Office investor CLS is on the acquisition hunt after refocusing its activities and shedding unwanted parts of the business during the past two years.
Announcing the FTSE 250 company’s results for 2019, chief executive Fredrik Widlund said the year had marked the end of a programme of selling non-core assets and properties that did not meet its return criteria.
Those deals included selling its 10.5% shareholding in Swedish logistics specialist Catena for £113.1m; selling its remaining corporate bond portfolio for £34.5m; and offloading a majority shareholding in First Camp, a Scandinavia camping chain, for £28.7m.
The sales have left CLS focused on the non-prime office markets in the UK, Germany and France. “We started 2020 with a well-capitalised balance sheet which allows us to continue to capture attractive acquisition opportunities and deliver long-term, responsible growth for our stakeholders,” Widlund said.
The company’s EPRA net asset value per share rose by 6.3% year-on-year in 2019 to 329.2p on the back of portfolio valuation gains of £57.4m. Pretax profit was up by 9.7% at £159m.
CLS had a record year for transactions, Widlund said, with £257.2m spent across 13 acquisitions and £187.2m in disposals across 28 sales. He singled out the UK as a market now in focus, with “more acquisition opportunities offering good value particularly as institutional buyers have been less active”.
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