CICT posts distribution per unit of 5.22 cents for second half

CapitaLand Integrated Commercial Trust (CICT) has announced a distribution per unit (DPU) of 5.22 cents for the second half of the year which ended on Dec 31, down from 5.73 cents in the year-ago period.

This includes an advanced DPU of 4.85 cents for the period July 1 to Dec 15, which unit holders could expect to receive yesterday, the Reit's manager said in its financial results released yesterday.

The remaining DPU of 0.37 cent for the period Dec 16 to 31 will be issued on March 15 this year, after the record date on Feb 9.

The dip in second-half DPU and split in distribution is due to a private placement of around 127.6 million units on Dec 16, which raised about $250 million.

This brings the full-year DPU to 10.4 cents, up from 8.69 cents for FY2020.

The Reit's distributable income for the second half of FY2021 is $338.8 million, up 30.5 per cent from $259.7 million in the second half of FY2020.

The increase was largely driven by CICT's merger with CapitaLand Commercial Trust (CCT) on Oct 21, 2020, via a trust scheme of arrangement where all units of CCT were acquired by CICT. Raffles City Singapore became a direct wholly owned subsidiary of CICT due to the merger.

Lower rental waivers were also granted to tenants in the second half of FY2021.

The full year's distributable income also went up to $674.7 million, an increase of 82.7 per cent from FY2020's income of $369.4 million.

Gross revenue for the second half rose 54.5 per cent year on year to $659.4 million from $426.8 million.

Net property income for the period also increased 61.6 per cent to $478.9 million from $296.4 million the year before.

For the full FY2021, gross revenue grew 75.1 per cent year on year to $1.3 billion from $745.2 million, while net property income expanded 85.5 per cent to $951.1 million from $512.7 million.

CICT's portfolio occupancy was at 93.9 per cent, with retail assets at 96.8 per cent, office assets at 91.5 per cent and integrated developments at 96 per cent.

The Reit also signed around 1.9 million sq ft of new leases and renewals for the year, with major leases and renewals in the fourth quarter of 2021 and this month, including GIC and Sephora.

Mr Tony Tan, chief executive of the manager, said the manager remains cautiously optimistic in its outlook for this year amid an improving industry environment as well as CICT's "resilient" portfolio operating metrics. He expects assets that have undergone upgrading works such as 21 Collyer Quay, development project CapitaSpring, and assets which the trust recently acquired in Sydney to contribute income from the second half of FY2022.

"Going forward, we will continue to stay nimble and flexible as we strive to further strengthen CICT's portfolio and ride the economic recovery of Singapore, Australia and Germany," he said.

Units of CICT closed at $1.94, down two cents, or 1 per cent, yesterday.

THE BUSINESS TIMES