NewRiver REIT H2 2025 Earnings Report

NewRiver REIT EPS Results

• Actual EPS: GBX 6.30
• Consensus EPS: N/A
• Beat/Miss: N/A
• One Year Ago EPS: N/A

NewRiver REIT Revenue Results

• Actual Revenue: N/A
• Expected Revenue: N/A
• Beat/Miss: N/A
• YoY Revenue Growth: N/A

NewRiver REIT Announcement Details

• Quarter: H2 2025
• Date: 6/3/2025
• Time: Before Market Opens
• Conference Call Date: Tuesday, June 3, 2025
• Conference Call Time: 4:30AM ET

NewRiver is a leading Real Estate Investment Trust specialising in buying, managing and developing retail and leisure assets across the UK. Every day, our shopping centres, retail parks and pubs provide essential goods and services to their local communities.

NewRiver REIT H2 2025 Earnings Call Transcript

Key Takeaways

• The acquisition of Capital & Regional completed in December 2024 increased New River’s gross assets by 65% and delivered a 25% increase in underlying funds from operations, with mid-to-high teens EPS accretion expected through FY ’26 and ’27.
• Operational metrics remain strong, with portfolio consumer spend growth outpacing the market, occupancy at 96.1% and tenant retention at 90%, while new leases achieved rents 17.5% above previous levels.
• Underlying funds from operations per share rose to 8.1 pence, supporting a total FY ’25 dividend of 6.5 pence (125% covered), yielding over 8%, powered by acquisition synergies and expanding capital partnerships.
• Balance sheet strength is maintained with loan-to-value reduced to 38% (within guidance), investment-grade credit ratings reaffirmed, and a diversified, predominantly unsecured debt profile at a low 3.5% cost of debt.
• Significant upcoming debt maturities—including a £140 million facility in January 2027 and a £300 million bond in March 2028—may refinance at higher market rates, potentially raising finance costs.

Presentation

[Allan Lockhart, Founder, CEO & Director at NewRiver Reit]

Well, good morning, everyone, and welcome to our full year results presentation. It's great to be here in person to share the highlights of what has been a busy and successful year for New River. It has been a transformational period for New River, the highlight of which was the acquisition of Capital Regional, which completed on the December 10. This acquisition increases our scale with gross assets up 65% and is highly earnings accretive, already delivering a 25% increase in our underlying funds from operations in FY 'twenty five with further earnings growth to come through in FY 'twenty six and FY 'twenty seven. The acquisition was paid for in New River shares and cash, involving a highly successful equity raise, reflecting its compelling strategic benefits and the confidence both in New River and our marketplace, and we are grateful to our shareholders for their strong support.

[Allan Lockhart, Founder, CEO & Director at NewRiver Reit]

Our M and A activity did not detract from our operational performance, which has been excellent. Our portfolio significantly outperformed the market in terms of year on year consumer spend growth, which is supporting the success of our occupiers. Earnings growth, in our opinion, will be the main driver of shareholder returns over the years ahead. We're confident that with a portfolio that is performing well, a growing capital partnership business and the realization of the significant benefits that flow from our completed M and A activities, our shareholders are set to benefit from materially higher covered dividends. The acquisition of Capital Regional is an excellent strategic fit that is already delivering the significant operational and financial benefits we expected.

[Allan Lockhart, Founder, CEO & Director at NewRiver Reit]

The extensive pre acquisition diligence that we undertook demonstrated that their six community shopping centers are complementary with our own portfolio in terms of customer and tenant profile. The transaction increases the combined value by 65% to just under 900,000,000 in value with a high weighting to London and the Southeast, which we view as a positive. The transaction presents a unique opportunity to unlock material cost savings of £6,200,000 and deliver mid- to high teen earnings per share accretion. It enhances our equity market profile, our share liquidity, financial flexibility and debt maturity profiles, all whilst maintaining our robust capital structure. Price paid is critically important in determining future returns, and we believe we acquired Capital Regional at an attractive level.

[Allan Lockhart, Founder, CEO & Director at NewRiver Reit]

At acquisition, their assets were valued at £350,000,000 resulting in a net asset value of £175,000,000 which compares favorably to the price that we paid of £151,000,000 a discount of 14%. We are very pleased with how well the integration process has gone, reflecting the detailed planning that we put in place prior to the completion. One of the key benefits of the transaction is the opportunity to unlock significant cost savings, and in that regard, we are on track to deliver the £6,200,000 of cost savings identified by the end of FY 'twenty six on an annualized basis. Already duplicate costs have been removed, all people synergies agreed and implemented and finally, their office space is currently under offer. The capital and regional assets have already been fully onboarded onto the New River platform, and we have been pleased with the leasing performance in terms of pricing ahead of valuers ERVs and rent collection, occupancy and tenant retention rates all remaining high.

