Office investor CLS expects to find “attractive acquisition opportunities” across the UK, French and German markets, as its chief executive says the coronavirus pandemic will push tenants to place an even greater focus on “cleaner, healthier and well-managed” workspaces.
Fredrik Widlund said the pandemic will speed up the evolution of the modern office. “For many companies as well as individuals, we expect the new norm will be a hybrid of working part of the time from home and part of the time in the office to give the best of both worlds,” he said.
“There may be companies who embrace working from home as a cost-cutting measure or others who decide they no longer need disaster recovery sites. However, we also expect lower workplace densities and less hotdesking, which may increase requirements.”
He added that the company is now on the lookout for further investments. “Our acquisition criteria remain unchanged as we continue to seek well-located properties with good asset management opportunities, yielding well in excess of our cost of debt to drive earnings, cash and dividends.”
Over the six months to 30 June, CLS saw EPRA NAV per share rise 3.2% from the end of 2019, to 339.6p. Profit of £31.5m was down almost 63% year-on-year.
The company’s portfolio value was flat, with increases in Germany of 2.6% and France of 0.4% offset by a 2% drop in the UK.
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