Highcroft Investments PLC
14 June 2002
Highcroft Investments PLC
- Board Changes and Statement regarding Future Strategy -
Board Changes
At the Company's Annual General Meeting held on Wednesday 11 June 2002,
shareholders voted, on a poll, against the resolutions to re-elect John Hewitt
and Tony Phillips as non executive directors of the Company. Accordingly, Mr
Hewitt and Mr Phillips have ceased to be directors of Highcroft with immediate
effect.
The Board is grateful for John and Tony's contribution to the Company over the
years and wishes them both well for the future.
Corporate Objectives
The broad objectives of the Company remain unaltered. These are to enhance
shareholder value by virtue of a combination of increasing asset value,
increasing profits and increasing dividends.
Future Strategies
Following a period of extensive debate on the wide-ranging strategic options
available to the company, the Board of Highcroft have resolved:
• To modify the balance of the Company's allocation of funds between property
and listed investments. A greater focus will now be on the property portfolio.
• To realise a proportion of listed investments over time as tax-efficiently
as possible. The funds generated will be reinvested in the property portfolio
from which we expect to earn higher income yields than from listed investments.
• To maintain a smaller, though still significant, proportion of funds in
listed investments in order to keep a broad risk profile. It is not the
intention to realise the whole of the listed investment portfolio.
• In expanding the property portfolio, not to be averse to assuming a degree
of development risk. However, such development risk will not, for example,
include the purchase of bare land without planning permission. Rather the Board
regards its forward funding of the Langford Locks development in 1999, as a good
example of the development risk it will be happy to assume.
• Additionally, in expanding the property portfolio, not to be averse to a
moderate level of gearing. However, this does not represent a radical shift
to a highly geared property company. It is merely allowing ourselves the
possibility that opportunities for the property portfolio may arise which
cannot be met by internal funding but which can be met externally by loan
finance.
Conclusion
The Board believes that this modest change in emphasis will allow the Company to
generate sufficient income growth to continue to fund a level of dividend growth
which has been achieved in recent years while at the same time achieving the
degree of secure asset backing which the Board believe that shareholders expect
and which they have had in the past.
13 June 2002
This information is provided by RNS
The company news service from the London Stock Exchange
*A Private Investor is a recipient of the information who meets all of the conditions set out below, the recipient:
Obtains access to the information in a personal capacity;
Is not required to be regulated or supervised by a body concerned with the regulation or supervision of investment or financial services;
Is not currently registered or qualified as a professional securities trader or investment adviser with any national or state exchange, regulatory authority, professional association or recognised professional body;
Does not currently act in any capacity as an investment adviser, whether or not they have at some time been qualified to do so;
Uses the information solely in relation to the management of their personal funds and not as a trader to the public or for the investment of corporate funds;
Does not distribute, republish or otherwise provide any information or derived works to any third party in any manner or use or process information or derived works for any commercial purposes.
Please note, this site uses cookies. Some of the cookies are essential for parts of the site to operate and have already been set. You may delete and block all cookies from this site, but if you do, parts of the site may not work. To find out more about the cookies used on Investegate and how you can manage them, see our Privacy and Cookie Policy
To continue using Investegate, please confirm that you are a private investor as well as agreeing to our Privacy and Cookie Policy & Terms.