11 June 2026
Custodian Property Income REIT plc
(“the Company” or “Custodian Property Income REIT”)
Final results for the year ended 31 March 2026
Corporate acquisitions, active asset management and a differentiated investment strategy driving valuation and earnings growth, underpinning a fully covered dividend
- Differentiated portfolio with an enhanced yield on acquisition – with no need to sacrifice quality of property, location, tenant or environmental performance for income and with a greater share of value in ‘bricks and mortar’ rather than the lease
Custodian Property Income REIT (LSE: CREI), which seeks to deliver an enhanced income return by investing in a diversified portfolio of smaller, UK regional properties with strong income characteristics, today announces its final results for the year ended 31 March 2026.
Commenting on the final results, Richard Shepherd-Cross, Managing Director of the Investment Manager, said: “This has been another year of positive operational performance which has provided a strong foundation to continue our long track record of delivering a fully covered dividend for our shareholders. Despite challenging capital markets conditions, we have been innovative in successfully continuing to scale the Company, through the majority-share acquisitions of three separate privately owned property companies. At the same time, we continue to see the benefits of our differentiated smaller lot sized investment strategy, which provides us with an enhanced yield, resilient income through cycle from a diverse mix of more than 350 tenants, further protecting earnings, with no need to sacrifice quality of property.
“Since 2024, valuations have been gradually recovering across most sectors within the Company’s portfolio and we have continued to focus on driving earnings growth through our active asset management programme as well as our ability to capture the latent rental growth in our portfolio. This has helped us deliver our strongest total return performance since 2022.
“With development activity reduced across the regions, the current supply of well-located modern buildings is increasingly limited, leading to rental growth in several sectors and supporting the returns from our refurbishment projects. Over the last 12 months, this favourable momentum combined with the quality of our portfolio has recorded like-for-like growth in estimated rental value in its two largest sectors of 4.1% in industrial and 2.7% in retail warehousing. While the conflict in the Middle East has presented another hurdle for the recovery of UK listed real estate, we believe that the Company is well positioned for the headwinds that may lie ahead, with our diversified portfolio minimising the risk of sector specific downturns and providing defensive income for our investors.”
Commenting on the final results, David MacLellan, Chairman of the Company, said: “The Board’s commitment to seeking further growth for the Company through strategic corporate acquisitions and disciplined consolidation has resulted in the purchase of three privately owned property companies for a combined portfolio price of £63.8m. During the year, this innovative strategy proved to be an effective way to achieve scale, and we will continue to pursue similar opportunities with privately owned businesses facing succession issues in the UK that could benefit from our income focused strategy and tax efficient REIT status.
“The Company’s Investment Manager has curated a diversified portfolio that focuses on long-term income growth, delivering earnings enhancement through careful stock selection and increased exposure to higher yielding property sectors with the greatest potential for rental growth. As a result, we have continued to grow earnings, for the third consecutive year, as well as delivering another fully covered dividend to our shareholders. Income and income growth are likely to form the greater component of total return over the next phase of the property cycle if long-term interest rates continue to remain elevated with persistent inflation.
“Both the Board and the Investment Manager believe in the security of investing in real assets with well-diversified, contractual income supporting a fully covered dividend and forecast rental growth, which should continue to be attractive to shareholders in the inflationary environment seen since the start of the conflict in the Middle East.”
Highlights of the year:
- The purchase of three privately owned portfolios totalling £63.8m via the majority-share acquisition of the respective holding companies, adding 40 new assets primarily located in the Midlands and Buckinghamshire, which are highly complementary to the Company’s diversified portfolio
- 3.3% growth in EPRA earnings per share to 6.3p (FY25: 6.1p) with a 105% covered dividend per share of 6.0p, reflecting a 7.5% dividend yield as at 31 March 2026 (2025: 6.0p dividend, 7.9% yield).
