SINGAPORE - Cambridge Industrial Trust (CIT) saw its distribution per unit slip 3.7 per cent to 1.204 cents for the third quarter ended Sept 30, from 1.25 in the year-ago period, due to the absence of one-off gains.

The trust said on Thursday (Oct 22) that a lack of contribution from capital and capital gains in the third quarter resulted in a 1.6 per cent decline in its distributable income to $15.6 million from .

However, CIT's net property income rose 10.5 per cent year-on-year to $21.7 million from $19.7 million in the year-ago period, marking the second quarter of double-digit growth for the currrent financial year, it said. Gross revenue jumped 13.8 per cent to $28.5 million from $25 million previously.

The trust also enjoyed a positive rental reversion of 8.5 per cent year-to-date.

In its statement, CIT's manager said it expects the industrial leasing market to remain subdued and rents to continue to face downward pressure. "However, lease renewals and new leases signed for 2015 have been encouraging so far with approximately 719,000 square feet of space being renewed or signed, enabling CIT to maintain portfolio occupancy of 95.4 per cent," it added.

In further comments on the outllok, Philip Levinson, CEO of the CIT's manager, said: "Moving forward, we will continue to proactively manage lease renewals and the conversion from single to multi-tenancy in order to optimise occupancy and rental yields. CIT is in a strong financial position, with 96.5 per cent of exposure fixed for the next 3.2 years and available committed facilities of $43 million."

The Manager will continue to proactively manage the portfolio for lease expiries and identify potential asset enhancement and acquisition opportunities to grow the portfolio and deliver stable income to our unitholders