[Allan Lockhart, Founder, CEO & Director at NewRiver Reit]

In addition, we now also own Snowzone, the U. K. Largest indoor skiing operator with locations in Milton Keynes, Yorkshire and Madrid, providing a positive and growing contribution to underlying funds from operations. The extensive pre acquisition diligence and preparation that we undertook has served us well and gives us great confidence in the future performance of this strategically important acquisition. Our acquisition of Capital Regional was well timed given it is our view that our market is in its strongest position for a decade.

[Allan Lockhart, Founder, CEO & Director at NewRiver Reit]

We believe this for four key reasons. Firstly, The U. K. Consumers' balance sheet remains strong with elevated savings, stable house prices, low levels of unemployment and wages have been exceeding inflation since June 2023. This has supported retail and supermarket spending, which, based on Lloyd Bank data, has delivered continued year on year sales growth of 1.5% for the twelve months to March 2025 despite the increase in consumer essential spending such as on mortgages and council tax.

[Allan Lockhart, Founder, CEO & Director at NewRiver Reit]

Secondly, much of the corporate restructuring has already taken place with the weaker retailers removed from the market and with that, taking out excess competition. Thirdly, most national retailers have focused on operational efficiency and margin growth, leading to improved financial results. Finally, pure online retail is going through its own period of disruption with the line between in store and online sales increasingly blurred and omnichannel retailers gaining market share, and this is positive for our sector as the physical store is at the center of omnichannel retailing. As a result, vacancy is falling, driven by increased occupational demand, and with that, rental growth is emerging for assets in the right locations. Collectively, these improving market dynamics have not gone unnoticed by investors.

[Allan Lockhart, Founder, CEO & Director at NewRiver Reit]

With shopping center and retail park investment volumes up over 70%, attracted by the strength of the occupational market, rebased values, availability of credit and high income returns. Before I hand over to Will, we also announced the off market sale of our shopping center in Belfast at book value for £58,800,000 following the successful completion of our asset management strategy and extraction of maximum value presented from this asset. The proceeds of the sale will be reinvested into superior income and capital growth opportunities in due course. Now I'll hand over to Will.

[Will Hobman, CFO at NewRiver Reit]

Thanks, Alan, and good morning, everyone. I'm pleased to be taking you through the results of what's been a transformational year for us. Although the Cacklin Regional transaction only completed in December, we're already more profitable on a per share basis with further growth to come through looking forward. We also have more scale in our p and l and on our balance sheet. And we've achieved this while maintaining financial discipline and balance sheet strength.

[Will Hobman, CFO at NewRiver Reit]

And that's where I'll start today, with our key balance sheet and debt metrics. This slide shows how our position changed during FY 2025 as the Capcom Regional acquisition progressed, with the September column including the impact of the significantly oversubscribed equity raise to part fund the transaction. And the March 25 column reflected the impact of the completion of the acquisition. In summary, we've increased the scale of our business with the size of the portfolio increased to just under £900,000,000 by acquiring a portfolio of complementary assets with a well diversified tenant base at an attractive entry point. Cash has tracked back down towards more normalized levels from £185,000,000 back in September to £62,000,000 in March.

[Will Hobman, CFO at NewRiver Reit]

On to gross debt, where we now have a more diversified maturity profile with enhanced financial flexibility and increased scale for future financing. And we've achieved this while remaining predominantly unsecured and maintaining our investment grade credit ratings. Lastly, on the balance sheet, NTA per share, which reduced by 9p during the first half of the year, just under 6p of which was due to the equity raise in September, and 2p was due to Elandi, where the value of the asset management platform acquired is excluded from the EPRA NTA calculation. We guided at the half year that we expected NTA to reduce slightly in the second half to around 102p, principally due to C and R completion, including remaining transaction costs. And you can see we've ended the year in line with that guidance.

