On a more positive note, Mr Coconut has opened at VivoCity. Every day, during opening hours, a queue of the young and “young at heart” can be seen snaking along Mr Coconut stalls across Singapore.
The past week was full of results for the quarter to Sept 30. In some cases, such as Frasers Centrepoint Trust (FCT), Sept 30 was a year-end. FCT had completed the acquisition of 63% of Asia Retail Fund (ARF) it did not own in October 2020. Hence, FCT gets the benefit of almost a full year of five additional suburban malls and an office building. The acquisition enabled revenue, net property income and distributable income to more than double in FY2021 (for the 12 months to Sept 30), while distributions per unit (DPU) rose by 33.7% to 12.085 cents.
Elsewhere, the humour and plain-talking style of Sharon Lim, CEO of Mapletree Commercial Trust’s (MCT) manager, showed through. When asked if work-from-home trends had stabilised, Lim answered: “We are stable at the lowest point. Anything the government lifts will be an upside. What can be worse than today’s WFH arrangement? When the government lifts [restrictions], the traffic will come back and help ARC (Alexandra Retail Centre) that supports the office crowd [at Mapletree Business City].”
