Kingston Properties turns to UK for growth

Kingston Properties Ltd pivoted sharply towards the United Kingdom this year, chasing higher yields across the Atlantic even as a string of underperforming American investments dragged its 2025 profits below the prior year’s mark.

CEO Kevin Richards said the arithmetic strongly favours Britain over the company’s home market.

“The UK is the main focus for 2026, given the number of opportunistic deals and the strengthening of the Great Britain pound over the last few months,” Richards said in a written response to the Financial Gleaner. “Average net investment yields in the UK remain at more than 200 basis points above comparable yields in Jamaica.”

The geographic logic reflects a deliberate repositioning that the listed real estate investment trust has been executing over several years. “Our strategy, as articulated over the last few years, is to reduce our exposure to weather-related events such as hurricanes, which are prevalent in the Caribbean,” Richards added.

KPREIT currently holds 42 per cent of its portfolio in Jamaica, 41 per cent in the Cayman Islands, 12 per cent in the UK, and four per cent in the United States – a distribution the company intends to shift further towards Britain throughout 2026.

The US weighting has already extracted a cost. Profit before tax fell to $4.1 billion in 2025 from $5.4 billion the year before, after a fair value loss of more than US$1.1 million on an Atlanta property in which a KPREIT subsidiary holds a 42 per cent stake. Richards said the damage spread beyond that single asset.

“Additionally, we conservatively booked another Atlanta multi-family investment at cost, net of capital returned, despite a much-improved performance since the fourth quarter of 2025,” he said. “Our investment in another private equity venture was also written down as the assets in that fund were either sold or foreclosed. We are pursuing the return of capital on that investment.”

Richards said KPREIT would return to its core strategy of acquiring properties with immediate cash flow and active asset management potential – a more conservative posture than the fund-style bets that hurt it in Atlanta.

On the ground in Kingston, two projects are advancing. A 14-unit, small-bay warehouse development on Rousseau Road, targeting demand in the logistics and light industrial sectors, remains on track for completion in the second quarter of 2026. A modern, automated parking facility in downtown Kingston remains in early planning, with commencement targeted for the fourth quarter of the year.

luke.douglas@gleanerjm.com