Net rental income at LondonMetric has increased by 154% year-on-year to £193.1m in the first half of the firm’s financial year.

In the six months to 30 September, the property firm's reported profit more than doubled from £81m in the same period last year, to £163.8m.

As a result, its property portfolio, of which logistics make up 45%, is now valued at £6.2bn, an increase of £200m.

Across this period, LondonMetric’s dividend increased by 18.8% to 5.7 pence share. The firm declared a dividend of 2.85 pence in Q2, which is in line with its 12 pence dividend target for the full-year.

Chief executive at LondonMetric, Andrew Jones, said: "Following the transformational LXi deal, we have further cemented our position as the UK's leading triple net real estate income investor.

"Our £6.2bn portfolio is aligned to the strongest thematics of logistics, convenience, hospitality and healthcare, and is invested in mission critical real estate with high occupier contentment.

"Importantly, our transactional capabilities, greater scale and strong shareholder alignment is ensuring our portfolio is constantly re-shaping, with £234m of lower growth disposals and £203m of high-quality acquisitions year to date. This activity along with further external growth and consolidation opportunities that are presenting themselves is supporting our target to grow our logistics exposure to 50% by year end."

Looking ahead, the firm said its FTSE 100 status would provide "better access to capital as well as external growth and consolidation opportunities".

LondonMetric said that while the UK economy had "proven to be resilient, it is clear that consumer and business confidence has been weaker of late", with headwinds that could impact future growth, such as "rising inactivity levels and ongoing uncertainty" in the labour market.

Despite this, it said that an income uplift is expected over the next 18 months, set to total £26m.

Jones concluded: "Our all-weather portfolio with guaranteed rent growth, greater scale and a well-positioned balance sheet underpins our earnings growth and our ability to deliver a tenth year of dividend progression and maintain our path to dividend aristocracy. Afterall, we continue to believe that income compounding is the eighth wonder of the world - the secret ingredient that creates wealth over time."

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