Lendlease Global Reit’s committed portfolio occupancy rises to 88.8% in Q3

LENDLEASE Global Commercial Reit (Lreit) on Monday (May 6) reported a committed portfolio occupancy of 88.8 per cent for the third quarter ended Mar 31, 2024, up from 87.9 per cent from the previous quarter.

The real estate investment trust (Reit) continues to maintain a long portfolio weighted average lease expiry of 7.8 years by net lettable area (NLA) and 4.8 years by gross rental income (GRI), respectively, for Q3.

In a Q3 business update to the Singapore Exchange, the Reit manager said this is mainly attributed to the positive leasing momentum for Sky Complex (Building 3), where approximately 8.1 per cent of the NLA was committed at market rents within three months post lease restructuring of the complex.

Sky Complex is a group of three Grade A office buildings located at Santa Giulia Business District in Milan.

“With a long office weighted average lease expiry of 12.6 years by NLA and 15.1 years by GRI, it will provide stable revenue for Lreit’s unitholders,” said the manager.

As at Mar 31, 2024, the Reit’s retail portfolio occupancy was 99.4 per cent, with positive rental reversion of 15.3 per cent. It has also maintained a healthy retail tenant retention rate of 86.2 per cent.

It further noted that tenant sales were up 2.6 per cent year on year to S$207.9 million in Q3 FY2024, while visitation increased 6.1 per cent from 15.4 million in Q3 FY2023 to 16.4 million this quarter.

In Q3, gross borrowings were S$1.57 billion with a gearing ratio of 41 per cent. The weighted average debt maturity was 2.8 years with a weighted average cost of debt of 3.5 per cent per annum.

The interest coverage ratio of Lreit was 3.4 times, which provides ample buffer from its debt covenants of two times, said the manager.

Kelvin Chow, chief executive of the manager, said: “Moving forward, we will continue to remain focused on prudent capital management to manage cost and gearing.”

Lreit units rose S$0.015 or 2.8 per cent to S$0.55 on Monday.