London and Stamford has firepower for future spend

FTSE 250 real estate investment trust London and Stamford Property (LSP) said on Friday that it has in excess of 600m pounds in projected future firepower to spend on investment.

Chief Executive Patrick Vaughan said that £260m of the investments announced at the year-end statement (May 30th) have already been exchanged and or completed. He confirmed that LSP has completed the acquisition of Moore House, London, for its Central London Residential Joint Venture for £147m (in which is owns a 40% interest).

The group also completed the disposal of the Triangle Distribution Portfolio for £265m, generating a return on equity of 33% and net cash after the repayment of £94m. Since the sale, the geographic distribution of the portfolio has become more heavily focused towards London and the South East.

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LSP's office portfolio, which comprises four buildings (two in the City of London and two in the south east near the M25) have a combined value of over £300m.

The group's interest in the Central London residential market is now around £188m after the completion by a new joint venture of 149 apartments at Moore House, London for £147m.

"This is exciting news for LSP, providing evidence that notwithstanding the care and caution which we apply to our investment approach in difficult and uncertain economic times, we have identified investment opportunities which deliver exceptionally good cash on cash returns. Furthermore we have acquired assets where the prospects for creating value from asset management activity are good," Vaughan said.

"Given the troubled banking market and a difficult economy, we continue to believe that more opportunities may be forthcoming to those with firepower and that acquisitions of good quality assets with returns well above the cost of capital will be possible."

LSP is still progressing with its sale of its joint interest Meadowhall shopping centre in Sheffield. Meanwhile, the centre is performing well with footfall for the year to June 30th up 0.4% and sales up 0.1%.

Shares were flat by 10:11 at 111.6p.

BC