Frasers Property Limited (TQ5) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the briefing for Frasers Property Limited for half year FY '25 Results. My name is Gerry. I take care of Investor Relations for Frasers Property Limited. Without further ado, let me introduce our panelists for today. I have Panote Sirivadhanabhakdi, our Group CEO. On his right is Mr. Loo Choo Leong, our Group CFO. Without further ado, I'll hand over now to Panote to take us through our results for today, and we'll take Q&A after the presentation. Panote, please.

Thanks, Gerry. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and thank you for joining us today on the briefing. So over the past 18 months, we have been focusing on sustainable value creation. And in mind, we stay course on our 3 focus, which is creating value. We have increasing our development exposure in residential segment with better risk-adjusted returns and selected nonresidential asset class that align with our sector trends. And in sustaining value, we have leveraged our core capability within our portfolio and our asset management capability to drive higher return from our investment properties portfolio. And unlocking value has been one of the most active part of what we're working on with all the business units to improve our capital efficiency through capital recycling, divestment to the REIT as well as to third parties, but more we have connect further to collaborate with our strategic capital partners. So in this I would cover in the progress in the following page. But before going to that, I would like to give the brief of the group earnings on our first half of FY '25. As our revenue has grown 2.7%, our attributed profit has gone up by 147%. This is due to the earnings that drive by higher residential contribution from Singapore. But additionally, the absence of an impairment record on the same period of last year and reversible of tax provisions further boost the group attributed profit, and Choo Leong will go into the detail later with the financial results. In this slide, it's shown how we dive deeper into our 3 focus areas to drive sustainable value creation. As our residential front, our unrecognized revenue is trending back up, driven by our success in sales of the Orie in Singapore in January and improving of our land sale in Australia. We take balanced approach to residential development. While residential development earnings can be lumpy, the risk-adjusted return remained relatively attractive and increasing the group exposure will enhance our overall returns. Another crucial area is creating value at Frasers Property in our nonresidential development projects. And by leveraging our development capability, we maintain a strong build-to-core pipeline, particularly in I&L assets, ensuring our high-quality portfolio and resilient recurring income base. This has shown as staying on the topic of the built to core, its approach is to support an active portfolio rebalancing efforts. And over the past 18 months, we have added about 1 million square meters of quality recurring income asset in a sector that's favorable to our long-term market dynamics and sustainable in value that we're looking for. Concurrently, we have divested around 200,000 square meters of noncore properties or those where value has been optimized, aligned with our active portfolio management strategy. Our rigor portfolio management ensure our recurring income base sustain its value and market relevance over the long term. And in addition, the strong asset management capability do support in driving the return from our quality portfolio assets, and it's continued to support our earning base. This slide shows how we optimize the capital structure. We constantly seek a way to unlock value and enhance capital efficiency. And as part of active portfolio management, we regularly review our non-REIT properties portfolio to explore value unlock and opportunities. So in this first 3 months of the calendar year, we have made significant movement as well. We announced the proposed divestment of Northpoint City South Wing to FCT and subject to FCT unitholders' approval at the AGM in the third quarter. The prioritize of capital partnership across asset class earlier this year, we acquired residential land in Shanghai through the joint venture with 51% effective interest. And last month, we injected our portfolio of eight I&L properties in Australia into a 50-50 joint venture. We also divest assets that are noncore on those where value have been optimized in February. We completed the sales of Capri by Fraser in Barcelona and which is part of our noncore portfolio exercise. As already announced, but the progress has been ongoing, how we continue to unlock value of our asset in Singapore as well. And to recap our progress on sustainable value creation on the [ presold ] revenues from residential development do ensure our earning and cash flow visibility, while our strong build-to-core pipeline support the resilience of our recurring income base. Our robust portfolio asset management capability drive return and sustainable value for our recurring income asset over the long term. This has shown the tracks of how the strategy meet the outcome and the action as well as we have laid down. Our disciplined approach to optimize capital efficiency does allow us to continue to create, sustain and unlock value. This is the slide that shown that the important pillar of our strategy is our maintaining progress in our ESG and in commitment of the ESG remain the key pipeline where we progress towards our net zero carbon emission target across Science Based Target of Scope 1, 2 and 3 by 2050 and ensuring that we obtain the independent assurance of our Scope 1, 2 and 3 carbon data published in ESG data book in our first half of FY '25, along with carbon database of preparations outlining our carbon accounting methodologies. And we continue to drive the renewable energy and green certification effort as well across our assets. As an example, the strategic partnership remain an essential to our ESG advancement. And in Singapore, first brownfield distribution district cooling network commenced operation. This network is expected to reduce carbon emission by around 1,000 tonnes annually in our retail portfolio in Singapore, including Tampines 1, Century Square and several of the key injection nodes. This slide is to lens through that we are cognizant over the uncertainty in what's happened in the world. We continue to monitoring global development, and we are cognizant of a high potential impact in our asset class in whether it's I&L or emerging market that we are exposed to. So we continue to engage closely with tenants and have progress in place to systematically assess and mitigate tenancy risk. The majority of our tenants serve as domestic consumption, and we are paying close attention to our tenants towards the business that are primarily U.S. export driven. So far, we have not had any pre-lease cancellation and existing tenant rental payment remain up to date. To ensure the leasing site visits have returned to pre-Liberation Day level after a dip in the day after the Liberation Day announcement. So in terms of the broader market in short term, we may be in spike in demand of our warehouse as the global supply chain readjusts. In the midterm, if the global trade tension persists, we may see delay in the business expansion decision-making, cost cutting. This may affect leasing demand for I&L and commercial assets. Additionally, there may be the broader economic impacts leading into the shift in overall business and consumer sentiment. While no company can be fully insulated from the impact of tariff barrier and volatility in the interest rate, the Board and leadership team are united in a focus on build a healthy of our business and finance. So we are looking at the focus on sustaining our cash flow well and looking at the confidence in Frasers in place itself where that is in a challenging time. The most important part, we believe in our people, our resilient business platform that we have built and the discipline in becoming part of our DNA. So we continue to build and reduce our net gearing. We continue to improve risk-adjusted returns, tightening our cost management and ensuring our operation model is always fit for purpose. So in this -- in light of the risk, we are seeing as well how we're focusing on grabbing the right opportunity and grow our future as well. And now I will hand over to Choo Leong to take us through the financials.

