Hansteen targets £580m shareholder pay-out

Industrial specialist Hansteen is proposing to return up to £580m to shareholders by the end of the year having sold its German and Dutch assets to Blackstone and M7 Real Estate for €1.3bn earlier this year. The company reported buoyant half-year results today that further underlined the rude health of the light industrial market owing to growing demand from e-commerce and last-mile logistics companies. In his statement, chairman Melvyn Egglenton said: “For the first time in many years strong occupier demand has resulted in increasing rents per let square foot and it looks as though this trend will continue. “We believe there are constraints to new supply because to feasibly build equivalent properties to those in our portfolio a developer would need to achieve a rent of between £6 and £7 per sq ft. “We are currently enjoying a period of strong investment and occupier demand. The appreciation by investors of our type of properties continues to grow and recent transactions would indicate that we could well benefit from further yield compression.” The company’s EPRA NAV per share rose 2.8% to 132.5p over the period to 30 June. Following the sale to Blackstone and M7, the company now has a £805.2m portfolio based almost entirely in the UK with a rent roll of £60.2m and a vacancy rate of 7.9%. On a like-for-like basis, the value of the portfolio increased by 2.3% over the six months. To send feedback, e-mail david.hatcher@egi.co.uk or tweet @hatcherdavid or @estatesgazette