The Lemon Fool

Covid-19:
25 March 2020
The student property trust cancels dividends after taking £90m-£120m cashflow hit telling students who have gone home that they do not need to pay rent for the remaining academic year.

Unite (UTG), the UK’s largest student property company, has scrapped its final dividend and suspended further income distributions in order to conserve enough cash to see it through the coronavirus crisis.

The £2.6bn real estate investment trust (Reit), which had been yielding 4% in dividends, made the decision to cancel the final payment and suspend further distributions ‘until market conditions stabilise’ in order to save £124m of cash this year.

The trust said the measures ‘will ensure the company retains cash headroom through the remainder of 2020’ and hopes to ‘reinstate dividend payments as soon as possible once market conditions stabilise’.