Business and Financial Review • Nov 23, 2018
Business and Financial Review
Open in ViewerOpens in native device viewer
PRESS RELEASE – REGULATED INFORMATION
23 November 2018, 7:00am, Antwerp (Berchem), Belgium: VGP NV ('VGP' or 'the Group') today publishes a trading update for the period 1 July 2018 until 31 October 2018.
Jan van Geet, CEO of VGP, said: "We continue to see very supportive trends in all our European markets. During the quarter we sold the Mango building in Spain taking advantage of this strong market backdrop whilst improving our Group's risk profile. The gross proceeds are being reinvested in land acquisitions and the realisation of our development pipeline.
We also managed to successfully close a bond offering and thereby extend our debt maturity profile significantly. I am very pleased with the strength of our balance sheet and our ability to invest in the future of our company."
Jan van Geet continued: "For Amazon we delivered a second logistics centre, a facility with ultimately up to 80,000 sqm warehouse space at our extended park in Göttingen, Germany and BMW signed-up for our Munich site at Parsdorf for the development of a new warehouse for their Forschungs- und Innovationszentrum (FIZ), a main engineering and development campus, subject to achieving the necessary permits."
Our land bank remains one of our strongest assets and we are pleased that we have been able to increase the size by securing additional strategically located sites across Europe including in Spain, Italy, Romania, Germany, Czech Republic and Slovakia."
Jan van Geet concluded: "Our new matrix organization has been successfully rolled-out, each country is managed by a dedicated country team supported by extended Group functions including CIO office, Group Control, Investor Relations and Marketing. This streamlined organizational structure gives us the platform to deliver on our goals.
And we are excited to be expanding again, as we are soon opening an office in Portugal. This will bring the number of European countries in which we are active to twelve. We have seen a number of interesting opportunities in Portugal and we are in discussions about first plots in the Lisbon and Porto regions."
A significant portion of our new leases were signed in Germany (representing 65% of total new leases), followed by Spain (12%), Czech Republic (10%) and Hungary (9%)
Our annualized committed leases increased to €97.1 million1 compared to €75.3 million for year-end 2017 pro-forma2
1 Including VGP European Logistics (joint venture with Allianz Real Estate) which stood at €69.0 million (VGP European Logistics stood at €52.5 million as at 31 Dec 2017)
2 €75.2 million is pro-forma for the sale of Mango Building; including Mango Building the annualized committed leases stood at €82.8 million as at 31 Dec 2017. The Mango Building was held in our own portfolio.
| Martijn Vlutters | Tel: +32 (0)3 289 1433 |
|---|---|
| (VP – Business Development & Investor Relations) |
|
| Petra Vanclova | Tel: +42 0 602 262 107 |
| (External Communications) |
Forward-looking statements: This press release may contain forward-looking statements. Such statements reflect the current views of management regarding future events, and involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause actual results to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. VGP is providing the information in this press release as of this date and does not undertake any obligation to update any forward-looking statements contained in this press release in light of new information, future events or otherwise. The information in this announcement does not constitute an offer to sell or an invitation to buy securities in VGP or an invitation or inducement to engage in any other investment activities. VGP disclaims any liability for statements made or published by third parties and does not undertake any obligation to correct inaccurate data, information, conclusions or opinions published by third parties in relation to this or any other press release issued by VGP.
VGP is a leading pan-European developer, manager and owner of high-quality logistics and semi-industrial real estate. VGP operates a fully integrated business model with capabilities and longstanding expertise across the value chain. The company has a well-advanced land bank of actually over 5.7 million sqm and the strategic focus is on the development of business parks. Founded in 1998 as a family-owned real estate developer in the Czech Republic, VGP with a staff of around 170 employees today owns and operates assets in 11 European countries directly and through VGP European Logistics, a joint venture with Allianz Real Estate. In the first half of 2018, the Gross Asset Value of VGP, including the joint venture, amounted to €1.807 billion and the company had a Net Asset Value (EPRA NAV) of €536 million. VGP is listed on Euronext Brussels and on the Prague Stock Exchange (ISIN: BE0003878957). For more information, please visit: http://www.vgpparks.eu
Building tools?
Free accounts include 100 API calls/year for testing.
Have a question? We'll get back to you promptly.