SINGAPORE (Apr 24): The manager of Frasers Centrepoint Trust (FCT) has announced a distribution per unit (DPU) of 3.137 cents for 2Q19 ended March.
The 2Q19 DPU is 1.2% higher year-on-year and a record-high.
Gross revenue for 2Q19 was up 2.3% year-on-year to $49.7 million and NPI was up 4.8% to $36.4 million.
Frasers Centrepoint Asset Management (FCAM) says the improvement in the portfolio NPI was broad-based.
Changi City Point registered 24.6% year-on-year increase in its NPI for the quarter, the highest among all the properties in the portfolio. The other malls in the portfolio registered NPI growth of between 1.4% and 8.9%, except for Bedok Point’s NPI which remained unchanged.
FCT’s gearing stood at 28.8% as at Mar 31. The all-in average cost of borrowings was 2.8% and the weighted average debt maturity was 1.6 years. FCT has 62% of its borrowings on fixed or hedged-to-fixed interest rates.
During 2Q19, 38 leases accounting for 3.7% of FCT’s total net lettable area (NLA) were renewed at an average rental reversion of +2.0%. The portfolio occupancy as at 31 March 2019 was 96.0%, higher than the 94.0% registered in the same quarter in the previous year.
2Q19 portfolio shopper traffic was 2.4% higher year-on-year. All malls except Bedok Point, saw higher shopper traffic compared to the same quarter a year ago. The portfolio tenants’ sales for the three-month period from December 2018 to February 2019 declined 1.3% year-on-year. This was attributed mainly to transitional vacancies at Causeway Point, including the temporary closure of one of its food court for renovation.
In its outlook, FCAM says FCT’s portfolio focus on necessity shopping, healthy mall occupancy and steady shopper traffic helps to underpin the stable performance and resilience of the portfolio.
Units in FCT closed 1 cent lower at $2.36 on Tuesday.
