OUE Hospitality Trust property income dips 1.1% to $29.23m in Q4

The retail segment's expenses dragged earnings down.

OUE Hospitality Trust has suffered some headaches in Q4 as its net property income (NPI) dipped by 1.1% YoY from $29.56m to $29.23m.

According to its financial statement, gross revenue rose 1.8% YoY to $33.81m, thanks to the hospitality segment's higher revenue which was offset by lower revenue from the retail segment.

Hospitality segment pertains to the master lease income from the Mandarin Orchard Singapore hotel (MOS) and the Crowne Plaza Changi Airport hotel (CPCA).

MOS recorded a higher revenue per available room (RevPAR) of $225, due to higher average room rates. It also had higher banquet and food & beverage (F&B) sales.

CPCA's RevPAR improved to $176.

Retail revenue fell by $0.1m, due to lower rent of $22.8 psf per month. Rental reversion was negative in the preceding quarters.

However, occupancy rate rose to 96.9%.

Property expenses jumped by 5.4% YoY to $2.78m due to property maintenance expenses, utilities expenses, marketing expenses, land rent expenses and property management fees.

Finance expenses went over 100% from $5.64m to $13.63m due to a one-time writeoff of unamortised debt-related transaction cost and cost of unwinding the interest rate swaps as a result of the refinancing of the term loans and the entering into new interest rate swaps.

Distribution per share (DPS) dipped from 1.36 cents in 4Q2016 to 1.27 cents in 4Q2017, bringing the whole-year DPS to 5.14 cents.