Thank you, Panote. Good morning, everyone. I will go through the financials. As mentioned earlier, our first half FY 2025 results were driven by the higher residential contributions from Singapore. As you are aware, the residential development profits do swing from one geography to the other depending on settlements. So it is a function of the trading nature of the development business. Additionally, there's the absence of an impairment, which we recorded in the U.K. in the first half of FY 2024. And in this current period under review, there's a one-off reversal of tax provisions subsequent to finalization, so which boosted the profits of the group versus the previous corresponding period. If you were to exclude this one-off tax reversals, our profits would have been down by around -- the attributable profit will be down by around 13%, mainly due to higher net interest expenses. As you are aware, this is a factor or item that appears in almost all results for real estate organizations. In the first half, we recorded unrealized fair value loss of our business park in the U.K., but this was balanced out by realized fair value gains from recycling of assets or divestments to third parties, and this is in line with our deleveraging strategy as well. So all in all, I would say, for this particular period, a relatively decent set of results in light of current circumstances. A little bit more color on the details of PBIT. So as I mentioned earlier, there were contributions from Singapore in terms of residential, which are higher than the previous corresponding period. That doesn't mean the rest are not contributing. They are, but it's just relative towards the previous corresponding period. I would like to add additional color that PBIT actually went up 3.8%. And when we go through one of the later slides, I'll provide additional color on the recurring versus nonrecurring nature of this PBIT as well. So while these residential development contributions are lumpy by nature, our build-to-core development supports the group's recurring income base. And this is also reflected in the higher contributions from newly completed industrial properties in this first half coming from both Australia as well as Thailand and Vietnam. So I've mentioned earlier, we are diversified across other asset -- across all the asset classes. Industrial and logistics remain our largest asset class at 30%. And when it comes to the recurring nonrecurring, as you can see, 83% of the PB are from recurring, but this is on the REITs on a consolidated basis. As you're aware, we consolidate our Singapore-listed REITs. If we were to remove the REITs and assume the equity accounted, the proportion is 70%, which is actually lower than the 75% on the same basis for the previous corresponding period. This is basically signaling a shift that we have signed posted in previous announcements as well, whereby we are focusing more on development. But this takes time, and it won't happen overnight. As far as geographies are concerned, Singapore is our largest exposure from a market perspective, followed by Australia. And the mix is not very different from what we have previously announced. Balance sheet is one area that we look at very, very closely. Although you can see that the changes are mostly in the rate or all in the rate, but this is a timing matter because we report at a certain point in time, and there are initiatives like what Panote has mentioned earlier, some of the capital partnerships that's already been in place that has yet to pan through because this is as at 31st March 2025. However, they are still within acceptable levels. I would like to point out our net debt over property assets, which still stands at 44%. And from an LTV perspective, given that at this point in time, our balance sheet are also made up of more investment property assets, and this includes our REITs. It is still a decent enough level for LTV. Our net interest cover is at 2.1x and our cash and bank deposit at $2.2 billion. So reducing our net gearing continues to be our priority. And as I mentioned, it is a long-term market for real estate and effects of our efforts will take time to reflect this. The last slide that I will cover is in relation to our debt maturities as well as how we manage our interest rate risk. For those who have been following us, you will be aware that just like in the past, we have been maintaining a relatively strong level of fixed rate debt or hedged to fixed rate to ensure that we are insulated the best that we can against high interest costs, and that continues to be the case. What it would mean is that when interest rates eventually do come down and the jury is still out there where it's going to go, the reduction will not be as rapid because we are largely hedged at 70%. But this is a prudent management for interest rate risk. Our group treasury has been -- together with our businesses have been working hard as well to ensure that we finance and refinance our debt on a very prudent basis, and we have managed to increase our average weighted debt maturity slightly to 2.6 years. However, as you are aware, with how interest rates are, our average cost of debt did inch up slightly to 4%. Coupled with our strong recurring income base, we have sufficient resources, ample liquidity with our cash balances as well as our lines to ensure that we'll be able to continue to service our obligations as well as refinance our debt going forward. So I will now hand back to Gerry.

Before we wrap up for today, can I hand over to Panote for closing remarks?

Thank you. Thank you, Gerry. So thanks for all the time and the questions as well. And so I would -- please allow me to recap our main highlight today as we end our first half of FY '25. As you've seen as the earnings has boost up by higher residential contribution from Singapore and the absence of the impairment record last year and reversal of tax provisions. So we do maintain our course in our strategy as an integrated investor, developer and manager model, and that the effort is to making sure we're sustaining value creation through creating and sustaining and unlock value. Our core to our sustainable value creation is also in our multiyears One Fraser transformation. It is to ensure that we have the right operating model and the right operating cost as well and looking at the enterprise mindset to deliver the strategy as I've shared to all of you. So we are closely monitoring the evolving macroeconomic conditions, and we are confident that Frasers Property is well placed to navigate across the challenge in a challenging time. So thank you.

Thank you, Khun Panote. Thank you, panelists. Thank you, guests. Yes, we've come to the end of today's briefing. Guests, on Zoom, you may log off. Thank you, everybody. Have a good day.

Thank you.