Walls & Futures REIT aims for long-term secure income

Walls & Futures is an Ethical Housing investor and developer on a mission to address the unfulfilled demand for specialist social housing in the UK.

The company designs, funds and develops specialist social housing which is let on Full Repairing and Insuring (FRI), inflation-linked leases to local authorities, registered providers and charities.

This creates value for the company’s shareholders along with long-term, government-funded and index-linked secure income.

(), the ethical housing and developer, is looking forward to executing its strategy after seeing off an unwelcome bid approach in July.

The company is keen to grow its shareholder base, as it believes that the discount of the share price to the net asset value per share is unlikely to narrow while a large proportion of the real estate investment trust’s (REIT) shares are owned by committed long-term holders.

According to Walls & Futures, roughly 10% of the shares are owned by people who are not deemed to be committed long-term holders so management is actively working to engage with new individual and institutional investors.

“We believe our genuinely ethical and impactful approach to investment as highlighted in our ethical investment policy and commitment to net-zero carbon assets makes us an attractive proposition for investors,” the REIT said in a trading update.

Walls & Futures REIT PLC (AQSE:WAFR) outperformed its benchmark in the past year as it collected 100% of specialist supported housing (SSH) rents and 97% from the private rented sector (PRS).

Management’s strategy to sell the social housing investor and developer’s London PRS properties to fund further supported housing investments was delayed by emergency legislation during the pandemic.

Walls & Futures REIT PLC (LON:WAFR), an ethical housing investor and developer, said an unsolicited takeover offer from Virgata Services Ltd has now lapsed.

Walls & Futures said it can “now draw a line under this unfortunate distraction” after the offer was overwhelmingly rejected by its shareholders.

Joe McTaggart, chief executive of Walls & Futures REIT PLC (LON:WAFR), says coronavirus has highlighted the importance of supported housing. There is a huge need, he adds, and as properties are on long-term contracts there has been less disruption than seen in other areas of the commercial property market. The company has just sold a property in Wimbledon and intends to re-deploy the proceeds into supported housing. McTaggart adds the trust’s recently completed Oxford development is almost a blueprint for how supported development projects should look in future. “It’s state-of-the-art,” he says and reflects the company’s build your own ethos. That way you get a better quality product, pricing and yields, he says.