- IFRS profit before tax increased to £48.3m (2025: £38.2m) with IFRS EPS of 10.4p (2025: 8.7p)
- 3.4% growth in like-for-like contractual rent, which increased to £49.2m (2025: £43.9m)
- Estimated rental value (“ERV”) grew 3.3% like-for-like, meaning that there is 13% of potential rental growth already baked into the portfolio when compared to current passing rent, which we expect to unlock at upcoming lease events, in addition to the other significant asset management opportunities to create value we have identified
- Nine rent reviews completed during the year at an average 6% ahead of previous passing rent and 7% ahead of ERV, with 53 new lettings, lease renewals and lease re-gears reflecting continued occupier demand for space in our properties.
- Occupancy improved by 1.3% to 92.4% during the year (31 March 2025: 91.1%)
- Like-for-like valuation of the Company’s portfolio of 174 properties increased by 2.7% to £669.3m, supporting a 3.7% NAV per share increase and contributing to a 10.0% NAV total return (2025: 9.5%)
- We continued to progress our accretive capex programme, with £9.5m of investment into refurbishing industrial units in Plymouth, Biggleswade and Kettering, as well as the construction of a drive-through restaurant at a retail park in Carlisle
- £19.9m of proceeds from selective disposals achieved at an aggregate 23% premium to pre-offer valuation
- Net gearing remains low at 25.9% (31 March 2025: 27.9%) with 65% at a fixed rate of interest. During the year, the Company’s RCF limit was increased from £50m to £75m to maintain headroom following repayment of a £20m loan which expired in August 2025, which increased the weighted average cost of debt from 3.9% to 4.1%
Further information:
Further information regarding the Company can be found at the Company's website custodianreit.com or please contact:
Custodian Capital Limited | |
Richard Shepherd-Cross – Managing Director Ed Moore – Finance Director Ian Mattioli MBE DL – Chairman | Tel: +44 (0)116 240 8740 |
| www.custodiancapital.com |
Deutsche Bank AG, London Branch | |
Hugh Jonathan / George Shiel | Tel: +44 (0)20 7260 1000 |
| www.DBnumis.com/funds |
Custodian Property Income REIT plc Annual Report and Accounts for the year ended 31 March 2026
Custodian Property Income REIT plc (“Custodian Property Income REIT” or “the Company”) is a UK real estate investment trust (“REIT”) which seeks to deliver an enhanced income return by investing in a diversified portfolio of smaller, regional properties with strong income characteristics let to predominantly institutional grade tenants across the UK.
Property highlights
| 2026 £m | Comments |
| | |
Portfolio value | 669.3 | 31 March 2025: £594.4m |
Valuation increases[1] | 21.5 | - £20.0m or a 2.7% like-for-like increase in investment property valuation, as explained further in the Investment Manager’s report
- £1.5m property, plant and equipment relating to solar panels
|
Property acquisitions | 63.8 | Three acquisitions of privately owned property companies completed with portfolio prices of: - £35.9m - Grove Court Portfolio
- £19.4m - Merlin Portfolio
- £8.5m - Scorpion Portfolio
|
Capital investment | 9.5 | Primarily comprising: - £4.3m refurbishing industrial assets in Plymouth, Biggleswade and Kettering
- £1.6m constructing a drive-through restaurant at a retail park in Carlisle
- £0.8m combining two units to facilitate a letting at a retail warehouse in Southport
- £0.8m acquiring the freehold interest of a long-leasehold retail park in Weymouth
|
Disposal proceeds | 19.9 | Sales at an aggregate 23% premium to pre-offer valuation[2] comprising: - £6.9m for two office buildings in Cheadle
- £6.0m for offices in Glasgow
- £4.8m for 12 smaller units in Leicestershire acquired as part of the Merlin Portfolio
- £1.6m for a vacant retail unit in Guildford
- £0.6m retail unit in Portsmouth
|
| | |
EPRA[3] occupancy[4] | 92.4% | Occupancy has improved to 92.4% from 91.1% due to new lettings during the year |
Financial highlights and performance summary
| | | |
| 2026 | 2025 | Comments |
Returns | | | |
*EPRA earnings per share[5] | 6.3p | 6.1p | Increased by 3.3% due to rental growth and receiving a £1.0m surrender premium |
