News and Announcements
Folkestone Group (ASX:FLK) – Update
- Published January 29, 2013 12:25PM UTC
- Publisher Wholesale Investor
- Categories Company Updates
2012 saw a stellar year for listed property groups. According to Ken Howard of RBS Morgans, “Property trusts performed very strongly in 2012, with the A-REITs sector outperforming the ASX 200 index by around 9 per cent for the year ended.” With a reduction in interest rates, the sector has seen superior yields on offer from investments that offer a stable income stream.
Real estate investment, development and funds management company Folkestone Limited (ASX:FLK) is focused on providing real estate wealth solutions. Folkestone’s on balance sheet activities include value-add and opportunistic real estate investments while its funds management platform offers real estate funds to private clients, high net worth individuals and select institutional investors across core, value-add and opportunistic real estate investments.
Over the course of calendar year 2012, Folkestone saw an increase in price from $0.08 at the beginning of the year, to close at $0.12 to end the year, a return of 50 percent. During this period, the company sold its 20 per cent interest in Donnybrook Road, Mickleham at book value, unlocking $10.7 million of capital. The final unit of its Clifton Hill residential development was also sold in September 2012, with $8.1 million in capital repatriated during the year. The Ranges, Karratha, a project which provides much needed accommodation for business travellers to Karratha (pivotal to Australia’s long‐term LNG projects) was opened in December.
2012 also saw a major acquisition, when the Company acquired 100 per cent of the Austock property funds management business on deferred terms. The acquisition provided $550 million in funds under management in the real estate related social infrastructure sector, with two funds listed on the ASX – the Australian Education Trust (ASX:AEU) and The Australian Social Infrastructure Fund (ASX:AZF). As well as this, Folkestone launched their first unlisted income syndicate (the Folkestone Real Estate Income Fund at Sydney Olympic Park) which acquired a new commercial building with 100% of the office space leased to Thales Australia for 10 years.
Folkestone has started 2013 in extremely positive fashion and at time of writing, was trading at $0.15 or a return of 25 percent in January.