NewRiver Retail triples revenue

It was a strong year for property group NewRiver Retail, which more than tripled its property income and retains its faith in Britain's battered retail sector.

Profit for the year ended March 31st came in at £3.97m (2011: £4.91m) on revenues of £15m compared to £4.78m the previous year.

The company prefers to focus on EPRA (European Platform of Regulatory Authorities) which include recurring items only and flow straight through to the total dividend. Coincidentally, this number painted a brighter picture of the company's profits performance, with EPRA recurring profits soaring to £4.4m from £0.9m the year before.

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David Lockhart, Chief Executive of NewRiver, said: "NewRiver has achieved its objective of establishing a profitable platform with a strong management team that is capable of delivering sustainable growth. Considering the challenging conditions in the wider UK retail environment we have continued to transact on attractive value creating opportunities.

Whilst investment sentiment remains cautious, we believe there continues to be highly attractive opportunities for well capitalised, specialist and proven investors in UK retail property. Through our strong relationships with retailers, wide network of contacts, market intelligence and focused business strategy we are in a strong position to build on our success and enhance our position as one of the UK's leading retail real estate investors."

EPRA earnings per share grew from 6.3p to 17.3p, while EPRA net asset value (NAV) fell by 5.5% to 258p (compared with a fall of 4.5% the previous year), but increased by 7.5% after accounting for one-off costs relating to equity fund raising and purchase costs of 33.5p per share during the year.

Acquisitions made during the year totalled £93m at an average initial yield of 8.5%, while assets under management increased to £275m.

The firm doubled its final dividend from 4.5p to 9.0p, taking the total dividend for the year to 15p, compared to 5.5p the previous year.

The share price rose 0.8% to 190p by 12:37.

NR