Croesus Retail Trust's Q1 earnings up 30% to $21m

Newly acquired properties boosted its earnings.

Croesus Retail Asset Management Pte. Ltd., the trustee-manager of Croesus Retail Trust  announced its financial results for the three months ended 30 September 2016, delivering an available distribution per unit of 1.79 Singapore cents for the period. This represents a 9.8% increase from the restated DPU of 1.631 Singapore cents recorded in the corresponding period the year before.

According to the trust manager, the recorded gross revenue of JPY 3,126 million, which was 55.8% higher than the JPY2,007 million recorded in 1Q FY2016.

"This positive variance was due mainly to higher contributions from the newly acquired properties consisting of Torius, Fuji Grand Natalie, Mallage Saga and Feeeal Asahikawa," the manager said.

Net property income registered a year-on-year growth of 29.5% in 1Q FY2017 from JPY1,233 million to JPY1,596 million ($21m), on the back of income contribution from the four properties acquired in FY2016. However, the increase came in lower than topline growth, due to a higher expense ratio arising from a greater proportion of non-master lease properties in CRT’s portfolio following the acquisitions made in FY2016.

Chief Executive Officer and Executive Director of Croesus Retail Asset Management Pte. Ltd. Jim Chang , said, “We are pleased that contributions from our recent acquisitions have paved the way for CRT’s growth once again. Together with cost savings expected from an internalised Trustee-Manager, we hope to be able to boost CRT’s distributions going forward."

He noted that the group plans to explore new enhancement initiatives at some of its assets and capitalise on Japan's low interest rates to refinance its debts maturing in the next two years.

"These are in line with our key objective of bolstering the resilience of our distributions, to provide robust returns to our unitholders,” Chang stressed.