Grit Real Estate Income Group Ltd (LON:GR1T) delivered a total shareholder return of 11.4% over its first year of listing as it confirmed its maiden final dividend.
The African-focused property trust, which ended the year with 25 investments spread across seven countries, almost all leased to multinational tenant companies, reported a net asset value of 131.9 US cents per share as of 30 June, down 2.7% due to exchange rate headwinds and costs of corporate activity.
With property spread across Ghana, Botswana, Mauritius, Morocco, Mozambique, Kenya and Zambia, the portfolio’s income producing assets were independent valued at US$825.2mln, thanks to a 3.8% increase in like-for-like property valuations. The occupancy rate was 97.1%.
Grit declared a final dividend of 6.95 US cents per share bringing the total dividend paid for the year to 12.2 cents per share, for a annualised dividend yield of around 8.8% based on the share price in London.
Based on the share issue price of US$1.43 per share from its US$132mln initial public offer fundraising on 31 July 2018 and latest closing price at the end of June of US$1.39, the total shareholder return was 11.4%.
Excluding the negative impacts of movements in the eurodollar, the underlying total return from the portfolio was 12.4%
Chief executive Bronwyn Corbett said: “Country and sector diversification and our proactive asset management initiatives have helped the company to manage effectively the challenges faced in the retail sector across the continent.”
Grit recently announced that a US$600mln of identified pipeline targets and was seeking shareholder permission to issue up to 280mln new shares to support its growth aspirations.