by Erica Billingham
Quintain is planning more joint ventures following its first last year with Yates Brothers Wine Lodges.
Chairman Nigel Ellis said that Quintain is keen to work with companies that own property but do not want to manage it themselves, and hinted at initial talks with a second potential partner.
Ellis said: “We are hoping to do other deals with corporates who need to get property off their balance sheets.”
Quaystone, Quintain’s joint venture with Yates, will develop sites for the wine-bar and restaurant chain and has started on its first scheme in Enfield, north London.
Ellis said that Yates wants to double its number of outlets in the South East and is looking for around 100 sites. “We believe the prospects of developing this into a substantial part of our operations is considerable,” he said.
Ellis’s comments came as Quintain – which owns a mixed-bag of secondary property – posted a 21% hike in net asset value to 164p for the year to March. Pretax profit trebled to £10.5m.
Quintain bought three companies – Fiscal Properties, Croydon Land & Estates and Estates Property Investment – which helped push up the NAV. The value of Quintain’s core portfolio, held throughout the year, rose 18% compared with 7.1% recorded by the IPD monthly index.
Quintain’s total portfolio doubled in size since last year and was valued in March at £302m. It produced gross rents of £21.3m.
Ellis said secondary property prices have not been driven up as they have in prime sectors, such as shopping centres. “Yields on prime properties have become de-coupled from those in the secondary market. Yields on prime properties are at or near historic lows but yields on secondary are above and sometimes substantially above the costs of funds.”
Ellis said that he and chief executive Adrian Wyatt are continuing to look for other property companies to buy. Quintain recently pulled out of takeover talks with Raglan.
