Sirius plans to dispose of €30m in mature assets

SIRIUS Real Estate, which owns and operates a portfolio of branded business parks in Germany, plans to dispose of €30 million (R456.2m) in mature assets in the 2017 calendar year as part of a capital recycling programme.

Sirius has also applied to move to the main market of both the London Stock Exchange and JSE.

“Our plans are well advanced and our intention it to make the move before the end of January next year,” said Sirius chief executive Andrew Coombs yesterday.

It was one of the group’s stated intentions when it obtained a dual listing on the JSE in December 2014 to move to the main market.

Coombs said the group had mature assets worth almost €300m in its €770.9m portfolio.

Capital recycling Coombs said the group had started a capital recycling programme and if it got it right, this programme would be in sync with acquisitions it was planning to make, but if not it would have to raise further capital.

Sirius owns and operates a portfolio of 43 business parks, which together include more than 400 buildings offering more than 1.4 million square metres of lettable space comprising largely offices, production areas and storage facilities.

Coombs said four acquisitions worth a total of €68.5m had been completed since the group’s last financial year end.

Sirius in June completed a equity fundraising via a private placement, which was enlarged from €20m to €30m in response to investor demand.

Coombs said the capital raised, together with the group’s existing facilities, provided funds for two of the acquisitions and a further €10m remained from the equity raise.

He said most of this had already been earmarked for three new smaller transactions that were likely to be completed next month or in January.

Coombs added that organically the portfolio still had substantial scope for further increases in income and capital value primarily through developing sub optimal space.

Central to this was the group’s capital expenditure programme, which was focused on transforming this space into market ready, flexible and conventional workspace and was currently achieving high returns, he said.

Coombs said the group had at least another 12 months of execution on its capital expenditure programme before taking into account recent and future acquisitions.

Sirius delivered strong trading results in the six months to September with acquisitions and organic growth driving the 87.2 percent growth in recurring profit to €16.1m from €8.6m.

Total income increased to €32.6m from €25.9m. Profit before tax rose to €37.5m from €28.3m. Funds from operations (FFO) increased by 72.2 percent to €17.1m from €9.9m. FFO a share improved by 51 percent to 2.13c from 1.41c.

Sirius shares rose 3.18 percent yesterday to R7.79.

€300m Value of mature assets in Sirius’s €770.9m portfolio