Net Asset Value(s)

Fabian Romania Property Fund Ltd 03 August 2007 3 August 2007 Fabian Romania Limited (FAB.LN) Net asset value as at 30 June 2007 Highlights • As of 30 June 2007, the Net Asset Value ('NAV') per share of the Company as determined in accordance with its Articles of Association was €1.548 (at 31 March 2007: €1.390) an increase of 11.4 per cent. over the first quarter. • Adjusting the current NAV for the estimated future development profits of €0.37 per share indicates a potential future NAV ('Development Profit NAV' or 'DPNAV') of €1.92 per share. • Executed two investments during the quarter committing a total of €24.9 million. The Company's share of the market valuations of these investments (before deferred income tax liabilities) was €30.6 million at 30 June 2007 before deducting the outstanding non-recourse bank financing of €15.0 million. On gross assets, this represents an uplift of 23 per cent. from the original investment. • Announced a further three investments committing a total of approximately €22 million or around €15 million in equity post debt drawdown. These investments are not included in the 30 June 2007 valuation. • The five investments executed or announced are expected to require around €21million (after refinancing) of equity from the net proceeds of the December 2006 AIM fundraising of €38.1 million. As at 30 June 2007, the Directors estimate the Company has approximately €17.0million left to invest • Further yield convergence for the Company's fully let office buildings to 7.0 and 7.1 per cent. as at 30 June 2007. • In total, nine investments executed or committed, with 61,300 square metres ('sqm') of lettable office space in Bucharest secured together with 443 residential apartments • Post quarter end, fixed price construction contract agreed with Mivan Kier for the Company's New Town residential scheme and sales commenced. • The investment manager believes office market rents in Bucharest have increased by approximately €2.0 sqm/month apparent by quarter end. To the shareholders of Fabian Romania, Fabian Romania Limited ('Fabian', 'Fabian Romania' or the 'Company'), the AIM quoted dedicated Romanian real estate investor announces its NAV as at 30 June 2007 was €1.548 per share. This represents a rise of 11.4 per cent. from the preceding first quarter NAV of €1.390 per share. For the year to date, the NAV of the company has risen 14.2 per cent. per cent from €1.356 per share as at 31 December 2006. The published NAV was calculated according to the Company's Articles of Association and the results is summarised below: 30 June 2006 30 June 2006 30 June 2006 Market Value Bank (debt) Net Worth Original Investment €m €m €m €m Cascades 15.1 (9.4) 5.7 12.2 Banu 15.6 (9.1) 6.5 12.3 New Town * (^) 15.8 (1.9) 13.9 5.8 Lakeview * 8.3 (5.3) 3.0 5.4 Cubic Centre 5.0 - 5.0 5.0 Baneasa Business Centre 27.6 (13.2) 14.4 23.9 Timisoara * 3.0 (1.8) 1.2 1.0 Net Cash 29.4 Other assets/(liabilities) ** (0.4) Sub-total 90.4 (40.8) 78.7 65.5 Shares (#) 50,831,130 NAVPS (€) 1.548 * represents Fabian's share of the development, and in the case of Lakeview, after post-acquisition debt financing drawdown ** includes deposits on Evocenter & Romana plus deferred tax liabilities added back (^) includes development WIP financed by bank debt Future Development Profit Under the Red Book methodology of the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors, residual land valuations for development projects provided to Companies such as Fabian Romania, exclude the net present value of future development profits. In order to provide transparency to investors as to the potential level of such future development profits that may accrue to the Company, DTZ Echinox ('DTZ') have been asked to provide estimates of these development profits. Shareholders may then choose to discount these profits to estimate their net present value in today's terms based on current market conditions. The forecast development profit figures are stated gross and do not include all costs that may be incurred by Fabian over the course of the projects (in particular transaction fees and any carried interest payable to the investment manager). The implied share of future development profit figures for the New Town, Lakeview and Timisoara schemes based on the DTZ estimates are highlighted in the table below. Project Implied Fabian share of future development profit Final year of from DTZ estimates (€m) development * New Town 8.8 2009 Lakeview 6.0 2009 Timisoara 4.2 2010 NAV contribution (€m) 19.0 NAVPS contribution (€) 0.37 * Fabian Romania estimates Adding these forecast development profits of €19.0m or €0.37 per share to the NAV produces what the Directors have called the DPNAV of €1.92 per share. Acquisitions After a period of intensive due diligence on a wide variety of potential investments in the first quarter of 2007, the Company began April with only the four core investments acquired in 2006. The second quarter has been a highly active period in due diligence, acquisitions, negotiating leasing contracts, publishing the 2006 annual reports and accounts and arranging financing. Fabian announced and completed the acquisition of both the Baneasa Business Centre and a 50 per cent. stake in a residential land plot in the City of Timisoara. The Company also announced that it had entered into agreements to: acquire a plot of land in central