With a total of 9 heartland retail malls, and 1 office building in its portfolio (all located in Singapore), Frasers Centrepoint Trust (SGX:J69U) is another Singapore-listed REIT in my long-term investment portfolio (where I’ve been an investor since April 2020, and at an average price of $1.85.)

This morning (27 April 2022), the REIT made available its latest ‘report card’ for the first half of the financial year 2021/22 ended 31 March 2022.

As a unitholder, I have studied its latest updates with interest, and in this post, you’ll find my review about its financial performance, portfolio occupancy and debt profile, as well as its distribution payout to its unitholders.

Let’s begin:

Financial Performance (1H FY2020/21 vs. 1H FY2021/22)

The following table is the REIT’s latest set of financial results reported for the first half of FY2021/22, compared against that reported a year ago (i.e. the first half of FY2020/21):

Compared to the same time period last year (i.e. 1H FY2020/21 ended 31 March 2021), the suburban mall REIT’s results look rather “flattish” to me.

Its gross revenue and net property income inched up 1.5% and 3.8% respectively, which can be attributed to the full contribution from ARF, but offset by a loss of gross revenue from its divested properties – Bedok Point, Anchorpoint, and YewTee Point.

The 4.7% drop in its property operating expenses is mainly due to lower net allowance for doubtful debts and other property expenses.

Portfolio Occupancy Profile (Q1 FY2021/22 vs. Q2 FY2021/22)

Compared against the previous quarter (i.e. Q1 FY2021/22 ended 31 December 2021), its portfolio occupancy rate saw a 0.6 percentage point (pp) improvement – from 97.2% to 97.8% – contributed by an improvement in occupancy rates in almost all of its properties in its portfolio:

• Causeway Point (up from 99.0% to 99.2%)
• Tampines 1 (up from 97.1% to 98.8%)
• Tiong Bahru Plaza (up from 98.2% to 98.6%)
• Century Square (up from 91.1% to 93.4%)
• Changi City Point (up from 92.6% to 92.7%)
• Hougang Mall (up from 99.7% to 100.0%)
• White Sands (up from 98.8% to 93.8%)
• Central Plaza (Office) (up from 71.7% to 77.3%)

The occupancy rates of Waterway Point (99.4%) and Northpoint City North Wing (including Yishun 10) (100.0%) remains unchanged in both quarters.

In terms of rental reversion, I’m also encouraged to note that for the REIT’s retail portfolio (which includes all of its properties except for Central Plaza), the overall rental reversion was a positive 1.73% on a year-to-date basis. For Central Plaza, the rental reversion was at a positive 6.36% (also on a year-to-date basis) – both of which will definitely help to push the REIT’s financial performance up in the coming quarters ahead.

Debt Profile (Q1 FY2021/22 vs. Q2 FY2021/22)

Moving on to the REIT’s debt profile, in the table below, you’ll find a comparison of stats reported for the current quarter under review (i.e. Q2 FY2021/22 ended 31 March 2022) against that reported in the previous quarter 3 months ago (i.e. Q1 FY2021/22 ended 31 December 2021) to find out whether it has continued to remain healthy:

My Observation: It is encouraging to note that the REIT’s aggregate leverage have further improved to 33.3%; the same can also be said for its interest coverage ratio – which is at 5.7x in the current quarter under review (vs. 4.8x recorded in the previous quarter.) The healthy aggregate leverage means that the REIT has the resources to embark on further acquisition opportunities as and when the chance to do so arises.

Looking at the REIT’s debt maturity profile, only 8.3% (or S$150.0m) of its borrowings will be expiring in the second half of the the current financial year, with another 21.5% (or S$391.0m) expiring in FY2022/23, 28.2% (or S$513.0m) expiring in FY2023/24, and the remaining 42% (or S$763.0) of its borrowings expiring only in FY2024/25 and beyond.

Distribution Payout to Unitholders

The management of Frasers Centrepoint Trust declares a distribution payout to its unitholders on a half-yearly basis – once when they release their results for the first half of the year (which is this time round), and once when they release their results for the second half, and also for the full-year.

For the first half of FY2021/22, the management have declared a distribution payout of 6.136 cents/unit – a 4.6% improvement compared to 5.864 cents/unit declared in the same time period last year (i.e. 1H FY2020/21.) – pretty much in-line with the percentage growth in its gross revenue and net property income.

If you are a unitholder of the REIT, do take note of the following dates relating to its distribution payout:

Ex-Date: 06 May 2022
Record Date: 09 May 2022
Payout Date: 30 May 2022

Closing Thoughts

While the suburban retail mall REIT has a very good portfolio occupancy profile (where all of its retail malls are more than 90.0% occupied), and at the same time its debt profile remaining very healthy, but its financial performance is on the “flattish” side – no doubt the REIT have achieved a positive rental reversion for lease renewals, which will contribute positively towards its financial results in the coming quarters ahead, but personally, in order for its financial results to grow further, it’ll need to embark on acquisitions (either from its Sponsor, or from 3rd parties), where its healthy debt profile allows them to do so. Alternatively, they can embark on asset enhancement initiatives on individual malls (some of them in my opinion are due for one) to improve on their space usage and in turn, improve their contribution to the REIT’s overall financial performance.

Moving forward, I remain optimistic of a further increase in terms of footfall to the REIT’s retail malls, as well as improvements in tenant sales following the further relaxation of safe management measures effective 26 April 2022 (with safe entries removed, and no limit on group sizes) benefiting the mall – particularly the F&B outlets.

With that, I have come to the end of my review of Frasers Centrepoint Trust’s latest results for the first half of the financial year 2021/22 ended 31 March 2022. I hope you’ve found the contents presented above useful, and as always, do take note that the information above is purely for educational purposes only and that they do not represent any buy or sell calls for the REIT’s units. You should always do your own due diligence before you make any investment decisions.

Related Documents

• Press Release
• Financial Statements
• Presentation Slides

Disclaimer: At the time of writing, I am a unitholder of Frasers Centrepoint Trust.