Market misery rocks Minerva

By THIS IS MONEY
Updated: 09:09 EDT, 17 September 2008

Minerva, the London group being bid for by Dubai investors, has been hit by the gloomy market to record a year's loss of £12.8m even before a revaluation of its investment property.

Misery: Property investment group Minerva has recorded multi-million pound losses due to the dire market

After the revaluation, Minerva's loss was £231.9m compared with last year's £18.7m profit.

The company says its cash reserves of £117.4m, only slightly down from last year, 'provide security, liquidity and flexibility'.

Despite the effects of the downturn, chief executive Salmaan Hasan says Minerva has 'continued to make good progress'.

'We have a diverse and high-quality development portfolio in core London locations and have achieved a number of important milestones across our pipeline,' he said.

Minerva has pre-sales of 27% of the Lancaster Gate development that will generate over £100m of revenue and has raised more than £330m of structured finance for the project and the acquisition of Ram Brewery and Leinster House Hotel.