Meet the CEO: Andrew Coombs, CEO of Sirius Real Estate

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Simon French, Panmure Gordon’s Chief Economist, interviews Andrew Coombs, CEO of Sirius Real Estate, about the company’s growth and what current and prospective investors should look for in the coming months.

Below are video clips of Simon’s interview with Andrew, touching on various topics about the company’s growth, strategy and leadership. The entire interview is here. Specific questions and answers from the interview are below.

Q: What elements of the story should investors pay attention to? (1:54 including introduction)

Q: Since Sirius was listed in April 2007 the shares have outperformed the wider real estate market. How has Sirius’s business model enabled you to achieve that? (1:57)

Q: The company has a stated aim to double the equity of its investments in 3-5 years. Can you talk potential investors how you achieve that transformation? (3:03)

Q: Have you noticed you’re starting to reach saturation point in the German market? Are you struggling to find good assets to add to the portfolio? (1:45)

Q: Sirius acquires properties with an average vacancy of 42% with some assets having a vacancy rate as high as 76%. For some landlords these vacancy figures would be concerning, but you see things differently. Why? (2:30)

Q: Unlike some of your European competitors, you’re not a Real Estate Investment Trust and so don’t have an obligation to pay out 75% of your income in dividends. How does that give you the flexibility to be more flexible than some of your competitors? (1:32)

Q: Recently Summit Germany proposed a name change to Summit Properties to better reflect its ambitions to pursue investments throughout Continental Europe. How do you see the landscape changing for Sirius and will you pursue expansion in other territories? (1:56)

Q: One of your peers, Summit Germany, has been valued at yield of 5.4%. Two significant portfolios of assets changed hands in Germany last year at sub-6%, and yet Sirius remains valued at 7.8%. What does Sirius need to do to close that valuation gap? (1:46)

Q: The German and the wider European economy has slowed down in recent months. How resilient is the Sirius business model to a slowdown in economic growth? (2:22)