[Will Hobman, CFO at NewRiver Reit]

On to our overall debt metric position across net debt to EBITDA, interest cover and loan to value, which remained very strong post transaction and has improved post year end with the sale of the Abbey Centre in Belfast, meaning on a pro form a basis, our LTV has reduced within guidance within six months of C and R completion, as you can see on this slide, which starts with the LTV movement during the first half, showing a modest initial reduction due to H1 operational activity before a significant reduction in September following the equity raise to end the half at 22%. The slide then shows the year end position of 42%, which incorporates deployment into the Capital and Regional acquisition and is in line with the transaction pro form a communicated at the half year, which is well below our policy of less than 50% and only marginally higher than our guidance of less than 40%. At the time of our half year results, we explained that we remained committed to our guidance and that we were confident we could return to the 40% level through a realistically achievable level of around £30,000,000 of asset disposals. And that even at an LTV level modestly above guidance, we were very comfortable with the strength of our financial position post acquisition, especially considering LTV alongside net debt to EBITDA and interest cover.

[Will Hobman, CFO at NewRiver Reit]

I'm pleased to report that following the disposal of the Abbey Centre in Belfast, in line with March 25 and March 24 book values for net proceeds of just under £60,000,000 on a pro form a basis, our LTV has reduced to 38 percent, back within guidance. So to conclude, the strength of our financial position is measured not just with reference to LTV but also net debt to EBITDA and interest cover. We've demonstrated financial discipline by returning LTV to within guidance within six months of completion. And we're currently progressing some more modest disposals, which we expect to complete in the coming weeks, again, in line with latest book value. So we have modest capacity to redeploy right now and expect to have more shortly.

[Will Hobman, CFO at NewRiver Reit]

And we're currently evaluating some very interesting deployment opportunities. Next, debt structure. Starting with activity during the year, and then covering priorities looking ahead over the next twelve months. As we flagged at the half year, immediately post completion, we repaid the three smaller, generally shorter dated and more expensive capital and regional facilities, which totaled 59,000,000 of its total hundred and £99,000,000 of gross debt, with a blended cost of over 6%, meaning we retained the MAL facility, which is the largest of the capital and regional facilities at a hundred and £40,000,000 and also the lowest cost at 3.5%, with no porting costs and a maturity in January '7. This means that post acquisition, our cost of debt remains at 3.5% compared to a portfolio net initial yield of 7.1% or equivalent yield of 8.4%.

[Will Hobman, CFO at NewRiver Reit]

And that our debt structure remains predominantly unsecured, with a more diversified debt maturity profile, enhanced financial flexibility and increased scale for future financing. Features that were recognized by Fitch in September when they reaffirmed Newra's investment grade credit ratings following our successful equity raise, a BBB with a stable outlook and BBB plus on the bond itself. Looking ahead, we recognize that right now we're very well positioned with a low cost of debt and no immediate refinancing requirement. We're confident in our ability to refinance when needed. And in addition, we currently have around £120,000,000 of cash pro form a for the disposal of the Abbey Centre and two extensions remaining on our undrawn £100,000,000 revolver.

[Will Hobman, CFO at NewRiver Reit]

So our total refi requirement is significantly less than the £440,000,000 of drawn debt we currently have, and we have some flexibility on timing. Clearly, the interest rate environment now is different to when we raised the bond in 2018, and we want to make sure we extract maximum benefit from our current position, which we're aware has inherent value. But we're not complacent. We plan to be active in the debt market in the next twelve months, and our preference is to remain as an unsecured borrower. On to UFFO, which has increased from 7.8p last year to 8.1p this year on a per share basis, including a 19% increase in H2 versus H1 following deployment, and representing a 9% increase versus the pre C and R baseline of 7.4p.

[Will Hobman, CFO at NewRiver Reit]

I'll focus on the key drivers of the pounds million movement from £24,400,000 last year to £30,500,000 this year, which is shown in the bridge on the left hand side of the slide. Net property income has increased by £4,800,000 in the year, principally due to the contribution from acquisitions, with the six capital and regional shopping centers included in core and Il Andy's net contribution to capital partnerships included in AM fees. Net of disposals, mainly from the workout portfolio, which now accounts for just 3% of our total portfolio. Moving on to other UFFO line items. Admin costs have increased slightly, predominantly due to inflation as the majority of our admin costs are payroll related, the effect of which we've mitigated through ongoing cost saving initiatives, and due to the fact we now have a slightly increased cost base following the acquisition of C and R.

[Will Hobman, CFO at NewRiver Reit]

Importantly, we've made good progress in unlocking the £6,200,000 of annual cost synergies identified during the transaction, And we're on track to fully unlock the full benefit on a look forward basis by the end of FY 'twenty six. Next, Snow Zone, acquired as part of the CNL transaction, which is an independently run business with a high quality leadership team operating three indoor ski slopes in The U. K. And Spain. The EBITDA on the slide of £3,700,000 exceeds Snow Zone's annual trading output.

