Sirius Real Estate upbeat about upcoming dividend

Sirius Real Estate, the JSE-listed owner of flexible office and storage space in Germany, is on track to declare a dividend of 2.7 euro cents for the year to end-March, according to a consensus of analysts.

"This would be a very satisfactory increase on the full 2016 dividend per share of 2.22 euro cents. 
Thus we would expect that the upcoming first-half dividend will show a marked improvement on the previous first-half dividend per share of 0.92c," said Chris Segar of Ivy Asset Management.

Sirius CEO Andrew Coombs said the group had performed very well in the first half of the 2017 financial year.

The company released a trading statement on Friday.
The majority of Sirius’s tenants come from the German small and medium enterprise (SME) market, which is a substantial part of the German economy, Coombs said.

"We offer SME companies flexible leases so that they can adapt the space they have to their fast-changing needs. The success of this format is shown by occupancy increasing on a like-for-like basis to its highest level yet of 81% as at September 30 and like-for-like rate per square metre increasing to €5.07 from €5.02 at the start of the financial year," he said.
The like-for-like annualised rent roll increased 2.4% in the six-month period to €64.5m from €63m at the start of the financial year.

A significant portion of the rent roll increase came from the company’s major capital investment programme through which suboptimal space was transformed into either prime lettable space or one of the company’s Smartspace product range.
Brendon Hubbard of ClucasGray Investment Management, said the trading statement was very positive for Sirius.

"This trading statement implies earnings and dividends are up over 40% in euros. Last year they paid 0.92c at the interim stage and this trading statement implies the dividend is expected to be higher than 1.3c, which was the second-half dividend for last year," he said Coombs said he expected Sirius to move to the main boards of both the JSE and London Stock Exchange in January.