By Andrew Starke
The listed ALE property Group has delivered a mixed result for the 2010 financial year with better than expected profits tempered by a slight decline in property values.
The group valued its 87 properties at $713.9 million in its results statement yesterday (Aug 17), having valued its then 93 property assets at $772.4 million earlier this year and 100 properties at $804.8 million in June last year.
ALE sold 17 properties between June 2009 and March 2010 as it sough to refinance and pay back debt.
Over the past seven years, ALE has acquired 11 properties for $100 million and sold 22 properties for $124 million.
In a statement to the Australian Stock Exchange (ASX), ALE managing director, Andrew Wilkinson, said the main highlights for the year included the sales and the positive progress with the group’s capital management plan.
“Seventeen properties were sold and existing securityholders responded very positively to the capital raising in September 2009,” he said.
“We were also delighted to see the demand from existing and new investors for the listed debt security raising, ALE Notes 2, in April 2010. This was an important step in the refinancing of maturing debt.”
Over the past year the valuations of ALE’s 87 properties have reduced by 0.65 percent or $4.66 million to $713.85 million.
However Wilkinson said he considered this to be a relatively stable outcome given the ongoing volatility in the wider markets.
The 87 properties have an average value of $8.21 million with sixty of the properties valued at less than $10 million each.
On the broader challenges ahead, Wilkinson said ALE had put the fundamentals in place for future success.
While we can now look back and acknowledge that some important milestones have been accomplished, we do so knowing that the completion of the refinancing task remains a high priority over the remainder of FY11,” he said.
“The capital management plan and completion of the refinancing are expected to result in ALE being well placed to continue to consider acquisitions that are strategically sensible as well as value accretive.”