Vastned Retail to issue bid update in March

Dutch-listed property fund Vastned Retail confirmed on Friday that it expects to make further announcements in the middle of March on offers made for all or part of Vastned Retail. Earlier this month, Vastned Retail said it had received a number of indicative offers but added that potential bidders needed more time to make final offers.

Late last year, the company turned down a hostile EUR 1.15 bn bid from IEF Capital, a joint venture of Bouwfonds Asset Management and Inflation Exchange Fund (IEF) but decided to open up its books for due diligence to interested parties.

Announcing its results, Vastned Retail said it expects a direct investment result per share in 2008 of EUR 4, after its 2007 direct result per share rose to EUR 3.85 from EUR 3.70 in 2006. The 2007 figure was comfortably above an EUR 3.72 forecast for its full-year direct result made in November. Vastned Retail said its overall direct investment result rose to EUR 64.4 mln from EUR 62.5 mln.

Vastned Retail said gross rental income during the year rose by 8.9% to EUR 120.6 mln in 2007. The value of its property portfolio at end-2007 amounted to nearly EUR 2.1 bn, up from just over EUR 1.7 bn the year earlier.

Vastned Retail said it would propose a final dividend of EUR 2.73 per share at its annual general meeting of shareholders on April 8. This figure is the direct investment result per share of EUR 3.85 minus the interim dividend of EUR 1.12.