Photo: Mapletree Investments
Mapletree Investments has reported a net profit of $1.85 billion for the FY2020/2021 ended March, which includes a one-off accounting gain from the deconsolidation of Mapletree Industrial Trust (MINT).
The net profit represents a 4% y-o-y growth from $1.78 billion in FY2019/2020.
Excluding the one-off gain, Mapletree achieved a net profit of $1.02 billion, a decline of 43% y-o-y.
Revenue for the period fell 29.4% y-o-y to $2.74 billion, which Mapletree attributes to the accounting treatment from the deconsolidation of MINT as well as weaker performance of its retail and lodging assets.
Mapletree’s ebit plus share of associates and joint ventures (SOA), whose largest contributors are its four Singapore-listed REITs, stood at $1.86 billion, down 19.3%% y-o-y from $2.31 billion the previous years.
Recurring patmi stood at $633.3 million for the year, with contributions from existing portfolios as well as full-year contributions from data centre assets in the US and commercial assets in Global Technology Park in Bengaluru, India.
Mapletree’s cash reserves stood at $2.02 billion as at FY2020/2021, with its net gearing ratio by reduced by two percentage points from the previous year to to 60.5%.
The group reported a ROE and ROIE of 10.6% and 8.6% respectively in FY2020/2021, while its assets under management (AUM) increased 9.6% to $66.3 billion.
Hiew Yoon Khong, Mapletree’s group CEO, says that while Covid-19 has brought challenges, Mapletree's business model and strategies remain resilient. “During the year, we continued to deploy a significant amount of capital amounting to $2.3 billion into the logistics and data centre sectors. These sectors, which have outperformed other asset classes during the pandemic period, contributed some $596.2 million or 32% to the group’s EBIT + SOA,” he points out.
Mapletree made its maiden entry into the India logistics sector with the acquisition of a total gross floor area (“GFA”) of 103,268 square metres of warehouse spaces in FY2020/2021. It also acquired land plots for residential development in China, logistics development in Kyushu, Japan and Brisbane, Australia, as well as for the development of its first data centre in Hong Kong SAR. The total investment including development amounted to S$3.7 billion in FY20/21.
The group also expanded its office portfolio with several acquisitions in North America, South Korea and the Netherlands at a total transaction value of approximately $1.8 billion.
In addition, Mapletree syndicated its first European office fund, Mapletree Europe Income Trust (MERIT), in March, raising EUR507 million (approximately $812.9 million). MERIT is fully invested at closing and owns seven Grade A office assets worth EUR1.2 billion cities across Europe and the United Kingdom.
The group also executed several capital recycling initiatives throughout the FY2020/2021 amounting to $3.1 billion in capital recycled.
“Going forward, the group will continue to assess investors’ appetite and market demand and aim to launch new funds across various markets and asset classes. These include a US office fund, a China-focused fund, and a second US logistics fund,” says Hiew.
