Cromwell European REIT 1H 2020 DPU Down 14.7%
August 17, 2020 — Cromwell European Real Estate Investment Trust announced its financial results for the first half ended 30 June 2020 (1H 2020).
CEREIT’s gross revenue and net property income rose 13.7% and 6.6% year-on-year to €93.7 million and €57.7 million, respectively, largely due to contributions from properties acquired over the course of the past year. Income from the new assets was, however, partially offset by €3.0 million of allowances made for uncollected rents due to the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as lower income from certain assets, such as the UCI cinema-anchored property in Italy and Central Plaza in the Netherlands. Income available for distribution to unitholders amounted to €44.6 million, largely in line with the €44.8 million recorded in the first half of 2019 (“1H 2019”). The income available for distribution includes a €2.8 million distribution of realised capital gains from recent divestments.
The Manager maintained a 100% distribution payout ratio, resulting in a 1.74 Euro cents DPU for 1H 2020 to be paid out on 28 September 2020. The 1H 2020 DPU is based on the Manager’s base fee and property management fee being paid fully in cash, instead of partially via an issuance of units at deep discount to net asset value (“NAV”) per unit, demonstrating alignment with unitholders’ interests by minimising future DPU and NAV per unit dilution. On a like-for-like basis1, DPU for 1H 2020 would have been 1.97 Euro cents, 3.4% below the 1H 2019 DPU.
The Manager’s Chief Executive Officer, Mr. Simon Garing, commented, “CEREIT’s portfolio has demonstrated its resilience amid the second-quarter lockdowns in Europe, benefitting from Cromwell’s active asset management and its diversified exposure to close to 800 predominantly office and light industrial / logistics tenant-customers from myriad trade sectors across seven countries. We entered into FY 2020 with 14.5% of leases by headline rent due to expire over the course of the year, but have since reduced this to only 3.3% within half a year while maintaining a close to 95% occupancy rate.”
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