[Will Hobman, CFO at NewRiver Reit]

Because our initial period of ownership encompassed Snow Zone's peak trading season without its period of controlled loss, which typically runs from May to September, meaning there will be seasonality in our earnings going forward, with h two benefiting from peak trading and h one impacted by the controlled loss period. Other income in the prior year related to our final COVID insurance settlement. And lastly, net finance costs have increased because we retained the MAL facility, which, as previously mentioned, was the largest and also the lowest cost of the Capital and Regional facilities. Now on to our dividend. As you all know, we pay dividends twice per annum, announced within our half and full year results, and based on 80% of the UFFO reported for the most recently completed six month period, which means that as our UFFO has grown in the second half following deployment, so too has our dividend to 3.5p per share from 3p per share in the first half, which takes our total FY 'twenty five dividend to 6.5p per share, comfortably 125 percent covered by UFFO per share of 8.1p and representing a dividend yield of over 8% and an earnings yield of over 10% based on last night's closing share price.

[Will Hobman, CFO at NewRiver Reit]

And I'd like to finish by expanding on the key areas we expect to generate UFFO growth from here. On the left hand side of the slide, we start with 7.4p per share, which is the simple annualization of the 3.7p of UFFO per share we reported in the first half of the year back in December, before adding in, shown as number one on the slide, the accretion we saw in H2 net of transaction funding. This gets us to the 8.1p of UFFO per share we've reported this morning. Looking forward, we then added number two, the remaining C and R profit contribution, including synergies identified as part of the transaction, which we're on track to unlock on an annualized basis by the end of FY 'twenty six. Number three shows the impact of the post balance sheet disposal of the Abbey Centre, which reduced LTV from 42% to 38%, as well as future deployment to 40% LTV, in line with guidance.

[Will Hobman, CFO at NewRiver Reit]

Number four shows the impact of refinancing the MAO facility, where we're currently benefiting from a cost of 3.5%, which will reset to the market rate prior to its maturity in January '7. Lastly, number five, which highlights the further growth drivers available to build earnings above and beyond the C and R acquisition. And to reiterate, through our dividend policy, the benefits of UFFO per share growth flows through to our shareholders as dividend. Thank you all for listening. I'll now hand you back to Alan.

[Allan Lockhart, Founder, CEO & Director at NewRiver Reit]

Thanks, Will. We have consistently expressed our confidence in our portfolio supported by our operating metrics. It is not surprising that given the underlying trading outperformance in our portfolio, our tenant retention rate when it comes to lease expiry or break remained high at 90% and occupancy also remained high at 96.1%. This is underpinned by low and affordable average rents across our portfolio. We were pleased with our leasing performance with long term leasing rents agreed at 17.5% above the previous rent and 8.8% above value of ERVs.

[Allan Lockhart, Founder, CEO & Director at NewRiver Reit]

An operating metric that we monitor closely is new leasing rent versus previous rent over what time period the rent has changed, which is why we track the compound annual growth rate of our leasing transactions. What is worth noting is that over the last three years combined, our compound annual growth rate has moved into a positive position at plus 0.7%, which is a significant achievement given the extent of disruption in the retail markets over the last ten years. We continue to have low tenant concentration in our rental cash flows with no single tenant accounting for more than 4% of our total contracted rent. We are strong believers that access to high quality data allows us to make better decisions, whether that relates to capital deployment, leasing, tenant mix, marketing or overall risk assessment of assets. The most important data in our opinion is live consumer spending, which provides an insight into the millions of customers that visit our assets.

[Allan Lockhart, Founder, CEO & Director at NewRiver Reit]

This is why we have started working with Lloyds Bank to combine high quality consumer spending data with our retail market expertise, and we now have access to spending data on 85% of our portfolio by value. This data provides us a detailed insight into the health and activity of both our consumer base and the performance of our retailers. It includes store by store sales turnover, the online contribution from that store, where else consumers are spending, a customer demographic profile and interestingly, where customers tend to make their first purchase, their second purchase and so on. What is pleasing is that our assets are significantly outperforming The U. K.

