Industrial property valuation up $12.3m

Listed industrial property landlord Property For Industry (PFI) has announced a 7.5% drop in distributable profit for the year ended December 2012, which it has attributed to sales of properties in the previous year and vacancy during the year.

PFI yesterday also announced its portfolio revaluation which, at $12.3 million, equated to a 3.3% increase in the value of the company's property portfolio to $382.2 million.

That would increase further to $397.2 million on settlement of the acquisition in property in Mt Wellington during the first quarter of 2013.

After-tax profit for the 2012 year increased to $10.6 million, or 64.7%, to $26.9 million up from $16.3 million in 2011. The rise was a result of a $15 million increase in non-operating income and expenses, which includes the revaluation uplift, offset by a $2.3 million increase in deferred taxation and a $2 million fall in operating earnings.

General manager Nick Cobham said there was ''considerably more'' optimism evident in the industrial property market in 2012 than had been in the previous three to four years.

''Whilst leasing activity may have been quieter in the last quarter of 2012 than the first three quarters, there was noticeably increased investor activity in the second half of the year, resulting in transactional evidence of lower yields achieved for prime industrial property,'' Mr Cobham said.

Progress had been made repositioning the portfolio during 2012; the acquisition of three significant industrial properties and disposal of selected non-core properties was complemented by more than 50 leasing transactions.

That activity provided a foundation from which to build future earnings growth, Mr Cobham said.

The company will pay a fourth quarter final dividend of 1.85c per share, bringing total dividends for the year to 6.60c per share.

The 50 industrial properties in PFI's portfolio, in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch are leased to 86 tenants.