Empiric hails tenfold increase in profit

Empiric’s profit has soared tenfold as the student specialist recovers from Covid-19 restrictions. Pretax profit for the first six months of 2022 rose to £70.3m, from just £7m for the first half of 2021. Revenue was up 37% from £25.9m to £35.6m. The company’s gross margin was also lifted from 57.9% in the first half of 2021 to 70.2% this year, and there was a marked increase of £58.6m in the fair value of its investment property. Total return also rose tenfold from 1.1% to 10.9%. Empiric’s chief executive, Duncan Garrood, said: “This reflects the reduced impact of Covid on the academic year 2021/22, strong yield compression, increased rents and our continuing work on further improving our portfolio and business.” The portfolio is now valued at £1.09bn, a like-for-like increase of 7% on December’s £1.02bn. This was driven by strong yield compression and like-for-like rental growth, as well as CBRE’s removal of the Covid-related valuation reduction of £6.2m. Garrood said he was encouraged to have achieved 92% occupancy to date for the forthcoming academic year. “This is ahead by 10% compared with the same time pre-pandemic, and we expect to deliver revenue occupancy at the upper end of our revised guidance of 90% to 95%.” He added that this was not only driven by market conditions normalising but “by the proactive enhancements we are making to our business and portfolio”. Empiric has hedged its energy costs up to Q3 2024 and fixed two-thirds of its total debt facilities, “which gives us significant protection from rising interest rates”. To send feedback, e-mail piers.wehner@eg.co.uk or tweet @PiersWehner or @EGPropertyNews Photo © Empiric Student Property