LondonMetric Property PLC on Tuesday upped its interim dividend per share as half-year EPRA earnings soared.

The London-based real estate investment trust said pretax profit more than doubled in the six months to September 30 to £165.9 million from £81.6 million the prior year, with revenue up on-year to £195.9 million from £77.2 million.

The FTSE 100-listed firm said this significant increase reflects improvements in EPRA earnings, coupled with a higher portfolio revaluation gain of £14.3 million.

EPRA earnings over the period multiplied to £135.4 million from £53.1 million a year before, with earnings growth driven by a significant on-year improvement in net rental income coupled with exceptionally low operating costs as well as including the full benefit of last year’s merger activity.

Net rental income for the period increased to £193.1 million from £76.0 million the previous year.

In August last year the firm acquired CT Property Trust in an all-share deal worth £198.6 million and more recently, in March, LondonMetric completed a all-share merger with LXi REIT PLC valuing LXi at £1.9 billion.

LondonMetric said this corporate activity was ‘transformational, doubling the size of the portfolio’. Year-on-year the firm’s portfolio value increased by 94% to £6.2 billion from £3.2 billion. The company was promoted to the FTSE 100 index this past June as a result.

EPRA net tangible assets were £4.00b on September 30, up from £3.91 billion on March 31. This was 195.7 pence per share, up from 191.7p. IFRS net assets per share were 198.8p, up from 195.2 in March.

The firm declared an increased interim dividend of 19% to 5.7 pence per share compared with 4.8p the prior year.

LondonMetric Chief Executive Andrew Jones said: ‘Following the transformational LXi deal, we have further cemented our position as the UK’s leading triple net real estate income investor.

‘Our £6.2 billion portfolio is aligned to the strongest thematics of logistics, convenience, hospitality and healthcare, and is invested in mission critical real estate with high occupier contentment.

‘Importantly, our transactional capabilities, greater scale and strong shareholder alignment is ensuring our portfolio is constantly re-shaping, with £234 million of lower growth disposals and £203 million of high quality acquisitions year to date.

‘This activity along with further external growth and consolidation opportunities that are presenting themselves is supporting our target to grow our logistics exposure to 50% by year end.’

Shares in LondonMetric were down 0.1% at 190.29p on Tuesday morning in London.

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