have completed the Titanium joint venture transaction with AXA, secured a new debt package at a historic low fixed interest rate for the company of 0.9% and made considerable progress on identifying and securing earnings enhancing acquisitions."

As of 0845 BST, Sirius Real Estate shares were up 2.24% at 73.92p.