Resilient Impact boosts rental income by 34%
The word “resilient” is used almost 20 times in the annual results statement for Impact Healthcare REIT as it reported increases in rental income, profit and portfolio valuation.
The REIT, which invests primarily in care homes, recorded a 9.3% increase in pretax profit to £28.8m in the 12 months ended 31 December 2020, a 31.4% increase in the value of its portfolio to £418.8m and rental income up by almost 34% from £24m in 2019 to £31m at the end of last year.
Chairman Rupert Barclay said: “The human cost of the pandemic has been foremost in our minds and we have looked to do everything we can to help protect the health and wellbeing of our tenants’ residents and their healthcare professionals. Despite these difficult conditions, the group’s business model has proved resilient, as we have benefited from our deliberate approach to implementing our strategy since IPO.
The word “resilient” is used almost 20 times in the annual results statement for Impact Healthcare REIT as it reported increases in rental income, profit and portfolio valuation.
The REIT, which invests primarily in care homes, recorded a 9.3% increase in pretax profit to £28.8m in the 12 months ended 31 December 2020, a 31.4% increase in the value of its portfolio to £418.8m and rental income up by almost 34% from £24m in 2019 to £31m at the end of last year.
Chairman Rupert Barclay said: “The human cost of the pandemic has been foremost in our minds and we have looked to do everything we can to help protect the health and wellbeing of our tenants’ residents and their healthcare professionals. Despite these difficult conditions, the group’s business model has proved resilient, as we have benefited from our deliberate approach to implementing our strategy since IPO.
“Our portfolio provides crucial infrastructure supporting vulnerable elderly people across the UK and our tenants use our assets to provide an essential care service, demand for which is not directly correlated with economic conditions. This enabled them, despite the pandemic but with the benefit of grant income to offset incremental costs, to maintain robust rent cover throughout 2020. This in turn has allowed us to collect 100% of the rent due for the year, without putting undue stress on our tenants, and we were therefore able to meet our dividend target.”
He added: “We remain well-capitalised and are confident that the fundamental drivers of our industry and business remain strong, even if the recovery from Covid-19 is slower than we would all like. We are positioned to deliver further portfolio diversification and sustainable growth that will generate attractive returns for shareholders. At the same time, we will continue to responsibly deliver value to our tenants, their residents and healthcare professionals, over the long term.”
During the year under review, Impact Healthcare added a further 22 assets to its portfolio for £84.7m, boosting its total number of beds by more than 1,500. A commitment to forward fund a further 94-bed property and the acquisition of another post end of year, will take its total portfolio to 109 properties with almost 6,000 beds.
The average unexpired lease term across the group’s portfolio rose from 19.7 years in 2019 to 20 years in 2020.
To send feedback, e-mail samantha.mcclary@egi.co.uk or tweet @samanthamcclary or @estatesgazette
