SINGAPORE (April 24): The manager of Mapletree Industrial Trust (MIT) has announced a 2.5% y-o-y rise in 4Q distribution per unit (DPU) to 2.88 cents. This brings DPU for FY16/17 to 11.39 cents, 2.2% higher than the previous year’s DPU of 11.15 cents.
Unitholders can expect to receive their quarterly DPU payout on May 30.
Distributable income for the financial year ended March 31 was $205.0 million, up 3.6% from the $197.8 million achieved in FY15/16.
The increase in distributable income was mainly attributed to higher rental rates achieved across all property segments with initial contribution from Phase One of the build-to-suit (BTS) development for Hewlett-Packard Singapore.
This is in addition to lower property expenses for the full year, which fell 3.2% to $83.7 million on the absence of an impairment of trade receivables in the previous financial year.
Trust expenses were grew 3.7% to $56.5 million, largely because of higher borrowing costs due to higher hedged rates, as well as manager’s management fees as a result of better portfolio performance and increased value of assets under management.
Nonetheless, FY16/17 net property income (NPI) grew 4.8% to $256.8 million as compared to $245.1 million in FY15/16.
Average portfolio occupancy for 4QFY16/17 increased marginally to 93.1% from 92.1% in the preceding quarter, attributed to the full-quarter effect of the lease commencement of Phase One of the BTS development for Hewlett-Packard.
At the same time, average portfolio passing rent increased marginally to $1.94 psf/mth from $1.93 psf/mth in the preceding quarter.
MIT’s manager expects the continued supply of competing industrial space and movement of tenants to exert pressure on rental and occupancy rates, and says it will continue to focus on tenant retention to maintain stable portfolio occupancy.
“We expect the Hi-Tech Buildings segment to be a significant growth driver as we progressively complete development projects including the recently announced BTS data centre which has commenced construction,” comments Tham Kuo Wei, CEO of the manager.
Units of MIT closed 0.3% lower at $1.80 on Monday.
