Blackrock spends €140m on acquisitions

Property vehicle Blackrock International Land has spent almost €140 million this year and expects the value of its holdings to increase by 6.2 per cent.

However, the group says that it "seems prudent" not to assume any significant net asset growth in the first half of 2008 at this point.

Blackrock announced yesterday that it was selling a three-acre site in Scottish capital, Edinburgh, for €6 million. It has exchanged contracts for the land at Calder Road, Sighthill with the VW group, which intends using it as an Audi showroom.

The deal is set to go through early in 2008.

In its first full-year trading trading statement since it was spun off from fruit importer Fyffes in 2006, Blackrock said that it had added "significantly" to its property portfolio during the year.

"Gross investment expenditure in 2007, including our share of joint ventures, amounted to almost €140 million, while disposals amounting to close to €37 million have been achieved," the statement said.

Blackrock said it had a strong end to the year, agreeing deals in Dublin and Amsterdam in the Netherlands. It also finalised the sale of its Edinburgh Fruit Market property to a joint venture with local operator, Applecross. This will net it €20.8 million.

"Excluding the acquisition costs relating to the December investments in Amsterdam and Dublin, which clearly will not be reflected in the year-end valuations, and assuming an unchanged sterling exchange rate from that at the half-year, we expect the net asset growth for the full year will be approximately 6.2 per cent," the group said.

"The recent appreciation of the euro against sterling may reduce this by approximately 1 per cent. Net asset growth, after the write-off of all acquisition costs and the currency change, is expected to approximately 4.4 per cent."