Basic and diluted earnings per share[6] | 10.4p | 8.7p | Increased profit resulting from a £20.0m investment property valuation increase (2025: £11.2m) |
Profit before tax (£m) | 48.3 | 38.2 |
Dividends per share[7] | 6.0p | 6.0p | Target dividend per share for the year ended 31 March 2027 of 6.0p |
*Dividend cover[8] | 104.8% | 101.3% | In line with the Company’s policy of paying fully covered dividends |
*NAV total return per share[9] | 10.0% | 9.5% | 6.3% dividends paid (2025: 6.6%) and a 3.7% capital increase (2025: 2.9%) |
*Share price total return[10] | 12.7% | 1.2% | Share price increased from 76.2p to 79.9p during the year. Since the year-end share price has increased to 88p |
| | | |
Capital values | | | |
NAV and *EPRA NTA[11] (£m) | 486.7 | 423.5 | Increased due to £21.5m of property and solar panel valuation gains (2025: £11.9m) |
NAV per share and *NTA per share | 99.7 | 96.1 |
*Net gearing[12] | 25.9% | 27.9% | Decreasing towards the Company’s 25% target |
*Weighted average cost of drawn debt facilities at year end | 4.1% | 3.9% | £30m of variable rate debt deployed during the year (5.5% rate) to refinance £20m fixed rate loan expiry in August 2025 (3.9%) and fund corporate acquisitions. Base rate (SONIA) decreased from 4.5% to 3.75% during the year. |
| | | |
Costs | | | |
*Ongoing charges ratio[13] (“OCR”) | 2.62% | 2.48% | Average quarterly NAV has increased from £414.8m in FY25 to £454.7m in FY26 |
*OCR excluding direct property expenses[14] | 1.28% | 1.30% |
Environmental | | | |
*Weighted average energy performance certificate (“EPC”) rating[15] | B (48) | C (51) | EPCs updated at 44 units across 24 properties demonstrating continued improvements in the environmental performance of the portfolio |
*Alternative performance measures (“APMs”) - the Company reports APMs to assist stakeholders in assessing performance alongside the Company’s results on a statutory basis, set out above. APMs are among the key performance indicators used by the Board to assess the Company’s performance and are used by research analysts covering the Company. The Company uses APMs based upon the EPRA Best Practice Recommendations Reporting Framework which is widely recognised and used by public real estate companies. Certain other APMs may not be directly comparable with other companies’ adjusted measures and APMs are not intended to be a substitute for, or superior to, any IFRS measures of performance. Supporting calculations for APMs and reconciliations between APMs and their IFRS equivalents are set out in Note 22.
Delivering maintainable income and value
Active asset management - Nine rent reviews at an aggregate 6% increase in annual rent from £2.2m to £2.3m and 7% ahead of estimated rental value (“ERV”)
- 53 new lettings, lease renewals and lease re-gears, with rental levels remaining affordable to our occupiers.
- EPRA occupancy improved to 92.4% (31 Mar 2025: 91.1%)
| Rental growth and maintainable income - FY26 dividends of 6.0p are 105% covered by recurring income
- 3.3% like-for-like growth in the portfolio ERV
- 13% further income growth already embedded within ERV of £55.6m exceeding the current £49.2m passing rent
| Capital recycling and reinvestment - Disposal proceeds of £19.9m during the year, representing an aggregate 23% premium to pre-offer valuation
- £9.5m of capital expenditure, invested in value and income-accretive property refurbishments
- £1.5m valuation increase on solar panels installed during FY25
|
Differentiated property strategy The Company’s portfolio of smaller, regional core/core-plus assets helps achieve our target of high and stable dividends from well-diversified real estate by offering: - An enhanced yield on acquisition – with no need to sacrifice quality of property, location, tenant or environmental performance for income and with a greater share of value in ‘bricks and mortar’ rather than the lease;
- Greater diversification – spreading risk across more assets, locations and tenants and offering more stable cash flows; and
- A higher income component of total return – driving out-performance with forecastable and predictable returns.
|
Richard Shepherd-Cross, Managing Director of the Company’s discretionary investment manager, commented: "Our smaller-lot specialism has consistently delivered significant