Bucharest for a turn-key office building, purchase the Evocentre office building in North Bucharest and to forward purchase the Cubic Centre office building in the Pipera district of Bucharest once completed. The major highlights for the Company during the period are as follows. The Baneasa Business Centre On 18 June 2007, the Company was pleased to announce that it had entered into an agreement to purchase the Baneasa Business Centre office building from the Austrian developer Immoconsult Leasinggesellschaft m.b.H. The transaction value was €23.9 million. As at 30 June 2007, the building was valued by DTZ at €27.6 million. This represents a satisfactory gain of 15 per cent. over the purchase price agreed in late 2006. The building is a Class A office building comprising 9,600 sqm of net lettable area. It is located in the rapidly emerging office district of North Bucharest. The building hosts a range of multinational tenants including Wrigley, Colgate, Fresenius, Cargill and Volksbank thereby meeting the targeted tenant profile of the Company. The average lease length is around three years with variety of reversionary leases at rents between €12 per sqm /month to €16 per sqm/month. The acquisition gives the Company further exposure to a high quality office building located in the heart of the emerging business district of North Bucharest. The investment manager believes there is rising demand for space by both existing multinational tenants seeking to expand and new multinational tenants entering Romania. The investment manager is confident that as leases come up for renewal, upward revisions in rents per square metre per month are achievable. The gain in the value of the property of some €3.7 million can be explained by two factors. Firstly, the purchase yield used for the acquisition with Immoconsult was 7.74 per cent. negotiated in the second half of last year. DTZ used an up to date market yield of 7.1 per cent. as at 30 June 2007. On rents of €1.85 million per annum at the time the commercial terms with Immoconsult were first agreed, yield convergence from 7.74 per cent to 7.1 per cent has equated to a gain of some €2.2 million. Secondly, since the commercial terms were agreed, rents benefited from indexation to Eurozone inflation as from 1 January 2007. The investment manager was able to secure for the Company's benefit, the value of this indexation as well as other rental increases. Annualised rental income as at 30 June 2007 amounted to €1.96 million per annum a gain of €110,000. Capitalised, this increase in rents delivered a further €1.5 million of value. Since the quarter end, the Company has drawn down on a debt facility with Investkredit to increase total borrowings secured against Baneasa to almost €19.7 million. This has resulted in a net equity in the company of approximately €4.2 million pre revaluation. With a gain of €3.7 million since acquisition, the Company will have achieved a highly satisfactory pro forma return on equity invested of 88 per cent. Timisoara On 25 June 2007, the Company purchased a 50 per cent interest in a residential development site to build 250 apartments in Timisoara for €4.7 million. The acquisition is structured through a development company that owns a 1.1 hectare site in north Timisoara. The equity consideration amounts to approximately €1million. The land has urban zoning approval to build over 250 apartments (subject to building permits) comprising over 30,000 sqm of residential development space. Coltex, the co-shareholder holding the other 50 per cent. interest, has entered into a partnership agreement with Fabian. Coltex will also be the development manager and has a known track record, having developed and sold the successful Banu Antonache office building to the Company in late 2005. The acquisition is the Company's first purchase outside Bucharest. It gives Fabian further exposure to the rising residential sector as well as to Timisoara. The City is Romania's third largest city with a population of over 300,000 and is located in the West close to the Hungarian border. The area is the focus of a large amount of foreign direct investment in manufacturing industry, particularly from German and Italian companies. The investment manager believes the city has attractive characteristics for supply of modern residential apartments. The purchase price for the land including acquisition expenses was €4.7 million. This equates to around €427 per square metre for the land and €157 per built square metre over ground, assuming 30,000 sqm. The development company has already secured and fully drawdown on a land finance facility from Banca Romanesca for €3.6 million. Including near term working capital needs, this leaves an initial net equity requirement of approximately €1 million for Fabian. DTZ forecast that the Timisoara project will have total development profits of €10.1 million on a development value in excess of €50 million and after total costs, excluding land, of approximately €34 million. The land valuation as at 30 June 2007 is €5.9 million of which 50 per cent. is owned by Fabian. This represents a gain ex acquisition costs of some €1.2m or 26 per cent.. The Company forecasts the development to be completed by the end of 2010. Cubic Centre On 30 April 2007, the Company announced that it had entered into an agreement to purchase at practical completion the Cubic Centre