Simon Owen and Jim Hazel steer rental village operator Ingenia to $34M profit

The first profit results announced by the old ING Real Estate Communities, now Ingenia Communities, has come in at $33.6M, up from $13M last year. CEO Simon Owen and new Chairman Jim Hazel achieved unit holder consent to internalise the management in July and the unit price has jumped 25% from 20 cents to 25 cents in 10 weeks. They have also announced the first profit distribution since 2008. Rental occupancies have increased from the mid 50%’s to 83% and growing. With $50M flowing in at Xmas from the sale of their US villages, they have aggressive acquisition plans. They have already bought Ridge Estate in the Hunter Valley (NSW) which is forecast to deliver a 50% IRR. They have an internal development pipeline of 471 ILUs worth $103M.