[Allan Lockhart, Founder, CEO & Director at NewRiver Reit]

Market by three forty basis points with year on year growth of 4.9%, which we believe is reflective of our portfolio positioning focused on local essential led retail, with 72% of our shoppers traveling less than five miles and a shopping journey which is characterized by a low basket spend but high frequency. Given our focus on sustainable rental cash flows, our portfolio is reassuringly underpinned by a low occupational cost ratio of only 8.3%. We deem this to be highly affordable for our tenants and provides capacity for growing rents in the future. Moving now to our valuation performance, where we have delivered capital growth over the full year period driven by ERV growth of plus 1.1 and stability in our yields. Pleasingly, our core shopping centers and retail parks delivered capital returns of plus 0.23.5%, respectively.

[Allan Lockhart, Founder, CEO & Director at NewRiver Reit]

And given our portfolio repositioning over the past few years, this means they now account for 94% of the total portfolio by value. These segments have been broadly stable with positive capital growth in three out of the last four financial years was stable or growing ERBs over this period. This reinforces our belief that we own the right assets in the right locations, catering to occupiers for whom a physical store is absolutely essential. Our core shopping centers and retail parks have continued to deliver attractive and reliable cash flows underpinned by active demand and a tight supply, leading to a strong leasing performance. Two of the key highlights this year included the long term renewal to Marks and Spencer's at our shopping center in Newton Mearns, which also included a high spec store refurbishment and a new long term letting to Sainsbury's at our retail park in Dumfries, Sixty Percent ahead of the previous rent.

[Allan Lockhart, Founder, CEO & Director at NewRiver Reit]

Our core portfolio centered on essential goods and services continues to demonstrate strong operational metrics, and the sustained demand for both new lettings and renewals provides the foundation for consistent rental growth going forward. Capital partnerships are an important component of our strategy to deliver earnings growth in a capital light way. And over the last five years, we have delivered a compound annual growth rate of 19% in fee income net of costs. Last July, we were pleased to have acquired Elandi, the asset and development management company, which is aligned with our strategy to expand our existing capital partnership business over the long term. We already manage assets on behalf of 14 different partners, and today, our capital partnership business and platform has genuine scale.

[Allan Lockhart, Founder, CEO & Director at NewRiver Reit]

We now own and manage total assets under management of £2,400,000,000 across a portfolio of 48 shopping centers and 30 retail parks, collecting £225,000,000 of annual rent from 3,500 tenants, and we are active in most regions in The U. K. Investment partners are increasingly recognizing the importance of track record and specialism in this highly operational asset class, and we are partnering with and providing a range of services to both new and existing owners across the key physical store channels of convenience and destination shopping centers, retail parks and regeneration assets, particularly with local authorities. The scale that we have, together with the access to extensive data and insights, is unrivaled in The U. K.

[Allan Lockhart, Founder, CEO & Director at NewRiver Reit]

Retail real estate market, and we're well placed to continue the growth of our capital partnership activities. We have made good progress on our long term ESG objectives. Five years on from our original net zero target baseline year of FY 'twenty, we are 93% of the way to achieving our SBTI target to reduce our absolute Scope one and two emissions by 42% by 02/1930, having achieved a total reduction of 39% at the end of FY 'twenty five. Over the last twelve months, we have delivered a reduction of thirteen percent and twelve percent in absolute Scope one and two emissions, respectively. This year, we improved our GRESP score from 72 to 80 out of 100, and we retained our B rating from CDP.

[Allan Lockhart, Founder, CEO & Director at NewRiver Reit]

For a fourth consecutive year, we've also retained our Gold Award from EPRA in recognition of the high transparency and comparability of our ESG performance disclosures. We became an accredited real living wage employer, and we were proud to have retained our recognition as one of The Sunday Times best places to work. Our achievements across people, place, partnership, environment and governance testify to how our ESG commitment is embedded throughout our business and contributing to our success as a responsible real estate investor. The benefits of the decisive actions we implemented several years ago to position New River for growth are now being realized, particularly with the acquisition of Capital Regional, the benefits of which are starting to flow through and will be further realized in FY 'twenty six and 'twenty seven as the cost synergies are fully unlocked. Our aim is to deliver consistent sector leading earnings growth beyond just the benefits of the Capital Regional acquisition.

[Allan Lockhart, Founder, CEO & Director at NewRiver Reit]

Our key earnings growth drivers are net rental income growth, the signs for which are positive and should lead to valuation growth, allowing us to access some of our untapped liquidity continuing revenue growth from capital partnerships for which our five year track record of growth is supportive And finally, capital recycling into higher return opportunities. Our portfolio is performing well, supported by a highly experienced and motivated team, underpinned by a strong balance sheet. And whilst the macro environment has been volatile, we have a clear pathway to deliver attractive returns for our shareholders. So thank you. We will now move to Q and A, beginning with live questions from the room.

