Metric Property Investments, the specialist retail REIT led by former head of retail at British Land, Andrew Jones, has spent £48m of the £190m it raised via a stock market launch in March.
The group, which this morning published its first interim management statement, said that with a remaining firepower in excess of £280m, it was “well-positioned to take advantage of investment opportunities arising from current market conditions”.
Metric made its first acquisition in July, which the £31.5m purchase of the Damolly retail park in
Chief executive Andrew Jones said: “Our purchase of Launceston retail park complements our existing investment in Newry and satisfies the key investment criteria we set out at the time of the IPO. Both properties offer significant opportunities for our active programme of asset management initiatives to grow rental income, which we aim to deliver over the short to medium-term.
“Our extensive experience in the retail property market, together with our substantial financial firepower, leaves us well placed to continue to exploit the increasing amount of investment opportunities becoming available. We continue to assess a significant pipeline of potential acquisitions but will only make investments where our key returns criteria are met and we are confident that the investment will perform in a softening market.”
The group said that it had used its existing cash resources to finance its acquisitions to date and that it would refinance with debt once it had invested a significant portion of its net IPO proceeds.
samantha.mcclary@estatesgazette.com
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