LXi targets £125m raise 

LXi REIT is planning to raise £125m to fund a circa £272m pipeline of acquisitions. The long-income REIT is aiming to sell 88.6m new ordinary shares priced at 142p each. This represents a 6.8% discount to yesterday’s closing price, as well as a 2.9% premium to estimated December book values. The pipeline properties reflect a blended net initial yield of 5.2% and have a long weighted average unexpired lease term of more than 20 years. Stephen Hubbard, chairman of LXi REIT, said: “Our portfolio continues to perform strongly, benefiting from the embedded inflation linkage in our rents, and its exposure to attractive sub-sectors of the real estate market, including grocery and industrial. “Meanwhile, our recent acquisitions have further diversified our portfolio, including into areas such as life sciences and education, and clearly demonstrate our ability to create additional value outperformance for shareholders by sourcing attractive off-market properties and forward funding opportunities. “We expect the group’s portfolio to continue to deliver attractive, defensive, inflation-protected income returns and capital growth to our shareholders going forward.” To send feedback, e-mail pui-guan.man@eg.co.uk or tweet @PuiGuanM or @EGPropertyNews