Former British Land finance director Graham Roberts has been appointed as chief executive of Assura Group.
Roberts takes the post with immediate effect, replacing Nigel Rawlings, who today resigned as chief executive and stepped down from the board of the primary healthcare property company.
Rawlings, who joined Assura as CFO at the company’s inception in 2003, becoming chief executive in March 2010, will remain as an adviser for the next month, assisting in the handover of responsibilities to Roberts.
The announcement comes as the group announces a new dividend policy in a trading update for the year ending 31 March 2012.
At the time of its rights issue in November, the board said that it intended to recommend a final dividend for this year, and is now planning a progressive dividend policy.
This means it will pay future dividends quarterly, in line with the timing of its rental income receipts.
The first quarterly dividend will be paid as an interim dividend in July 2012 at a rate of 0.285p per share, giving rise to an anticipated annualised distribution of at least 1.14p per share.
Since 1 April 2011, Assura has completed 99 rent reviews, which resulted in an additional £806,000 pa in passing rent for existing properties and an anticipated weighted average annual rental increase of around 3.5% for the current year as a whole.
Chairman Simon Laffin said: “To have attracted such an experienced and well respected real estate professional as Graham Roberts represents another significant step forward in Assura’s continued development, since its return to being a pure-play primary healthcare property business, having successfully divested its other interests during the year.”
Roberts said: “Much has been achieved recently to refocus the group to its core property business, which has produced impressive property returns through the downturn as demonstrated by the fact that annualised rental income growth has averaged approximately 4.4% over the last five years, despite some slowing in the rate of growth in the second half of the current financial year.
“This performance reflects the team’s expertise in investment and development as well as the core fundamentals of primary healthcare: long leases, strong covenant strength and the long-term need to upgrade primary healthcare premises.
“Government policy continues to put GP’s at the heart of the NHS, which underlines the importance of Assura’s role in providing appropriate infrastructure of the highest quality.”
bridget.o’connell@estatesgazette.com
