After suffering a €133,000 loss in 2013, Palmer Capital Emerging Europe Property Fund (EEPF) posted a €1.12m profit in 2014. Operating costs were reduced by 14.7 percent, while its occupancy rate reached 75 percent. The fund attributes the performance to financial restructuring and plans to resume payment of distributions to investors.
The restructuring strengthened Palmer Capital EEPF across all key financial benchmarks, says head of fund management Guy Barker. “In 2014, we secured a new long-term senior facility from Tatra Bank for our Slovak portfolio and re-financed our Raiffeisenbank loan on the Czech portfolio with a new provision from Sberbank on more flexible terms,” he said. “We also paid down our outstanding loan from SNS Bank in February 2015. All junior debt has been re-paid. These arrangements concluded phase two of the strategic plan we announced in April 2012.”
The fund’s contracted net annual operating income has risen from €3.3m to €3.44m. It reduced its loan-to-value ratio from 47.5 percent to 43.8 percent, while average debt maturity has increased to 4.39 years. The fund’s net asset value increased from €26.81m in 2013 to €28.55m in 2014.
