Companies: INL   

Brownfield property developer Inland has subsided somewhat since flotation last April, but is confident that demand for land in the South East will see it extract value for investors.

In the six months to December, revenues, which are lumpy due to dependence on the irregular completion of smaller property sales, fell to £169,000, producing a pre-tax loss of £1.2m. Inland was very busy though, increasing its land bank 23% to 1,470 residential plots with a gross development value of around £361m.

Three of its 24 sites were granted planning permission, including two sites that should be sold off in the second half and a major site in Farnborough where 399 residential plots were granted. Chief executive Stephen Wicks says he recently declined a £24m offer from a housebuilder for the latter site, as it falls some way short of his target of £45m.

Ten further sites are awaiting permission and finance director Nishish Malde says ‘if we achieved consent on all our current properties our NAV [net asset value] would be around 60p per share. It’s now around 51p per share, post tax.' This large premium to the current share price, which is down some way from its 50p issue price and from our 53.75p recommendation in May, is mostly explained by negative property sector sentiment and perhaps some confusion about the business model.

Wicks, who in 2005 sold housebuilder Country & Metropolitan Homes for seven times its IPO price and expects to attract a similar large buyer at Inland, has £11.7m of cash and around £50m of banking headroom for the ‘many good buying opportunities’ around. He admits the planning process is tougher than ever, but strong housebuilder demand for land with planning consent means he is confident that Inland’s expertise and strong balance sheet will see it through. Hold.

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Inland	AIM	£11.66m	7.25p	-0.50p
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