Strong Q3 for retail REIT NewRiver

RETAIL REIT NewRiver has said it is positive about the remainder of its current financial year and 2015 in general after completing its third quarter with acquisitions worth £30m.

The property group, which owns the Regent Court shopping centre in Leamington Spa, said Q3 – inclusive of the key Christmas trading period – had been another highly active period for the company during which it completed a number of key acquisitions, growing its portfolio by 8.8% to £800m at the end of December (Sept 2014: £735m).

Footfall grew across the portfolio delivering a 3.47% increase in like for like figures for the three-month period. This was boosted by the Christmas trade and Black Friday with various shopping centres reporting uplifts of between 6% and 20%; annual footfall for the portfolio totalled over 122 million.

Since the end of the period, the company has successfully raised £75m through a share issue, enabling it to acquire a major shopping centre portfolio with assets across the UK.

In November the board declared that a second quarterly dividend of 4.25p per share would be paid to shareholders on January 30. The company expects to pay its fourth quarterly dividend for the year ended March 31, 2015 in April 2015.

David Lockhart, chief executive at NewRiver Retail, said: “We are delighted to have concluded 2014 with such a highly active third quarter. During the period we executed our growth strategy by completing £30.3m of acquisitions and submitted major planning applications, which if granted will enable us to deliver over 78,000 sq ft of new development space.

“We look forward to the opportunities that 2015 presents, particularly following our most recent acquisition of a major UK shopping centre portfolio which promises exciting value-enhancing asset management and risk controlled development opportunities.”

Elsewhere, it said strong progress continued to make in respect to its acquisition of pubs from Wolverhampton pubco and brewer Marston’s. A string of the pubs are being leased to the Co-operative Group for new convenience stores and detailed planning applications are expected to be submitted by the end of the month for the majority of these.

NewRiver said the current pub portfolio EBITDA was performing above the guaranteed income received from Marston’s by 2.75%.

It has also exchanged contracts with BSkyB’s The Cloud to introduce free wi-fi into five more shopping centres, including Regent Court.
 

New NED for Aggreko

PORTABLE power provider Aggreko has announced the appointment of Professor Dr Uwe Krueger as a Non-executive Director, with effect from February 1, 2015.
 
Krueger is currently CEO of WS Atkins, a role which he has held since August 2011.  He is a physicist with an honorary professorship from the University of Frankfurt and an honorary PhD from Heriot-Watt University.  Most of his career has been spent leading engineering and consulting organisations in North America, Europe, the Middle East and Asia Pacific.
 
He is currently on the boards of SUSI Partners, Zurich and Ontex, Brussels.  
 
Ken Hanna, chairman of Aggreko, said: “We are delighted that Uwe will be joining the Aggreko Board. Uwe’s experience in the engineering and services sector, combined with his understanding of renewable energy, will bring further expertise to the Aggreko board. We look forward to working with him.”

eg solutions launches investor website

BACK office optimisation software provider, eg solutions, has launched a new investor website.

The launch of the site, which can be viewed at www.egsplc.com, corresponds with the re-launch of the firm’s corporate website for enterprise clients (www.egoptimize.com).

Staffordshire-based eg solutions supplies its software to leading UK, international and global companies in multiple industry sectors including financial services, healthcare and utilities.