REI posts year-end losses
Birmingham-based property company Real Estate Investors (REI) has sunk into the red after making pre-tax losses of £5.6m. Paul Bassi’s company had made a pre-tax profit of £4.3m in its year-end results in 2009.
REI revealed its preliminary results for the year ending 31 December 2010 via the London Stock Exchange this morning.
Despite garnering pre-tax losses of £5.6m, the company said contracted rental income had increased 20 per cent to £4m.
Property acquisitions for the year totalled £6.7m.
The company said cash at the bank stood at £11.8m at the year-end, an increase of more than 9 per cent on its 2009 year-end results.
In a statement, the company said the UK property sector as a whole “is not exempt from the economic backdrop”.
It said: “Valuations in UK regions remain depressed, largely due to the lack of bank finance, leading to very limited transactions and comparable evidence being predominantly gathered from distressed sales.
“Our purchases plus other opportunities that we anticipate securing, together with rising rental values, will provide the potential for significant capital gains and surplus cashflow in the short to medium term, establishing REI as a highly respected regional property investment company, that will benefit substantially once market conditions normalise.”