[Allan Lockhart, Founder, CEO & Director at NewRiver Reit]

And for those wanting to ask a question, if you could just say your name and the company that you're from. And I think there's a microphone around. So Bjorn, do you want to go first?

[Bjorn Zietsman, Director - Equity Research Real Estate at Panmure Liberum]

Thanks. Bjorn Dietrich from Panmellibrium. You've had a very strong leasing performance for some time now. Given the 17.5% uplift on previous passing rent, how much embedded reversion do you think is still within the portfolio? And over what period do you think you could crystallize that reversion?

[Bjorn Zietsman, Director - Equity Research Real Estate at Panmure Liberum]

And I'll follow-up with another two questions if that's okay.

[Allan Lockhart, Founder, CEO & Director at NewRiver Reit]

Well, there's definitely embedded reversion within our portfolio. You can see that in our yield profile. So if you take our retail parks, we currently sit off a net initial yield of 6.5 and an equivalent yield of six sorry, 6.1 and an equivalent yield of 6.5. And the activity and leasing performance over the last twelve months suggests that we're going to see some good consistent rental growth from our retail parks. But equally, we're seeing that in our core shopping centers as well.

[Allan Lockhart, Founder, CEO & Director at NewRiver Reit]

There's inbuilt reversion there. And the demand that we're seeing in the supply side being quite tight, we just think that, that is going to lead to consistent rental growth for the in the years ahead, Bjorn. And I think when you when as I mentioned earlier about our compound annual growth rate, that's now moved into positive territory, Taking the three years of leasing and aggregating all of that together and looking at the new rents versus the previous rents over that ten year time period, which is what the weighted average lease expiry profile of those previous leases were, is moved into plus 0.7. And that's trending upwards now. So I think the prospects for delivering that reversion are really encouraging.

[Bjorn Zietsman, Director - Equity Research Real Estate at Panmure Liberum]

Thank you. And then just in terms of the LTV now being at 38%, you have some deployment capacity available. What geographies or assets would you be looking at?

[Allan Lockhart, Founder, CEO & Director at NewRiver Reit]

Well, I think the way we sort of look at the key physical store channels of convenience shopping centers, destination shopping centers and retail parks, we as a platform have deep expertise and experience in all three of those sort of key areas. And so the team are constantly screening opportunities, and really our job is to deploy our capital into new opportunities that are going to deliver the type of income returns and capital returns that we want to deliver. And the positive thing from our perspective is we've got that choice over those three sort of key physical store channels.

[Bjorn Zietsman, Director - Equity Research Real Estate at Panmure Liberum]

And then just finally, just on the capital partnerships. What capacity do you think there is to generate additional fee income given its current capacity without having to incur material an increase in material overheads?

[Allan Lockhart, Founder, CEO & Director at NewRiver Reit]

Well, think the five year track record of delivering 19% compound annual growth rate in net income, net of costs, demonstrates the potential that we have to continue to grow our capital partnership business. We do sort of operate scale. I think our platform is quite unrivaled when you take account of the expertise and the experience that we have, the insights that we have, the data access that we have, and we're active in most regions. And when we look around our competitive landscape, we don't see many other platforms that can come anywhere close to what New River can offer our capital partners.

[Bjorn Zietsman, Director - Equity Research Real Estate at Panmure Liberum]

Thank you.

[Allan Lockhart, Founder, CEO & Director at NewRiver Reit]

We've got Andrew Saunders.

[Andrew Saunders, Equity Research at Shore Capital]

Thank you. Andrew Saunders, Shaw Capital. Alan, we've heard a lot in the news in recent months about the retail sector, particularly the headwinds facing it with employers NIC, minimum wage, etcetera. I wonder if you could share with us your thoughts for the sector going forward and perhaps how your ambitions of raising rents sit with the outlook of your tenants?

[Allan Lockhart, Founder, CEO & Director at NewRiver Reit]

Yes. I think we have a quite a positive outlook around our sector. As we said in our statements, we think our marketplace is in its best position for a decade. Obviously, it starts with the consumer. We believe that the consumer is in a healthy position, low levels of unemployment, wage growth tracking ahead of inflation, elevated savings, house prices broadly stable.

