Fashion flop: Wisma Atria's retail sales psf dropped in 1Q

No thanks to ongoing tenant relocations.

Orchard Road's ritzy status as Singapore's shopping haven may be helping local retailers in the area boost its sales, but for StarHill Global's Wisma Atria, there's a different story. OCBC Investment Research noted that its retail sales efficiency of S$130 psf was a tad lower in 1Q14 than the S$138 seen in 2013. This was due to ongoing tenant relocations/renovations.

However, OCBC noted that a strong 8.9% rental reversion was achieved.

Meanwhile, other office assets of Wisma Astria's property manager StarHill Global Reit achieved an 11.7% increase in rents for leases commited during the qaurter.

OCBC added that in Australia, StarHill Global Reit continued to benefit from incremental income from Plaza Arcade, thereby pushing the Australia assets’ NPI up 9.9% YoY. This helped to offset lower contribution from its Malaysia and China assets, which were impacted by weaker Malaysian Ringgit and intense competition respectively.