Starhill Global REIT's net property income up 4.4% to $38m

DPU also grew 9% to 1.21 cents.

According to OCBC investment Research, Starhill Global REIT (SGREIT) reported 3Q13 NPI of S$38.0m and distributable income of S$27.1m, up 4.4% and 9.7% YoY respectively. DPU similarly increased by 9.0% YoY to 1.21 S cents, after retaining S$0.7m (c. 0.03 S cents) in distribution amount.

Here's more:

For 9M13, NPI and distributable income were up 7.3% and 17.2% to S$119.0m and S$83.6m respectively. 9M13 DPU came in at 3.77 S cents, translating to a robust growth of 15.6%.

This is in line with expectations, given that the DPU has met 76.6%/76.9% of our/consensus FY13F DPU.

Further improvement in operational performance 
SGREIT’s Singapore portfolio continued to benefit from Wisma Atria (WA) redevelopment and upward rent reviews at Ngee Ann City (NAC).

Over the quarter, WA saw its retail NPI grow by 5.9% YoY as a result of ongoing asset repositioning and higher rentals. Tenant sales at WA, we note, improved 11.8% YoY, giving rise to a better 
sales efficiency of S$134 psf.

At NAC’s retail segment, NPI also registered a strong 14.5% growth following the 6.7% rental uplift from Toshin master lease. In addition, the office segment at Singapore portfolio achieved 11.2% NPI growth on the back of positive rental reversions of 13.7% for leases committed between Oct 2012 and Sep 2013. 

More notably, Singapore portfolio occupancy reached 100%, up from 99.7% in 2Q. For its overseas properties, Australia portfolio was the key performer, raking up a 25.7% increase in NPI due to incremental income from Plaza Arcade.

As a result, this more than offset the lower contributions from the other overseas properties due to 
unfavourable forex movements and increased competition.