Home REIT’s 12,000-word rebuttal of Viceroy Research’s attack has failed to calm the market, with its share price falling further.
The homeless accommodation investor issued the response yesterday after Viceroy raised doubts over its tenants’ ability to pay rent, the prices paid for some of its houses and the structure that determines how much fund managers receive in fees.
The allegations meant that the company’s results, due out this week, had to be delayed.
Home REIT, which will be demoted from the FTSE 250 index on 16 December, said it “regrets the material losses that its investors have suffered”, and they were left further out of pocket after the company’s response. The stock had opened higher, but ended up closing 9.3% lower at 50.5p. Before Viceroy’s report last week, they were trading at about 77p.
Despite the length of the rebuttal, said analysts at Peel Hunt, “there are some questions left unanswered”.
