Retirement operator Arvida Group continues its expansion through acquisition and development, while posting a more than 30% gain in underlying after-tax profit, booking $9.6 million for the half year to September.
Included in the $9.6 million underlying profit was $3.9 million of gains, made up of $3.2 million from resales of 87 existing units and $700,000 from sales of 12 new units.
Total revenue for the half year grew by $7.7 million to $46.9 million, while Arvida's asset base grew by $76.5 million to $537.2 million.
Arvida chairman Peter Wilson said the first-half gains were expected to continue into the group's full-year result.
Arvida shares were up slightly at $1.15 following the announcement, which included a quarterly 1.1c dividend.
Arvida chief executive Bill McDonald said recent village acquisitions were made in ''prime growth areas'' where the company did not have a presence, with the integrations of the four acquisitions ''proceeding smoothly''.
About $87 million was spent on the four acquisitions, with three of them partly paid for by a pro-rata renounceable rights issue to shareholders, which raised $41.8 million, and issuance of two tranches of shares to vendors, totalling $24.5 million.
The July acquisition of Lansdown Park in Masterton was funded by $14.6 million bank debt and $6 million in Arvida shares to the vendors, and added 93 units and 50 aged-care beds.
The September purchase of two Tauranga villages and another in Cambridge for $66.4 million was offset by the $41.8 million capital raising and issue of $18.5 million in shares to vendors.
External bank debt stood at $32.4 million at September, while a new $80 million ANZ bank facility was in place by the end of October.
''We have an active brownfield [bare land] development programme ahead of us with 450 units and care beds to be added from planned development activity,'' the company said.
In the short term that included 192 units and 33 care beds consented or in-construction, and longer term, more brownfield developments which will add more than 100 units and care beds.
