Results round-up
Local Shopping's rescue plan continued apace on Thursday, as the real estate investment trust updated the market on the last 12 months.
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The FTSE Fledgling Index-listed property investment firm, which specialises in convenience store units, posted its audited results for the year ended 30 September 2015 on Thursday.
It saw profit take a nosedive, from £1.21m last year to £0.02m this year - equivalent to 0.02p per share.
Local Shopping's portfolio dipped slightly in value as well, down to £81.2m (from £87.6m in 2014). Net asset value remained flat at £34.9m.
The company pointed to the recovering economy and boost in household disposable income as being a positive for the retail sector over the year, against a background of falling store prices.
"Within this mixed environment, local and independent retailers continue to perform well, with the Association of Convenience Stores reporting 5% year-on-year sales growth amongst local shops", a spokesperson said.
"Despite the continuing improvement in consumer fundamentals, retail has lagged the other main property investment sectors, with rental and yield performance weaker than office and industrial markets", they added.
The trust's net debt was reduced on loan-to-value ratio terms. It stood at £42.95m, ot 52.89% of value - down from 56.12% in 2014.
Over the year, Local Shopping completed the sale of 37 properties for a combined consideration of £5.33m - a gross premium of 9.1% of the valuations at the time the properties went under offer.
Seventy-one vacant commercial units were let, at an aggregate annual rent of £533,170, and 33 rent reviews were complete to bring a rental uplift of £54,593 (9.83%). Forty-seven leases were renewed, although at an aggregate rental decrease of £8,666. Local Shopping stressed these remained 8.42% above market rent.
Looking ahead, the trust said it was relatively financial stable at the end of the period after selling down its assets, which allowed it to restructure remaining debt to good advantage. It also pointed to its "sensible" cash balance of £12.7m.
"However, the board remains very mindful of the need to expedite the sale of the remaining property assets whilst preserving as much shareholder value as is reasonably possible", the spokesperson said.
Local Shopping's board said it anticipated possible further portfolio sales in addition to its ongoing programme of individual property disposals, and it would continue to update the market on such decisions.
Strong trading volume led a recently-expanded Redde to reconsider its profit expectations for the current period on Thursday.
The AIM-listed professional services group updated the market on Thursday, confirming increased trading volumes had continued through to December.
It followed a strong start to the financial year, as indicated in Redde's trading updates in September and October.
The company said it was now anticipating trading profits for the six months to December 31 to exceed earlier expectations, and were likely to be "materially ahead" of the corresponding period last year.
"The successively strong performance of the group delivered under our growth, profitability and sustainability strategy is generating good returns for our shareholders", said Redde CEO Martin Ward.
"The acquisition of FMG, which completed in October 2015, has enabled us to broaden our reach into new and related markets and diversify our earnings", he added.
Redde's board said it expected to declare an interim dividend at the time of the half-year results of no less than 4.4p per share.
The group's dividend at the end of the financial year on June 30 was 4p per share.
Redde planned to announce its six month results to December 31 at the end of February 2016.