[Allan Lockhart, Founder, CEO & Director at NewRiver Reit]

And we expect the consumer to continue to spend their hard earned money in shops and supermarkets. But equally, the occupational market is in a pretty good position as well, and that's been trending for a number of years now. But when we look at the current situation, yes, our occupiers are facing increased costs as a result of decisions made in the budget last year, but it's also fair to say that there are some genuine tailwinds that will be benefiting our occupational base. So for example, the price of oil has come down, that's feeding into lower distribution costs for our occupiers. We are seeing the value of the dollar depreciating against sterling.

[Allan Lockhart, Founder, CEO & Director at NewRiver Reit]

So this is particularly important for nonfood retailers who source most of their products from Asia. Most international trade is transacted in U. S. Dollars. And as the dollar comes down, products become cheaper for our nonfood retailers.

[Allan Lockhart, Founder, CEO & Director at NewRiver Reit]

And as a result of the tariffs, we're seeing some excess capacity being created particularly in China. And I was only talking to one of our major discount retailers a couple of weeks ago who was saying that they're being offered just amazing deals out of China where the sort of trade disruption between China and The U. S. Is leading to those sort of opportunities. So we actually think that for our occupational tenants, notwithstanding increases in tax, that actually these tailwinds are going to be quite supportive around margin and margin growth over the next sort of twelve to eighteen months.

[Andrew Saunders, Equity Research at Shore Capital]

I might just follow it up with one for Will, if that's okay. I noticed you don't publish an EPRA cost ratio, but you do disclose a net admin expenses as a proportion of property income, which I think you state at 40.1%. Just wondering what the difference is between that and the EPRA cost ratio and perhaps why you don't publish that ratio that most of your peers do? Thank you.

[Will Hobman, CFO at NewRiver Reit]

Thanks, Andrew. So we do publish the EPRA cost ratio in the back of our RNS. In fact, we publish all of the EPRA ratios in the back of our RNS. Our assets tend to be more operational than a lot of other commercial real estate assets. And therefore, there tends to be a little bit more cost between the gross and the net line, but we buy off a net yield and most of those are high net yield and most of those costs are factored in between the gross and the net in our acquisition price.

[Will Hobman, CFO at NewRiver Reit]

We focus we published our own admin cost ratio as well as you say, because that looks at our head office costs, which are the costs that we can really, really control. And as you know, back in 2021, we set ourselves a target to reduce our admin costs significantly, which we did. So we do publish the ratio. Our ratio is a little bit higher than it is for some of the peer group. I think that's just reflective of the nature of our assets.

[Will Hobman, CFO at NewRiver Reit]

Our yield is higher as well as I said. But we really focus on the admin cost ratio. Thanks.

[Allan Lockhart, Founder, CEO & Director at NewRiver Reit]

Okay. I think we'll move to questions online.

[Lucy Mitchell, Director of Corporate Communications, PR & Marketing at NewRiver Reit]

Great. We've got a few questions. So the first is from Marcus Fairmudge, who says, Congratulations on the sale of the Abbey Centre. How much CapEx has been spent on the Centre in the last eighteen months or so?

[Allan Lockhart, Founder, CEO & Director at NewRiver Reit]

Thank you, Markus. Actually, a huge amount of CapEx was spent on the Abbey Centre in Newton Abbey. We did invest in that asset a number of years ago where we created a flagship store for Next, and we also relocated an upsized Primark. We spent some capital to refurbish this food court. So most of that expenditure was three, four, five years ago, Marcus, but we're delighted with the sale of Newton Abbey.

[Allan Lockhart, Founder, CEO & Director at NewRiver Reit]

We've been able to achieve a price at March '5 book value and indeed March 2024 book value. But this for us is really classic capital recycling. We believe that we'll be able to reinvest our capital into new opportunities that are going to deliver superior income and capital growth. And this is a key growth driver for New River as a business.

[Lucy Mitchell, Director of Corporate Communications, PR & Marketing at NewRiver Reit]

Thank you. The second question comes from Damian Marichal. The Capital Regional acquisition diluted the proportion of the best performing retail parks in your portfolio. Are you considering increasing the weight of retail parks? And if yes, what kind of proportion?

[Allan Lockhart, Founder, CEO & Director at NewRiver Reit]

Well, we were very positive around the retail park sector. Our operating metrics in our own portfolio are very strong with nearly 100% occupancy, 100% tenant retention rate. We think that the rental growth prospects from retail parks are very positive. But equally, we're very positive around our own core shopping centers. We receive a very attractive cash on cash return.

