The average monthly rent of the exhibition is up nearly 9%
Link Exhibition (823) announced its results yesterday. Wang Guolong, Chief Executive Officer of Link Asset Management, said at the performance meeting that no Sino-US trade war has a significant impact on the consumer market. The shopping malls are mainly based on daily necessities and have little impact on the economic cycle. Instead, the Mainland has introduced an incentive policy to help the mainland’s shopping malls. Therefore, “there is no fear of trade wars.”
According to the exhibition, the total amount of distribution for the whole year as of the end of March was 5.723 billion yuan, up 5.38% year-on-year. The final allocation of each fund unit was 140.55 sen, an increase of 9.57% year-on-year. In the whole year, the distribution per unit of funds increased by 8.6% to 271.17 sen. Based on the closing price of 91.8 yuan at the end of March, taking into account the distribution of each unit, the total return per unit of the exhibition for the whole year is 41%, and the dividend payout ratio is 3%.
Distributable income increased by 5%
During the period, on the same basis, the net income from revenue and property income was RMB 100.37 billion and RMB 7.789 billion, representing an increase of 7.2% and 7.1% respectively. If the acquisition, sale or new operating assets, income and property income were taken into account, The net increase was 0.1% and 0.3% respectively year-on-year. In terms of property portfolio in Hong Kong, the average monthly retail rent (per square foot) rose by 8.97% to 68 yuan, the occupancy rate reached 97.1%, and the rental renewal rate was 22.5%. Merchant sales increased by 5.4% year-on-year, and merchant rent-to-sales ratio was 13.5%.
The increase in rental rents has been criticized by the society. The chairman of the exhibition, Nie Yalun, said that he would not comment on the rent control opinions, but would respect the government’s decision. Wang Guolong added that the business turnover of the malls under the exhibition is better than that of the peers. If the ratio of the rents of the merchants to the turnover is kept at an appropriate level, it is believed that there is still room for adjustment.
Announce “2025 Vision”
Link Expo announced the “2025 Vision” in its performance, striving to achieve a compound annual growth rate of high single digits per year for the portfolio value until 2025. Nie Yalun said that the company has no plans to acquire or sell assets, and will continue to pay attention to acquisition opportunities in the future. Wang Guolong said that the acquisition opportunity will depend on market changes including the Sino-US trade war, emphasizing that the company will strictly select acquisition projects and strive to maximize returns.
Wang Guolong revealed that there are currently 4 projects in the Link Exhibition for asset enhancement, and another 24 asset enhancement projects involving more than 1.2 billion yuan, of which 6 are expected to be completed in early 2020 and another 18 are in the research stage. Completed in 2023.
As for the Mainland, Wang Guolong said that he was satisfied with the return on investment in the Mainland’s acquisition projects. He believed that the average rental growth of Mainland properties was also higher than that of Hong Kong, reaching 30.2%.
In addition, the management intends to return the capital generated from the previously sold property to the fund unit holders, and with the market conditions and regulations, it is interested in repurchasing about 60 million units.