SINGAPORE - Japan-focused Croesus Retail Trust (CRT) has posted a distribution per unit of 1.76 cents, 8 per cent higher than forecast.

This was on the back of a net property income of 933.7 million Japanese yen (S$11.5 million), 12.3 per cent more than forecast, and a gross revenue of 1.39 billion yen for the period.

CRT said the main positive variance was from better than expected tenant sales from Mallage Shobu, one of CRT's largest properties in terms of Net Lettable Area (NLA).

Gross revenue, impacted in February by one of the heaviest snowstorms to hit Tokyo in the last 45 years, recovered with strong tenant sales and increased rental income in March, CRT said.

"This was enhanced by a combination of active marketing and promotional activities, and increased purchases ahead of the consumption tax increase that came into effect April 1."

In March, CRT completed its first acquisition since IPO, Luz Omori and NIS Wave I, both in Tokyo, bringing the number of its retail properties to six.

With the acquisitions, CRT expanded its NLA by about 9 per cent, and its portfolio value grew by about 28.3 per cent to 67.83 billion yen.

CRT receives its distributable income in yen but pays out distributions in Singapore dollar to its unitholders semi-annually. To minimise the exposure to fluctuations in exchange rates, CRT has hedged 80 per cent or more of the distribution for the two forecast periods, from the listing date to June 30, 2015.

Earnings per unit was 1.44 yen, and net asset value per unit was 70.95 yen.

CRT units closed down 1.5 cents at 93.5 cents today.