Financial year-end trading statement

RNS Number : 9960B

First Property Group PLC

10 April 2017

 

Date:	10 April 2017
On behalf of:	First Property Group plc ("First Property", "the Company" or the "Group")
Embargoed:	0700hrs

First Property Group plc

Financial year-end trading statement

First Property Group plc (AIM: FPO), the property fund manager and investor, is pleased to announce that its trading and profit before tax for the year to 31 March 2017, prior to the profit on sale of the Romanian property announced on 28 March, are expected to be in line with market expectations.

Funds under management at the year-end amounted to £475 million (2016: £353 million), of which some £313 million (65%) were client funds, an increase of 60% from the prior year.

The Group's Preliminary results for the year to 31 March 2017 are scheduled to be announced on 8 June 2017.

Ben Habib, CEO of First Property Group plc, said:

"The Group is trading well across the board. Our fund management division has entered a new growth phase, with third party assets under management increasing by some 60% over the last year, and set to continue to grow. Meanwhile the contribution from Group Properties provides a reliable and substantial flow of profits (amounting to a pre-tax income return on equity invested exceeding 20% per annum at current market values, and substantially higher at book cost).

"The markets in which we operate are generally buoyant and offering interesting investment opportunities on which we hope to capitalise."

-Ends-

For further information please contact:

First Property Group plc	Tel: [phone]
Ben Habib (Chief Executive & Chief Investment Officer) George Digby (Group Finance Director) Jeremy Barkes (Director, Business Development)	www.fprop.com
Arden Partners	Tel: [phone]
Chris Hardie/ Ben Cryer
Redleaf Communications	Tel: [phone]
Henry Columbine/ Rebecca Sanders-Hewett/ Susie Hudson	[e-mail]

Notes to Investors and Editors:

First Property Group plc is an award winning property fund manager and investor with operations in the United Kingdom and Central Europe. Around one third of the shares in the Company are owned by management and their families.

Its focus is on higher yielding commercial property with sustainable cash flows. The company is flexible and takes an active approach to asset management. Its earnings are derived from:

·  Fund management - via its FCA regulated and AIFMD approved subsidiary, First Property Asset Management Ltd (FPAM), which earns fees from investing for third parties in property. FPAM currently manages ten funds which are invested across the United Kingdom, Poland and Romania. FPAM funds rank No.1 versus MSCI's IPD Central & Eastern Europe (CEE) universe for the ten years from the commencement of its operations in Poland in 2005 to 31 December 2015, and for the annualised periods from 2005 to the end of each of the years between 31 December 2008 and 31 December 2015.

·   Group Properties - principal investments by the Group, to earn a return on its own capital, usually in partnership with third parties. Investments include ten directly held properties in Poland and Romania (including five held by Fprop Opportunities plc [FOP], in which the Group is currently the majority shareholder), and interests in six other funds managed by FPAM.

Listed on AIM the Company has offices in London and Warsaw. Further information about the Company and its products can be found at: www.fprop.com.

 

END

 

 

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