Helical Bar profits down

Helical Bar plc reported a drop in pre-tax profits for the full-year to end-March, a period which saw the completion of the repositioning started in 2001 when it stopped new office development and began reducing the proportion of Central London offices in its portfolio.

As a consequence, pretax profit fell to 13.7 mln stg from 25.2 mln a year earlier, while net rental income was reduced to 23 mln stg from 25.6 mln, it said.

The figure its Central London offices represent in its portfolio has dropped to 40 pct from the initial 80 pct. Helical has moved away from new office and retail development and is now focusing on large Central London office schemes, major mixed use developments and retail schemes.

Adjusted diluted net asset value per share rose to 874 pence from 770 previously. Earnings per share were lower at 39.6 pence compared to 59.2.

The property group is raising the total dividend to 16.6 pence a share from 15p. The final dividend was increased to 10 pence from 9.

Chairman John Southwell commented: 'Helical has completed the repositioning started in 2001. We look forward to the forthcoming cycle and aim to produce significant development and trading profits as we have done in the past.'

Through a mixture of investments and developments, Helical Bar has now over 30 active projects spread across all commercial property sectors.

'The retail, industrial and change-of-use schemes should deliver good growth over the next two to three years while in the longer term we look to our office development programme which we are building up in London and the South East,' it said in its statement.

www.efreeman.co.uk
Source: Freeman / AFX

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