AEW UK Long Lease REIT plc (“the Company”) has announced that, in addition to the two assets, one exchanged and one completed, announced on 6 September, it has six further assets under offer, totalling c. £40m. The average weighted unexpired lease term across all eight assets is c. 30 years, with an average net initial yield of 6.0% and 94% of the income benefitting from growth linked to inflation. It is anticipated that further announcements will be made during September.
Investment Policy
The Company’s investment policy, inter alia, restricts (i) the value of a single property and (ii) the value of assets in any sub-sector in one geographical region, each at the time of investment, to a maximum of 10 per cent of the gross asset value of the Company (“Gross Asset Value”). As the investment strategy intends to utilise leverage, the Board is of the view that these restrictions should be applied on the basis that the full extent of the proposed leverage has been utilised. Therefore, as a non-material change to the investment policy of the Company and a point of clarification, when the measure of Gross Asset Value is used to calculate these restrictions, it will reflect an assumption that the Company has drawdown borrowings such that these borrowings are equal to 30 per cent of Gross Asset Value.
AEW UK Long Lease REIT plc raised £80.5m from institutional and retail investors at its IPO in June and at that time it stated its expectation to substantially invest the net proceeds within nine months of listing. The Company is targeting an annual dividend of 5.5 pence per share paid quarterly, once fully invested and levered, with an ambition to grow in line with UK inflation thereafter. In addition to its pipeline above, the Company has completed on one acquisition and exchanged on another with a combined total value of c £9.2m.