LONDON, February 10, 2015 /PRNewswire/ --
Topland Group one of Europe's largest privately owned international investment groups has issued its latest Chairman's Statement.
Sol Zakay Executive Chairman and CEO said: "Last year was another very successful year for Topland across our numerous platforms including real estate, hotels, lending, preferred equity joint ventures, venture capital, natural resources and solar energy. As a private company with strong entrepreneurial management, and an enviable cash position we have been one of the most active companies in the industry this year deploying around £400m across the group.
Traditionally known as an acquirer of long dated income and large scale sale-and-leasebacks, our real estate platform was very flexible immediately after the financial crisis and deployed over £200m into the regional market buying more active asset management office opportunities and entering the shopping centre market. Topland has continued to invest into these sectors in 2014, including a second shopping centre at Newark. We have also entered the residential investment market acquiring blocks in Putney and Balham.
Of course Topland will continue to invest heavily in real estate, but we have also looked at strategic disposals, seeking to crystalise the value from our successful asset management strategy and take advantage of a very buoyant market. 20 assets totalling in excess of 1.3m square foot of space have been sold in 2014 with a total value close to £170m. A significant benefit of the sales strategy has been the reduction in Toplands gearing levels which now stand at an impressive 40%.
Our hotel platform has spent over £200m this year alone acquiring 28 hotels and remains committed to creating a £1bn hotel business. The latest acquisition, being the Feathers Group of eight hotels, brings the total number of rooms in the owned and managed portfolio close to 3,000 and thus positions us as the UK's fastest growing independent owner operator hotelier of unbranded hotels. Our intention is to invest further in our existing hotels to strengthen performance, and to deploy significant further capital in new opportunities to grow the portfolio. In addition, Topland leases nine hotels: six in London and others in Edinburgh, Glasgow and Brighton, bringing Topland's exposure to the hotel sector to 38 hotels and in excess of 4,100 rooms. I am particularly proud to report our hotel division now plays an important role in the general economic recovery by employing close to 2000 team members.
The third core platform is our lending business which has seen stellar performance since its inception back in February 2011. Our loan book is now in excess of £400m, with close to £100m being written this year. We now provide a range of lending products, including our short term bridging loan product to assist acquisition or the sales tail of a finished scheme. We are currently funding high end residential, London suburb developments, student accommodation, hotels, assisted living and office to residential conversion.
"A major development over 2014 for the structured finance team has been the creation of a joint venture equity product. In essence we provide the majority of the equity required in a project for a share in the profits. Investment has already been made into deals with a total gross development value of £200m. Sector parameters are wide ranging, including planning plays and out of town new build schemes. I see significant deployment into this area of the business in 2015.
The combination of a buoyant market and each platform adding value to the group has resulted in the net asset value of the business significantly increasing. This has also been enhanced by the performance of other key areas of the business such as Natural Resources and Solar. Our partnership with Barclays Natural Resource Investments is going from strength to strength, co-investing over $1.1bn in 15 businesses worldwide.
I am very pleased with Topland's advancement through the expansion and diversification that has occurred in the last two/three years. One challenge has been to ensure that all our clients have been fully briefed on progress, and I was therefore extremely pleased with the comments I received from our year end celebration at the Dorchester where I presented our companies achievements to one hundred eminent industry colleagues.
Topland has been a specialist in a number of fields for some time now and I consider Topland to now be a leading player in each of these areas. Looking to the year ahead and due to its entrepreneurial nature I have no doubt Topland will deploy further funds into our core operations and indeed invest into new areas such as healthcare and infrastructure. We will continue to move quickly because of our significant warchest. We have already hit the ground running with some substantial acquisitions lined up and we will continue to evolve as a multi-asset platform.
