In June we announced our full-year results for the financial year ended 31 March 2022, a really strong set of numbers covering some major milestones and a lot of hard work from everyone at Sirius, so in this blog I’d like to take some time to reflect on these.
Headline figures
I’d like to focus on a few key figures from this latest set of results that really highlight the great strides we’ve made.
Firstly, we’ve delivered a total shareholder return of 20%, on which I’ll discuss more below – but suffice it to say that this means we’ve continued to deliver for our investors, a key priority for us.
I’d also like to highlight our Funds from Operations (FFO), which increased by 22.5% to €74.6 million, bringing us within reach of our stated target of €100m FFO.
Another key highlight is our rent roll run rate, which increased by 73.1% to €167m, driven partly by our acquisition of BizSpace and also by organic growth underpinned by demand and asset management. We achieved a 6.4% like for like rental growth in Germany for the year as well as 7.6% rent roll growth in the UK in just over 4 months of owning BizSpace.
These are just a few of the headline numbers, and there are many more that paint a fuller picture of the strong results we posted - for the full rundown, you can read our press release.
Market forces
It won’t have escaped your attention that the macro backdrop at the time of writing is challenging, with inflation front of mind for many. Resilience has always been a key attribute of the Sirius approach and business model, and we’ve seen this borne out in our latest set of results. For investors, our focus on growing the revenues that drive our dividend payments makes us an attractive proposition, and more broadly our diversified portfolio and tenant base across Germany and the UK means we’re well insulated against economic uncertainty.
Our asset management platform means we’re able to work with tenants to get them the right types and amounts of space across our portfolio, meaning we can more flexibly accommodate their needs than traditional providers.
Moreover, the structural tailwinds driving demand for the types of space we offer remain in place. I’ve written in more detail about this in previous blogs, but broadly speaking these are nearshoring of production closer to the end user, a growing need by businesses to create more resilient supply chains, and consumer shifts towards e-commerce and quick commerce as well as faster-moving purchasing trends.
Shareholder returns
At our last results, I wrote in my blog at the time that shareholder returns are a key priority for Sirius, and we were very pleased to continue this in our latest set of results with a 16.1% increase in dividend for our shareholders.
We also delivered a valuation increase of just over 9% for the year and the most important part of this is that over 70% of that increase came from increased revenue rather than any change in the valuation yield.
Many of our shareholders have stood by us through a period of significant market instability and macro disruption and we are delighted to see them rewarded for their continued investment.
A growing team
Our ongoing strong performance is of course thanks to the hard work and diligence of my colleagues across the whole business – and in the past year, we’ve welcomed more than 200 new people to the Sirius fold through the acquisition of BizSpace. It’s been fantastic to grow our team so substantially and lead the company into the UK, a new market for Sirius, and we’re looking forward to sharing further updates with the market as a combined group in the future.
Looking forward
It continues to be a privilege to be a part of this business and our committed, high-performing teams in Germany and the UK, and we’re looking forward to making further strides in the months ahead and building further on our strong foundations – and I personally look forward to updating you in due course.