Financial highlights
Dividends declared in respect of 2015 totalled 6.0 pence per share, in line with our target.
Total return for the year of 19.4%, compared to the FTSE EPRA/NAREIT UK REITs Index of 10.5%.
We agreed a new £500 million debt facility, reducing our average cost of borrowing by 35bps to 1.42% above 3 month Libor and extending our average unexpired loan term to 4.67 years.
The EPRA net asset value per share increased by 17.11 pence (or 15.91%) to 124.68 pence (31 December 2014: 107.57 pence).
We raised £229 million of equity during 2015 under our share issuance programme which expired on 7 July 2015.
The portfolio is 100% let, or pre-let with developer licence fee income, across 25 properties.
Our investment properties were independently valued at £1.31 billion1.
£106.75 million valuation gain on our investment property portfolio during 2015.
The portfolio's contracted rental income has increased to £68.37 million1 per annum (31 December 2014: £36.16 million1), including forward funded developments.
Operational highlights
We acquired 11 Big Boxes during the year, five of which were forward funded pre-let developments. The acquisitions further diversified the portfolio by geography, tenant and building size.
At the year end, the portfolio contained 25 assets, covering approximately 13 million sq ft of logistics space.
The total expense ratio for the year was 1.09%, down from 1.13% for the prior period, which compares favourably with our real estate peers.
At the year end, the weighted average unexpired lease term ("WAULT") was 16.5 years (31 December 2014: 13.9 years), against our target of at least 12 years.
The average net initial yield of the portfolio at acquisition is 5.8% against our year end valuation of 4.9% net initial yield.
33% Loan to Value ("LTV"). On a fully invested basis, including the fulfilment of our forward funded development commitments this increases to c.40%.
Our shares were:
o included in the FTSE EPRA/NAREIT Global Developed Index from 23 March 2015
o included in the FTSE 250 Index from 8 June 2015
o included in the MSCI Global Small Cap Index from 30 November 2015
This helped to attract new investors and broaden liquidity in the shares with daily average traded value of £2.2 million in 2015
Post balance sheet highlights
On 16 February 2016, the Company completed a £200 million equity fundraising in order to fund its near term investment pipeline.
Progressive dividend target of 6.2 pence per share set for 2016.
