Every day more than 380,000 women around the world give birth. It is a staggering figure. However, you have to wonder how many of those women, or their husbands/partners, perhaps over-whelmed with the financial responsibility of raising a child, will have invested some money at the start of their pregnancy’s to contribute towards nappies or formula etc. With the exception of those that rolled the dice and bought some Bitcoin, it is very unlikely that any of them will have managed to double their investment by the time the baby was born. But if you had bought shares in Eurocommercial Properties you would have done just that…in nine months.
The Dutch company is one of Europe’s most experienced owners and managers of retail property with a portfolio of around €4bn, comprised of 26 prime assets (shopping centres) with a major focus on France (11 shopping centres), Italy (8) and Sweden (7).
The company released its annual report on 26 March, which revealed that it is now close to full occupancy again (98.4%). In the 18 months to the end of 2020 it has achieved a rent uplift of 10.5% on renewals and re-lets. It has also disposed of €300m worth of non-performing real estate (8% of its portfolio) and reduced its LTV to 43.8%.
In the 2020 calendar year it saw its portfolio fall in value by 3.8%, which all things considered (we were bordering on the apocalypse at the end of Q1 2020), is not too bad.
The strengthening pound has taken a slight edge off of returns
We created this Euro PIN Fund at the end of July 2020 as an alternative to our existing UK PIN Fund (both fictional Funds consisting of 10 property-related listed companies) and also as a hedge against sterling weakening after Brexit was finalised. What we did not anticipate last summer was how much quicker the UK would roll-out its vaccination programme compared to the rest of Europe. With the exception of Malta, Hungary and Serbia, the UK has vaccinated more than twice as many people, per million, than every other country in Europe. As a result, the pound has kept rising against the euro, up from €1.11 when we started the Fund to €1.15 at the time of writing, an increase of 3.6% in nine months.
