Westgrund Aktiengesellschaft announced earnings results for the financial year 2015. For the period the company announced that, revenues which are largely identical to rental revenues, more than doubled, increasing by EUR 44.7 million to EUR 80.5 million. This increase is related primarily to the properties acquired in 2014 fully contributing to revenues for the first time in 2015.

Another positive contribution to revenues resulted from September onwards when the rights and obligations of a further real estate portfolio comprising a total 2,781 residential and commercial units were transferred to Westgrund. However, rental revenues would have increased slightly even without the additional properties, since the vacancy rate was lowered by around one percentage point and the average rents per square meter were raised by around 2% to an average EUR 4.83/m2 in the existing portfolio. In 2015, earnings amounting to EUR 72.0 million resulted from the valuation of investment properties, the second significant component in overall performance.

This equated to EUR 6.9 million less than in the previous year of EUR 78.9 million. The 42.2% rise in overall performance to EUR 169.4 million compared to EUR 119.2 million is thus predominantly attributable to growth in revenues. After taking into account all items of operating expense, the operating result amounted to EUR 106.2 million in 2015 based on the still preliminary figures.

This equated to EUR 14.0 million more than in the previous year of EUR 92.2 million. This result includes income from the disposal of properties amounting to EUR 4.4 million, which was generated mainly from the sale of a small portfolio in Berlin in the middle of the year. Net interest result also improved significantly, although interest-bearing external financing increased by almost EUR 50 million.

Net interest result was reduced from minus EUR 21.4 million in 2014 to minus EUR 14.2 million. Interest charges decreased, mainly because the one-off expenses that had been incurred in 2014 due to interim financing were not recurring in 2015. Earnings before taxes (EBT) of EUR 91.3 million constituted a significant improvement on the previous year of EUR 71.6 million.

The consolidated net result likewise increased from EUR 60.2 million in 2014 to EUR 75.0 million. Funds from operations not including profit from real estate sales (FFO I) reached EUR 19.2 million, a figure more than three times as high as the previous year of EUR 5.6 million. Fund from operation (FFO I) per share was EUR 0.25 compared to EUR 0.19 a year ago.