Listed German property investor DIC Asset said it is on course to achieve higher earnings in 2013 thanks mainly to growth in its fund management business.
Listed German property investor DIC Asset said it is on course to achieve higher earnings in 2013 thanks mainly to growth in its fund management business.
The Frankfurt-based company expects funds from operations (FFO) to increase to €45-47 mln for the 2013 financial year after seeing FFO rise 6% to €23.1 mln in the first six months of 2013 compared with the year-earlier period.
The main driver behind the growth was the fund management business, whose two special funds - DIC Office Balance I and DIC HighStreet Balance - recently acquired three properties worth more than €70 mln.
At €435 mln, the aggregate volume of the two funds already exceeds 60% of the target volume (around €700 mln) planned for the next two years, DIC Asset said.
Full-year rental income is projected to come out at €121 mln to €123 mln, against €126.5 mln in 2012, following a higher level of disposals and a forecast reduction in the vacancy rate to around 10%.
Lower financing costs and a string of property disposals helped boost consolidated profit for the first half by 25% to €6.5 mln from €5.2 mln a year earlier.
The company said progress on the development of the MainTor quarter in Frankfurt, in which DIC Asset holds a 40% stake, was continuing with more than 85% of the flats in the MainTor Palazzi scheme already sold. Meanwhile construction of the three project phases MainTor Patio, MainTor Panorama and MainTor Palazzi has started.
DIC Asset CEO Ulrich Höller said that the company had ‘fully achieved its interim targets in the first half of 2013 - some of them ahead of schedule. We are on track to once again generate significant earnings growth’.
