EPP CEO Hadley Dean
JSE-listed Polish property company Echo Polska Properties (EPP) on Thursday reported a 37% year-on-year increase in net property income to £102-million for the nine months ended September 30.
Earnings available for distribution amounted to 8.75c apiece and the company was on track to meet its yearly guidance of between 11.6c and 11.8c apiece.
EPP CEO Hadley Dean commented in a release on the company’s results that, operationally, the business continued to perform well with like-for-like net rental income growth of 4.2% for the reporting period.
CFO Jacek Baginski added that EPP’s net asset value (NAV) for the nine months was £990-million, equating to a NAV of £1.33 apiece, which is up from a NAV of £1.20 in the comparable period of 2017.
In the reporting period, EPP completed the acquisition of the Marceline shopping centre, in Poznan, and, together with the completion of the first tranche of the M1 transaction, added 240 000 m2 of retail space to its portfolio.
Total investment in EPP’s portfolio exceeded £2-billion in the reporting period.
Dean noted that the results show that the company’s retail-focused strategy is paying off as Polish consumers become more affluent. All the statistics indicate that the Polish population is becoming wealthier throughout the country.
“With low unemployment and the country’s fundamentals strong, we don’t expect this to change in the near future. As the leading owner of shopping centres in Poland, we are well positioned to capitalise on the increased spending by Polish consumers,” he said.
EPP’s portfolio comprises 19 retail properties, six office buildings and two development sites in Warsaw, offering a total 835 000 m2 of leasable space in Poland’s 20 largest cities.