Vital Healthcare returns to 1H profit as Australian acquisition boosts rentals

Feb. 23 (BusinessDesk) – Vital Healthcare Property Trust, the health clinic investor whose management contract was sold to a Canadian group last year, returned to first-half profit as acquisitions in Australia boosted rental income and it avoided the previous year’s valuation cuts.

Profit was $5.2 million in the six months ended Dec. 31, from a loss of $3.6 million a year earlier, Vital said in a statement. Gross rental income jumped 81 percent to $24.4 million, reflecting the contribution from its share of the Mayo private Hospital in New South Wales, Australia.

In December, Australia & New Zealand Banking Group’s OnePath unit sold the management rights for Vital to Canada’s NorthWest Value Partners for $11.5 million, trumping the proposed price to internalise the contract. NorthWest holds about 19.8 percent of Vital, just shy of the 20 percent cap that would require it to make a formal takeover.

Vital will pay a second-quarter distribution of 1.925 cents a unit to unitholders and confirmed is guidance for full-year distributable income of 7.7 cents a unit.

(BusinessDesk)

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