office building in the Pipera district of North Bucharest. The building will be a Class A office building with a gross area of approximately 44,000 square metres, located in north Bucharest. The building is being developed by Kendama, an experienced local developer in Romania. Construction has commenced and completion is anticipated in the second quarter of 2009. Upon completion, the building will provide a net lettable office area of 26,000 sqm over 12 floors, together with 533 car spaces. The building is located in a prominent location in the Pipera district and is likely to attract international tenants seeking Class A office space. The Company will pay a first instalment of €12.25 million upon the developer securing full construction finance and building consent. Of the €12.25 million, €5 million has already been paid in the form of a secured loan. At practical completion of the building by the developer, the Company will pay the final instalment based upon a forward purchase yield of 7.4 per cent. - 7.8 per cent. applied to rents achieved. Based upon current rental estimates, the total value of the transaction is estimated to be approximately of €60 million. The total equity requirement for the Company is estimated to be €12 million. The agreement to forward purchase the Cubic Centre office building gives the Company exposure to an Class A office building in the Pipera district of the Bucharest secured at an attractive yield. Kendama is responsible for finding tenants, managing the general contractor and financing the project thereby ensuring the Company is not taking development risk. The transaction is expected to close during the third quarter of 2007. Evocentre On 4 June 2007, the Company announced that it had reached agreement to purchase the Evocenter office building in the Pipera / Voluntari district of Bucharest for a forecast yield of 9 per cent. The Company had initially proposed to purchase the building empty, thereby taking the letting risk. However, during the due diligence process, the Adama Group from Israel, the developer, signed a lease taking half of the available space. The building will be completed in summer 2007 to a Class A standard and comprises 3,000 sqm of net lettable area, 18 covered car parking spaces and ancillary parking close by. The Company will meet the consideration of €4.9 million from its own resources. Debt drawdown is anticipated to be during the third quarter 2007 which will reduce the ongoing equity requirement to around €1 million. Although the transaction size, involving around €1.0m of equity, would normally be too small for Fabian Romania, we decided to pursue the acquisition for the Company due to the prospective yield on offer. As with the Banu Antonache acquisition, the Company is taking letting risk. This enables the Company to purchase modern buildings at a more attractive price as a compensation for the risk. However, as current vacancy rates in the City are sub 3 per cent., the letting risk as such is much reduced. In this instance, the letting risk has been reduced further by the decision of Adama to rent half the space. The transaction is expected to close during the third quarter. Romana On 14 June 2007, the Company announced the acquisition of the Romana office project. This will be the Fund's sixth office building or scheme in Bucharest. The Romana office building will be built for Fabian Romania by Hil C Construct on a centrally located site on Dacia Boulevard. The building will be built to Class A specifications with a gross area of approximately 3,000 sqm. The project management will be undertaken by Globus, an experienced local developer in Romania. Construction is due to commence in the fourth quarter 2007 with completion anticipated in the third quarter of 2009. Upon completion, the building will provide a net lettable office area of around 2,480 sqm over 7 floors, together with 40 car parking spaces. The building is in a prominent position with views over Plaza Romana and is likely to attract international tenants seeking Class A office space. The Company will pay the purchase price of €7.6 million to Hil in 3 instalments; a first instalment of €2.0 million will be made for the company to acquire ownership of the land; a second instalment for construction costs of approximately €3.0 million; and a final payment upon practical completion of €2.6 million. Including non developer related costs, the total purchase price is forecast to be €8.0 million. On assumed office rents of €19 sqm/month, the purchase price and total development costs equate to a yield of 8.9%. Fabian Romania's equity requirement is expected to be €2 million with debt finance to fund the balance. Completion is conditional on the attainment of the final building permit by the developer which is currently expected at the end of August 2007. New Town During the quarter, much time was committed to working with the Company's joint venture partner, Mivan Ltd, to secure a fixed price contract with Mivan Kier Ltd for the construction of the New Town residential scheme. New Town is a scheme of 72,000 sqm above ground involving the constructing of over 635 apartments targeted at Bucharest's emerging middle class. The scheme was granted final building consent at the start of the quarter. Since the quarter end, the Company announced that its joint venture development company, Phoenix Park SRL, has agreed