Gazit-Globe Q1 Profit Rises; FFO Grows By 6%

(RTTNews) - Gazit-Globe (GZT, GZT.TO), one of the world's leading multi-national real estate companies focused on the management, acquisition, development and redevelopment of supermarket-anchored shopping centers in major urban markets, reported net income attributable to shareholders of 376 million Israeli New Sheqels, or 2.10 Sheqel per share for the first quarter ended March 31, 2015, compared to 157 million Sheqels, or 0.89 Sheqel per share, in the same quarter last year.

FFO, according to the management approach, increased by 6% to 160 million Sheqels or 0.90 Sheqel per share compared to 151 million Sheqels or 0.86 Sheqel per share, last year.

Rental income increased by 24% to 1.53 billion Sheqels compared to 1.23 billion Sheqels in the same quarter last year. The company said the increase resulted from the consolidation of Atrium's financial reports for the first time which resulted in an increase of 311 million Sheqels in the rental income.

NOI for the quarter increased by 26% to 1.03 billion Sheqels compared to 817 million Sheqels in the same quarter last year. The company said the increase resulted from the consolidation of Atrium's financial reports for the first time which resulted in an increase of 218 million Sheqels in the NOI. Same-property NOI, excluding the effect of changes in exchange rates, decreased by 0.9%.

The company declared a quarterly cash dividend of 0.46 Sheqel per share payable on July 6, 2015 to shareholders of record as of June 22, 2015, which represents an annualized dividend per share of 1.84 Sheqel. The dividend policy for 2015 is a minimum quarterly dividend payment of 0.46 Sheqel per share, representing an increase of 2.2% over the 2014 dividend.