International Property News

Developer VGP profits treble in 2007

19th March 2008

Developer company VGP netted EUR36.4m (Kc925) last year, up 165 percent against a EUR13.7m (Kc349m) net profit in 2006, according to consolidated results the company disclosed in a press release Wednesday.

VGP focuses on the construction of logistics parks and on light industry.

The company registered a growth also by other indicators. The value of managed assets reached EUR225.2m (Kc5.7bn), up 118 percent year-on-year.

The growth came thanks to the completion of eleven projects on roughly 121,200 square metres in total.

At the close of 2007, VGP had 176,600 square metres of logistic and industrial spaces. It said that all the completed buildings were leased.

VGP had over 2 million square metres of land in its portfolio in total.

Gross revenues from the lease reached EUR5.6m (Kc142m), over 141 percent more than a year earlier.

Revenues from the signed and future lease contracts reached EUR15m (Kc381m).

VGP now has seventeen commercial zones in six countries. Ten of them had been completed or under construction by end-2007.

This year, VGP wants to double gross revenues from lease and the leasable area.

VGP wants to launch construction in all countries to which it has expanded from the Czech Republic, that is in Lithuania, Estonia, Hungary, Romania and Slovakia. It also plans expansion to Germany.

According to data of the firm Cushman & Wakefield, VGP holds a 4 percent share in the Central European industrial real estate market. In the Czech Republic, the company has six projects under construction.

VGP is registered in Belgium but the core of its business activities is in the Czech Republic.

Last year in December, it made an initial public offering (IPO) of shares on the Prague Stock Exchange (BCPP). It thus gained capital for development and then placed the shares on public markets.

VGP's shares have not attracted many investors thus far. Their price on the BCPP stagnates and trading is very low. In off-exchange RM-System, no trading in the stock has taken place yet.

VGP's shares are also traded on Brussels bourse Euronext.