a fixed price build contract with Mivan Kier. In tandem with the discussions with Mivan Kier, the finishing touches were being put in place with Mivan for the sales launch. A sales and marketing suite was created by Mivan in central Bucharest and a full launch started after the quarter end. To date, the first release of 119 apartments with parking from the first of two phases have been offered for sale. City wide newspaper and radio advertising has been taken to support the launch and sales are going well. DTZ forecast the project to have a development value in excess of €122 million and total costs, excluding land, of approaching €70 million. The land valuation as at 30 June 2007 is €27.9 million of which 50 per cent. is owned by Fabian. DTZ's forecast imply future development profits amounting to €8.8 million or some €0.17 per share. The Company currently forecasts project completion to be achieved by the end of 2009. Lake View During the quarter, the Company's development partner on the Lake View office scheme in North Bucharest, AIG/Lincoln, has continued to drive forward the development. The PUD planning consent has been achieved and the application for building consent is in the process of being lodged with the city authorities. This consent is expected over the summer with building work forecast to commence soon after. In order to pre-let the building, Colliers were appointed during the quarter to exclusively represent the joint venture and a number of tenants have been contacted with a view to pre-lets. The building is expected to be delivered in the third quarter of 2009. For the purposes of calculating the future development profits to the Company from the Lakeview scheme, the Company's directors have used the calculation conducted by DTZ as at 30 September 2006 for the purposes of the AIM listing. DTZ forecast the project to have a development value of around €58 million and total costs, excluding land, of approximately €30 million. The Company's share of the land valuation within the NAV remains the same as at 31 December 2006 of some €8.3 million. DTZ's forecast imply future development profits amounts to a share of €6 million or some €0.12 per share. The Economy Romania continued to prosper during the quarter with 2007 GDP growth now expected to be 6.5 per cent according to ING Bank and 6.3 per cent. in 2008. This continues the trend for the country to be one of the fastest growing economies in Europe. High real interest rates and a strengthening currency against the Euro have driven down inflation from to an annualised rate of 4.9 per cent. on 31 December 2006 to 3.8 per cent. as at June 2007. On the back of falling inflation, the NBR has cut interest rates to 7 per cent. where they are forecast to remain for the rest of the year. The fiscal deficit is expected by ING Bank to remain within the Maastricht criteria at -2.8 per cent. of GDP. Mortgage rates in both local currency and in Euros have continued to fall with introductory rates in Euros as low as 5.75 per cent. thereby providing further support for the residential market. The Property Market The main trend to emerge during the second quarter has been a marked upturn in office rents over the first half of the year. According to office agents, prime rents per square metre in the City centre have risen to €19-21 sqm/month from €17-19 sqm/month at the end of 2006. The upward rise in rents has been driven by continuing low vacancy rates of sub 3 per cent. as well as continued strong foreign direct investment by new multinationals to Romania and by the expansion of existing multinationals. The investment manager has experienced this directly with the majority of tenants in the Baneasa Business Centre office building seeking additional space. In terms of new supply of office space according to DTZ estimates, some 115,000 sqm of modern Class A was delivered in 2006 somewhat lower than the 180,000 sqm of space that was forecast during the period. The shortfall was caused by problems over land title, permitting and other issues that impacted the amount of announced space that was actually developed. The investment manager believes that current forecasts in the second quarter of 300,000 sqm of new Class A space to be delivered to the market by the year end of 2007 remain optimistic. Regardless, total modern stock in Bucharest will remain substantially below commensurate levels in Warsaw, Prague and Budapest. The office sub sector of the Romanian property market remained as the main focus of Fabian and other investors' interest during the quarter. Yields have continued to fall to close to 6.25 per cent. by the quarter end for prime buildings. The investment manager anticipates that yields will fall further in the second half of the year driven by strong interest upon the part of foreign investment funds. Forward purchase yields are around 7.25 - 8.00 per cent. depending on the location. In retail, similar trends are apparent as in the office market. Strong growth in retail sales and real incomes is driving the demand for retail space by both high street retailers and by hypermarkets in both Bucharest and the regional cities. Nearly all cities with more than 100,000 inhabitants have at least one shopping centre project planned. Both the Real group and the Spar chain entered Romania for the first time in 2006 and along with Auchan and Carrefour, continue to seek