The Land Lease Community developer has posted an EBITDA of $9.4M and Profit After Tax of $6.5M – a 37.5% drop on their FY16 results.
In total, their underlying earnings fell to $8.36M while operating expenses jumped to over $17M, in part due to their purchase of four villages.
The operator now has 36 sites across VIC, NSW, SA and QLD with over 2,000 units under ownership or management. However their occupancy rate only rose from 83% to 89.6%.
CEO Jeff Weigh says Eureka will now focus on its ‘Buy and Build’ strategy which has moved it away from its traditional low-cost rental model to a ‘bricks and mortar’ village ownership and management model which “has generated far superior returns to shareholders.”
This will continue with the development of 240 residential units or retirement village units at their Terranora village on northern NSW which is waiting on development approval.
Once the first stage is built, Eureka says it plan to develop a second lot of 125 village units or sell the undeveloped land.