[Allan Lockhart, Founder, CEO & Director at NewRiver Reit]

We're seeing active demand. The leasing performance has been excellent over the last sort of twelve months. And so when we think about opportunities to deploy capital into the direct real estate market, we don't think about, okay, we have to have a certain weighting in retail parks or in shopping centers. We're looking for the right opportunities that are going to deliver the very best risk adjusted returns. Sometimes that could be in retail parks, but on other occasions that could well be in shopping centers.

[Allan Lockhart, Founder, CEO & Director at NewRiver Reit]

But the point here is that we've got real expertise and access to data that allows us to operate in retail parks as well as shopping centers.

[Lucy Mitchell, Director of Corporate Communications, PR & Marketing at NewRiver Reit]

Okay. Thank you. And the next question is from Matt Sapira. Two questions. Which segment of the shopping center portfolio was the Abbey Center?

[Lucy Mitchell, Director of Corporate Communications, PR & Marketing at NewRiver Reit]

And can you elaborate on the thoughts on upcoming refinancing of the mall debt and the £300,000,000 bond? And what would the FFO impact be on the latter?

[Allan Lockhart, Founder, CEO & Director at NewRiver Reit]

The Abbey Centre was in our core shopping center portfolio. It always has been. It's been a good performing asset. The reason why we decided to sell that asset is that when we look ahead and what is that asset going to deliver in terms of future rental income growth and what is the underlying risk to those future rental cash flows, we took the view that actually we can get a much better rental growth prospect by reinvesting the capital out of the Abbey Centre into new opportunities and achieve that by lowering the sort of future risk around those sort of rental cash flows. I think the other point I would make about Northern Ireland is that we just don't have the same access to customer data that we do have in England and Scotland.

[Allan Lockhart, Founder, CEO & Director at NewRiver Reit]

That's principally because Lloyds Bank don't really operate in Northern Ireland. And as a business over the last sort of twelve to eighteen months, we've really seen the value of this customer spending data that we're now able to access and utilize to make better decisions on a consistent basis going forward. And I'll hand over Will for the second question.

[Will Hobman, CFO at NewRiver Reit]

Yes. Thanks, Matt. So as I said earlier, we're in a very, very strong position at the moment. Our cost of debt is fixed at 3.5%. We know there's inherent value in our current debt structure.

[Will Hobman, CFO at NewRiver Reit]

We have £120,000,000 of cash pro form a for the Abbey disposal. We have £100,000,000 undrawn RCF, which has two one extensions available, so that could push out all the way until late twenty twenty eight. Also has a £50,000,000 accordion available. So, at the moment, we have significant cash and we have significant available liquidity. Fitch reaffirmed our ratings back in September when we announced the transaction.

[Will Hobman, CFO at NewRiver Reit]

Post transaction, we now have scale in our balance sheet with a GAV of close to £900,000,000 So, our prospects of remaining unsecured are very positive. And so that's good as well. And I would just make the point, going back to the cash and liquidity, We have £440,000,000 currently of gross debt. At the moment our refi requirement is not £440,000,000 So the net requirement is lower. And also when we talked about the mid to high teens accretion on the C and R transaction, we factored in the MAL refi in those numbers, resetting to a market rate between kind of five point five percent and six percent.

[Will Hobman, CFO at NewRiver Reit]

When we think about the bond, which matures in March 28, I think Alan concluded on his final slide, it's our job to generate like for like rental growth, capital partnerships growth and capital recycling to mitigate and outstrip any increase that will come through in our debt costs.

[Lucy Mitchell, Director of Corporate Communications, PR & Marketing at NewRiver Reit]

Okay. Thank you. There was one last question, but it was around what opportunities we'd be looking at to deploy capital. And I think we've covered that, so I can hand you back.

[Allan Lockhart, Founder, CEO & Director at NewRiver Reit]

Thanks, Lucy. Well, so now we've had all the questions, just like to take the opportunity to thank all of our shareholders and wider stakeholders for their ongoing support. And Will and I, we look forward to meeting our shareholders over the coming weeks. So thank you very much for everyone attending our results presentation. Thank you.

Participants

Analysts

• Allan Lockhart, Founder, CEO & Director at NewRiver Reit
• Will Hobman, CFO at NewRiver Reit
• Bjorn Zietsman, Director - Equity Research Real Estate at Panmure Liberum
• Andrew Saunders, Equity Research at Shore Capital
• Lucy Mitchell, Director of Corporate Communications, PR & Marketing at NewRiver Reit