Australian industrial and business parks giant Goodman posted a strong set of full year results in August, despite large writedowns in the value of its UK portfolio.
For the year to 30 June the company posted an 8% increase in operating earnings to 34 cents a share, in line with 2007 predictions. The company also forecast 6% growth in 2009.
Goodman took a writedown of A$382m (£179m) on it’s A$6.7bn (£3.1bn) portfolio of directly held and managed property, A$350m (£164m) of which from is A$1.7bn (£796m) UK portfolio.
The company put worries of financing behind it and said that following the sale of fund management business Goodman Property Investors back to Aberdeen Asset Management it was now again focusing on its core industrial and business park markets.
Goodman said that after completing an A$800m (£361m) refinancing in February, it had no further short-term financing concerns, with A$1.7bn (£796m) of undrawn liquidity available which was more than sufficient to cover its 2009 refinancing needs.
European executive director Michael O’Sullivan said: ‘I think this is a good set of results in a difficult market. We’re all in the same market and we all know how difficult it is. But we’ve got a simple business model, and since the sale of GPI we can concentrate on our core logistics and business park sectors.
‘Overall, we’re comfortable with our projections for growth, and think we can achieve that in the current market. What would affect things would be further problems in the debt or capital markets that reduced our access to capital.’