new hypermarket locations outside Bucharest from developers. Asking yields for investment transactions continue to fall to sub 7 per cent.. For forward purchases, yields are approximately 7.25 per cent. The residential sector continues to perform well on the back of rising real incomes, increased mortgage volumes and falling interest rates. Residential sales prices per square metre continue to rise. Reliable statistics are hard to come by but prices per square metre appear to be rising in double digits. Whilst a number of new residential schemes have been announced, particularly by Spanish developers, it takes time to convert such schemes from the drawing board to the construction stage. In the meantime, the shortage of supply of new apartments for sale has meant continued inflation for old style Communist apartments. Sale prices of up to €900 per sqm are reported to have been achieved compared to €1,250 per sqm for new build in comparable parts of Bucharest. The investment manager believes this gap to be artificially low. Other activity and outlook As at 30 June 2007, approximately €21 million of equity (after refinancing) from the €38.1 million of net proceeds from the AIM listing has been earmarked for investment in the five transactions either executed or announced in the quarter. This leaves approximately €17 million of equity to commit to further investments. Since the publication of the investment manager's report to the 2006 reports and accounts, the conditions for office co-investment developments continue to improve. The leasing market continues to favour the developer and though visibility is difficult, the rental market appears well supported until at least the middle of 2009. Even then, Bucharest will still have substantially less Class A space than either Prague or Budapest in today's terms. The benefits to the developer from rising rents and falling yields continue to more than offset construction inflation. As stated in the 2006 annual reports and accounts, the investment manager no longer regards fully let offices at yields below 7 per cent. as attractive either on an absolute basis or relative to the opportunities available in Romania in other sub-sectors of the market or through co-development opportunities. Exciting opportunities continue to be pursued through participation in office co-investment developments and through the forward purchase of office buildings for delivery over the next twelve months where the taking of letting risk by the Company is compensated by attractive prices In residential, the demand for new middle income housing has, if anything, accelerated during the year to date, driven by the growth of real incomes. Sale price inflation acts as a useful natural hedge against construction price inflation. In addition, economic growth in the large regional cities means that for the first time, households and first time buyers outside Bucharest can now afford to purchase new build apartments. The investment manager is looking at a number of opportunities in the regional cities to this end as well as a continued focus on Bucharest. In retail and logistics, yields for fully let buildings or for forward purchases of buildings once let continue to offer attractive yields of between 7.25 - 8.00 per cent.. To date, the Company has not purchased any such assets. This is in large part due to their scarcity value, their large unit price relative to the size of Fabian Romania and legal title issues. However, the investment manager is looking at a number of opportunities in both of these sub-sectors. Economically, the country has continued to prosper since its accession to the European Union. According to economists' forecasts, growth looks set to be above 6 per cent. again for the year and inflation to fall close to 4 per cent. by the year end. The investment manager regards the outlook for the Company, the Romanian property market and Romania in general as attractive for remainder of the current year. Mark Holdsworth Fabian Capital Limited 3 August 2007 Contacts: Fabian Capital Limited Mark Holdsworth Tel: +44 20 7499 9988 Shore Capital - Broker to Fabian Dru Danford Tel: +44 20 7408 4090 Deloitte Corporate Finance - Nominated Adviser to Fabian Jonathan Hinton / James Lewis Tel: +44 20 7936 3000 Notes to Editors Fabian Romania Limited is an experienced and well-known investor in the Bucharest and wider Romanian real estate market and is quoted on AIM. Fabian seeks to generate attractive total returns for its shareholders through a portfolio of income producing buildings, co-development projects with experienced partners and land investments. Fabian receives investment advice from Fabian Capital Limited, an independent investment management firm that specialises in Romanian real estate investments advice. (Fabian Capital does not carry out any regulated activities in the UK) The directors of Fabian accept responsibility for the information contained in this announcement. To the best of the knowledge and belief of the directors of Fabian (who have taken all reasonable care to ensure that such is the case) the information contained in this announcement is in accordance with the facts and does not omit anything likely to affect the import of such information. This information is provided by RNS The company news service from the London Stock Exchange
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