Grainger, the UK’s largest quoted residential property owner, completed a further GBP49.4m of residential sales during the four month period to 31 July 2010.

This takes total sales in the ten months to 31 July to GBP128.4m.
 
A further GBP26.4m of sales are in solicitors’ hands or have contracts exchanged, giving a total sales pipeline of GBP154.8m.
 
Grainger has completed the acquisition of Sovereign Reversions for a consideration of GBP34.6m. The company is in ongoing discussions with Moorfield regarding the creation of a new joint venture which would own the Sovereign portfolio.
 
Andrew Cunningham, chief executive of Grainger, says: “We continue to make strong progress in growing and strengthening the company and its market leading position. Our portfolio is continuing to prove to be resilient and we are trading well, despite price growth in the general housing market slowing in the last few months reflecting the economic uncertainty. Furthermore we have also taken advantage of market conditions to make well-priced acquisitions which we anticipate will produce good levels of return for our investors in the future.”
 
The portfolio in G:res 1, the market rented fund under our management, was valued at 30 June 2010 and showed an increase in vacant possession values of 3.8 per cent since December 2009.  Net asset value per share has improved from 64p to 67p, an increase of 4.7 per cent. Grainger is currently investigating options to increase the size of the fund. 
 
At 31 July 2010, group net debt was GBP1,303m (31 March 2010: GBP1,308m) and committed undrawn facilities and cash amounted to GBP285m (31 March 2010: GBP300m). The estimated loan to value on Grainger’s core lending syndicate (based on September 2009 asset values) amounted to 54.4 per cent.