"Sold" sign stands outside an existing home for sale in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, Nov. 30, 2009.Norm Betts
Partners Real Estate Investment Trust , formerly Charter Real Estate Investment Trust announced results for the three months ended June 30, 2011. Highlights included: quarter two NOI was up 51 per cent from the prior year and quarter two same property NOI was up 3.3 per cent over prior year. It said acquisitions made a solid contribution to second quarter and year-to-date results. Occupancies improved to 98.3 per cent at June 30, 2011 from 95.1 per cent last year.
Whiterock Real Estate Investment Trust announced today that it has completed the previously announced purchase of a Class A newly built, long-term leased, single-tenant office building in the greater Kansas City area for approximately $38-million (U.S.) before closing costs and a Class A newly built, long-term leased, single-tenant industrial building in the greater Nashville area for approximately $39-million (U.S.) before closing costs. It said these properties are 100 per cent leased to investment grade tenants, with a total rentable area of approximately 902,000 square feet and a weighted average remaining lease term of approximately 15 years. Management expects the impact from these acquisitions to add approximately $0.01 to annualized on-going AFFO per unit. The first full quarter impact of this increase to AFFO per unit is expected to be realized commencing in the fourth quarter of 2011. The assets were purchased by Whiterock on a wholly-owned basis, with Whiterock assuming property management.
Northern Property REIT announced its results for the three months ended June 30, 2011. Highlights included: Overall vacancy loss of five per cent compared to 6.3 per cent same quarter last year and FFO per unit improved to $1.12 year to date. NPR president and CEO Jim Britton said, "Most areas of our portfolio performed reasonably well during the quarter. However, vacancy in Fort McMurray remains stubbornly high for us and some of the properties we are acquiring in Nanaimo are experiencing higher than anticipated vacancy during the ownership transition."
Extendicare Real Estate Investment Trust reported results for the three months ended June 30, 2011. Highlights included: revenue of $520-million in second quarter 2011, a 2.7 per cent increase over second quarter 2010, excluding the adverse effect of foreign exchange; EBITDA was $65.1-million in quarter two 2011, a $3-million decline over quarter two 2010, excluding the adverse effect of foreign exchange; EBITDA margin was 12.5 per cent in quarter two 2011 compared to 13.5 per cent in quarter two 2010; Average daily revenue rates for Medicare Part A and Managed Care grew by 12.8 per cent and six per cent, respectively, in quarter two 2011 over quarter two 2010. AFFO was $27.3-million ($0.328 per basic unit) in quarter two 2011 compared to $35.6-million ($0.435 per basic unit) in quarter two 2010; Distributions in the first half of 2011 totalled $34.9-million, or $0.42 per unit, representing approximately 66 per cent of AFFO for the same period; Cash distribution of $0.07 per unit declared for the month of August 2011; Cash on hand totalled $314.3-million at June 30, 2011.
Paladin Labs Inc. , a Canadian diversified specialty pharmaceutical company, today announced that it is making an offer to acquire any and all of the issued and outstanding shares of Afexa Life Sciences Inc. of Edmonton, Alberta for $0.55 per share. Based on the offer's cash alternative, Paladin's offer represents a 57 per cent premium to the Afexa share price on July 14, 2011, the last trading day prior to Paladin's market purchases of Afexa shares announced on July 15, 2011, and a 43 per cent premium to the volume weighted average trading price of Afexa shares over the 20 days up to and including July 14, 2011. It also represents a premium of approximately 16 per cent over the closing price of Afexa shares of $0.475 on August 9, 2011, the last day before commencement of the offer.
San Gold Corporation SGR-T announced that it has signed an option agreement to earn an 80 per cent interest in Wildcat Exploration Ltd.'s WEL-X Mike Power, Jeep, and Poundmaker gold exploration projects in the Rice Lake area of Manitoba. Wildcat moved away from a year low 3.5 cents early Wednesday on the news. Under the terms of the option agreement, San Gold may earn an 80 per cent interest in the Wildcat Projects by expending $5.1-million on exploration activities over a four-year period. Additionally, San Gold will be required to make cash payments to Wildcat in aggregate of $1-million and, subject to regulatory approval, subscribe for an aggregate of $1-million of Wildcat shares via private placement over a three-year period. San Gold will be the operator of the exploration program for the duration of the option agreement. During the first year exploration program, San Gold plans to complete a minimum drill program of 5,000 metres and a high-resolution airborne magnetic geophysical survey. An overview of the Wildcat Projects and a summary of recent exploration work conducted by Wildcat was presented in Wildcat's news release dated June 24, 2011.
Forsys Metals Corp. soared away from near a year low 91 cents after announcing positive uranium leaching results from laboratory tests to determine whether ore from its fully licensed Valencia Uranium Project could be economically recovered by heap leaching. The test program focused on the uranium recovery and reagent consumptions that are commercially achievable, and generating data to guide future development work by a heap leach process route. Mintek of Johannesburg, South Africa, which was appointed as the laboratory facility to conduct the initial column leach test program, concluded that: Ore from the Valencia Uranium Project is amenable to heap leaching; good uranium extractions can be achieved under trickle-bed conditions; and sufficient uranium liberation is attainable from conventional crushing. Up to 92 per cent uranium dissolution was obtained in the column leach tests at a pH of about 0.7. Concurrently, two atmospheric batch leach tests were carried out to provide comparative leach results to the heap leach tests and determine any possible anomalies should they exist. The atmospheric batch leach test results supported the findings of the column leach results and no anomalies were found.
Pilot Gold Inc. fell close to five per cent early Wednesday despite reporting that ongoing core drilling at the Kucukdag target, at the TV Tower Project in northwest Turkey continues to intersect significant intervals of gold, silver and copper mineralization. It said step out drill hole KCD-15 intersected strong gold mineralization over 48 metres, expanding the footprint of the mineralized system by 100 metres to the northeast.
Kirkland Lake Gold Inc. , an operating and exploration gold mining company located in Ontario, said production for the first quarter of its 2012 fiscal year (May 1 to July 31, 2011) was 25,060 ounces of gold from 57,500 tons of ore grading an average of 0.4521 ounces of gold per ton. All results were slightly above plan and budget, it said. Chairman Harry Dobson said: "We are very satisfied with the results of the first quarter, and we remain on target to meet our goals for production, exploration, and capital projects for this fiscal year."
Dynasty Gold Corp. reported that the Bureau of Land Management in Nevada has granted the company conditional approval of a drill permit subject to certain terms and conditions. The company first reported the submission of the drill permit application in a press release dated July 13, 2011. The company said it is fulfilling these terms including posting a bond for the final approval which is expected to be received within four weeks.