TR Property Investment Trust's annual earnings increase

TR Property Investment Trust Chairman Peter Salsbury delivered his last set of results on Wednesday before stepping down after nine years with the company.

Total income came to £133.9m for the year to end of March, up from a loss of £51.8m, on the back of strong performance of investments despite a tough market.

The organisation achieved an operating profit of £122.3m, compared to the prior year's loss of £59m.

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Earnings per share rose to 37.84p from a loss of 17.37p per share.

The group proposed a final dividend of 4.35p, up from 4.20p a year earlier.

Salsbury said it was the 19th consecutive year the firm has increased the dividend with the exception of 2010 when it held steady.

He added that the company proved resilient against volatile equity markets and the impact of challenging macro-economic conditions.

"Your fund management team have taken account of the macro picture and then set about bottom up analysis of companies considering the quality of their assets and management to make investment decisions," he said in a note to shareholders.

The net asset total return for the year was 21.5%, versus the benchmark total return of 17.8%, an outperformance of 3.7%. The share price total return was 25.8%.

The physical property portfolio produced a positive total return of 7.4% for the 12 months comprising a capital return of 1.8% and an income return of 5.6%.

Fund Manager, Marcus Phayre-Mudge, said the company is confident of strong underlying earnings growth. However, "the timing and methods by which the companies make their distributions and the way in which these distributions are taxed, and currency movements, all have a bearing on our overall result".

Shares fell 0.19% to 210.40p at 09:15 Wednesday.

RD