DIVIDEND DECLARATION AND Q3 TRADING UPDATE

RNS Number : 3743P

LXI REIT PLC

09 February 2023

 

9 February 2023

LXi REIT plc

(the "Company" or "LXi")

DIVIDEND DECLARATION AND Q3 TRADING UPDATE

The Board of LXi REIT plc (ticker: LXI), the specialist inflation-protected very long income REIT, is pleased to declare an interim quarterly dividend and provide a trading update for the quarter ended 31 December 2022.

Cyrus Ardalan, Chairman, commented:

"Despite the challenging wider macroeconomic backdrop, LXI REIT continues to deliver excellent operational results that help to underpin our growing income.

Our "3R" priorities for 2023 include executing on our refinancing, recycling capital, and re-gearing some of our leases to extend our WAULT.  We have made strong progress in these areas, with a material and comprehensive refinancing at an advanced stage and the completion of the Travelodge regear in this quarter. We look forward to providing further announcements on these in due course.

Meanwhile, our resilient and defensive portfolio of mission critical assets continues to benefit from embedded rental uplifts, and the attraction of long income real estate continues to be demonstrated in the investment markets."

Dividend Declaration

· The Company today declares a dividend of 1.575 pence per Ordinary Share. This is in line with the Company's annual dividend target of 6.3 pence per ordinary share for the year to 31 March 2023.

·     The dividend will be paid as a Property Income Distribution ("PID") in respect of the Company's tax-exempt property rental business.

· The timetable is set out below:

Ex-Dividend date:     16 February 2023

Record date:     17 February 2023

Dividend payment date:            10 March 2023

Rent collection, occupancy and rent reviews

· The Company's operational performance remains robust, with 100% of rent collected in advance for the quarter ending 31 March 2023 (which continues the post-Covid 100% collection record).

· 100% of the Company's portfolio is let, with 98% of the rent benefitting from inflation-linked or fixed rental uplifts and 2% containing upward-only open market reviews.

· The Company owns a wide range of sector-diversified assets let to over 80 strong tenants on long term leases, with a sector-leading 27-year WAULT to the earlier of first break and expiry.

·     Since 1 October 2022, the Company has carried out 54 rent reviews, representing 6% of the rent roll, at an average uplift of 3.5% per annum and adding £1.43 million to the total rent, taking the total rent roll to a record £202 million per annum.

· Between now and 30 September this year, a further 52% of the rent is scheduled to go through a contractual rent review, across 94 leases, which should provide a more significant increase in the total rent roll.

·   The Company has now completed on the rent-smoothing and regear with Travelodge, the exchange of which was announced in December. Travelodge have also announced a record adjusted EBITDA for 2022 in excess of £200 million, significantly outperforming prior years, including pre-Covid. 

Forward fundings, Sales and Acquisitions

· The Company continues to review potential acquisitions and disposals from the portfolio and is in early-stage negotiations on a number of small disposals and a pre-let forward purchase, which it expects to announce over the upcoming months.

· As at today's date, the Company has less than £60 million of development funding yet to complete on existing forward funding projects, which will be fully funded by the Company's existing Revolving Credit Facility. The Company only enters into forward fundings on a fully fixed-price, pre-let and planning approved basis.

Management resource

·     The Company's investment advisor, LXI REIT Advisors, is pleased to report the recent senior appointments of Alex Short and Alex MacEachin, as part of its continuing investment in resource and following the successful merger and integration with Secure Income REIT.

· Alex Short, appointed as Chief Investment Officer, has over 20 years' industry experience, having held senior roles at leading real estate businesses, including AEW and UBS.

·     Alex MacEachin, appointed Finance Director, has extensive experience of property and construction finance and accounting matters, including most recently as Group Financial Controller of Empiric Student Property PLC.

Portfolio valuation

·   The Company's next portfolio valuation date is 31 March 2023, being its full year end.  The Company intends to publish the new portfolio valuation, to be carried out by Knight Frank LLP, in early April. The full year audited report and accounts will be published, as usual, in the second half of May.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION, PLEASE CONTACT:
LXI REIT Advisors Limited Simon Lee (Partner, Fund Manager) John White (Partner, Fund Manager) Freddie Brooks (CFO)	Via H/Advisors Maitland
Barclays Bronson Albery / Tom Macdonald / Dion Miceli	020 7623 2323
J efferies International Tom Yeadon / Ed Matthews / Rishi Bhuchar	020 7029 8000
H/Advisors Maitland (Communications Advisor) James Benjamin / Alistair de Kare-Silver	07747 113 930 / 020 7379 5151 [e-mail]

The Company's LEI is: 2138008YZGXOKAXQVI45

NOTES

LXI REIT plc invests in commercial property assets predominantly in the UK, let, or pre-let, on long (typically 20 to 30 years to expiry or first break), inflation-linked leases to a wide range of strong tenant covenants across a diverse range of robust property sectors.

The Company may invest in fixed-price forward funded developments, provided they are pre-let to an acceptable tenant and full planning permission is in place. The Company will not undertake any direct development activity nor assume direct development risk.

The Company is targeting a dividend of 6.3 pence per ordinary share for the year which commenced on 1 April 2022*.

The Company, a real estate investment trust ( "REIT") incorporated in England and Wales, islisted on the premium listing segment of the Official List of the UK Financial Conduct Authority and was admitted to trading on the main market for listed securities of the London Stock Exchange in February 2017.

The Company is a constituent of the FTSE 250, EPRA/NAREIT, MSCI and STOXX Europe 600 indices.

Further information on the Company is available at www.lxireit.com

*  This is a target and not profit forecast.

 

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