UK: Grainger, one of the UK’s biggest BTR operators, has reported pre-tax profits of £40.6 million, up 48 per cent year-on-year.
It reported occupancy across its BTR portfolio of 97.4 per cent, and recorded a “strong sales performance” of £274 million, driven by an increase in asset recycling.
The company completed two acquisitions in the year, in Sheffield (193 units) and Cardiff (405 units). Across four existing clusters in Birmingham, Bristol, London and Manchester, Grainger added 1,236 homes in the financial year.
Net rental income grew year-on-year by 14 per cent, to £110.1 million.
Chief executive Helen Gordon said: “Building on our national footprint of carefully selected locations, we now have meaningful scale in many cities across the country providing good quality rental homes into areas of high demand. We also opened our first scheme in Cardiff, The Copper Works.”
She added: “This coming year is the last financial year before Grainger converts to a REIT, a major milestone in our transformation to becoming the leader in the UK’s build-to-rent sector. Since setting out our strategy in 2016, we have invested £2.5 billion into delivering new BTR homes, and at the same time delivered value by divesting £2 billion from non-core businesses and assets. Over this period, we have more than tripled the net rental income for the business. In the last year alone, we have disposed of £274 million of non-core assets, recycling £270 million of this capital into higher yielding, new, high-quality, energy-efficient BTR homes.
“The delivery of our committed pipeline has the potential to increase EPRA Earnings by another 50 per cent over the medium term, whilst in the near term we expect EPRA Earnings to reach £60 million by FY26, a second upgrade from our previous guidance. In addition, we anticipate our EBITDA margin to increase substantially from 54 per cent today to over 60 per cent by FY29.”
Grainger’s pipeline has £481 million of schemes committed, representing 1,330 homes; £541 million of secured schemes (2,009 homes), and £379 million of work in planning or legals, representing 1,391 homes, totalling £1.4 billion across a pipeline of 4,730 homes.
