Hang Lung Group Limited (HLU.F) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Joyce Kwock, and I'm the General Manager of Investor Relations at Hang Lung. Welcome to the analyst presentation for FY '24 final results announcement that we made earlier today for both Hang Lung Properties, 101.HK and Hang Lung Group 10.HK. We welcome the audience who are at our Hong Kong headquarter and also the audience who are at our live webcast now. Please scan the QR code on the screen for our presentation pack in support of our minimal policy approach. There are English versions and simplified Chinese version here for you to choose from. Today, our senior management team is all here in the presentation. They include Mr. Adriel Chan, our Chair; Mr. Weber Lo, our Chief Executive Officer; and Mr. Kenneth Chiu, our Chief Financial Officer. Our Chair, Adriel, will start with some remarks; our CEO, Weber, will walk through our results and our development projects using the slides; and our CFO, Kenneth, will also walk through our property sales and our financial management. And after that, we will address the questions from the audience from both the floor and the webcast. Adriel?

Yes. Great. Thank you. Good to see everybody in person again. So I wasn't aware that I was making remarks. Broadly speaking, I think it's been a challenging year. It's reflected in our results. Obviously, the market, you will have heard, is quite bearish, very conservative. And in that backdrop, I think what you see in our results is actually a nice solid set of results. Of course, we are down. Rentals are down about 6%. And -- but I think that given the context, this is really not such a bad set of results. That being said, of course, yesterday or 2 days ago, Kenneth and Weber had a very nice press conference announcing our secured loan. I'm sure some of -- are any of the banks represented here? No, yes. But I think that's -- but that was, I think, a strong vote of confidence for Hang Lung, even though the sector and the geography are not particularly popular right now, but it really shows the quality of our assets and our operations. So it's difficult to say if you try to extrapolate from 2024 in to 2025, generally speaking, I think we're still very conservative. We will continue to be conservative for some time, everything from the way we do, our operations to our finance, and of course, as analysts, you'll be happy to jump into the numbers. But what you'll see is a very conservative approach to a lot of this year's numbers, and that's reflected in some one-off items that's also reflected in our valuations. And it's quite different from what you have seen across the market broadly. So despite it being tough, I think there are some bright spots worth noting where we'll go into them in more detail. But we have a very strong occupancy. Our sub-luxury sector is doing very well, definitely outperforming the market. And so there are things sort of counteracting what people consider to be a generally sluggish market. So we'll be cautious. We have to look at everything through a risk-averse lens. That being said, we also have some interesting new investments that you may have seen already to announce. And that shows that we are still able to deploy, and we will be extremely careful and strategic and very focused on that type of return. And definitely, the hurdle rates have changed compared to several years ago. So overall, I think that's what I would start with, and then maybe I'll pass it on to Weber and then Kenneth to give a little bit more color.

Can you hear me? Okay. Before I want to show this picture here first. This is taken from the Westlake. You can see, we put all the facade already on our tallest building, which is the Tower A. You can see that. Right now, we are working very hard even now over the Chinese New Year, we will have over 200 workers on site working day and night and try to really complete as much as we can. Of course, there's still a lot of process to get the OP, to get the file approved and all that kind of stuff, but at least we are at the final miles of our Westlake 66. So back to the numbers. I think I don't need to repeat again a lot, but I just want to highlight a few of things. Rental down by 6%. The operating profit was down by 9%. It's not because we spend more money. It's because most of the down on the rental revenue is coming from the variable rent, the sales rent. And you all know, right, when your cost is more or less there, when the variable come down, we go into the bottom line strict. So basically, from 6% to 9%. Actually, our expenses control very well. I would say some of the more we may spend even less than 2023. However, because of that variable rents decrease, that actually make the operating profit loss a little bit more than the revenue. But the good news is the fixed rents increase. Our fixed rents increased by almost 6%, and this is exactly what we always said. Whenever we have a chance, we always want to renew with a high FX rent and to reduce the uncertainty. Underlying profit, mostly because of the interest expenses, which I'm sure as an analyst, you understand that. Maybe you will have some miss on our numbers. Mostly, I think it's because on the sales, on the property sales. We make some onetime provision. The provision is something we could not forecast because based on really the market, when we go to sell another batch of aperture, we find that the market is not as good as what we thought. So we have no choice, but we have to mark down, be prudent to mark down the inventory costs as well as we do exactly also the same in Wuhan as well. For the service apartment in Wuhan, we also mark down both the SA3 as well as the 2 towers that actually we have to bear [indiscernible]. So I think overall because of that, you see, there is a big negative in the property sales in the underlying profit even though we put in HKD 1.5 billion of revenue from the sales. Hotels is because now we have second hotel. Based on the accounting requirement, we need to separate the hotel reporting so that's why you see this is the first time we report the hotel separately. But this is nothing new because I think if you go through all the property developer, once they have a portfolio of hotel, they will start to report that way. Because in the past, we only have 1 contract. Therefore, we do not think that is material, and that's why we put it in the rental. So overall, I think the number more or less is more the sales of property that the provision may give a little bit of the surprise. But otherwise, I would say more or less in line with what the market expects. Also, 30% -- 33% cut on the dividend, which we already said, we will do the strategic reset here, and this is continuing of what we discussed in July, when we start off with the 33% cut in interim. For Hang Lung Group, we did not touch the dividend because the payout ratio is very healthy. So therefore, dividend payout is exactly the same, even though we have the down in terms of underlying profit for the rental as well as for the total. So let's zoom in into the revenue contribution. Actually, if you look at just the revenue, this is the highest in the last 5 years because of the HKD 1.5 billion of the sales that we took from the [indiscernible], from some of the Wuhan and some of the Kunming and 2 Blue Pool Road houses. However, if you look at only rental, our Mainland rental revenue dropped by 4% in renminbi terms and minus 5% in Hong Kong dollar terms because of the 1.5% renminbi depreciation. This is something actually bothers us because when we are coming to the end of the year, we believe that the renminbi depreciation almost will be out of the window. And now suddenly, when Trump comes in and everything go back again, and then we will see what the renminbi will go in the next 1 year or two. But this really have the impact on our revenue, and that's why you see minus 4% and minus 5% because of that 1% is purely because of the depreciation. Hong Kong, as I mentioned in the interim result, mainly because of some, I think, rental renewal, they come in big chunk, 1 in the retail and 1 in the office. But now it's good that, actually, it's over. So I think exclude that few one, more or less, our Hong Kong is 1% down or 2% down, that kind of level. So our portfolio in Hong Kong is still quite defensive. The only thing is how we can make sure that they will grow again in the next 1 year or 2. Hotel, because it's a separate line, it's positive because we have the Grand Hyatt Hotel in Kunmin just opened in August. Okay. This is the total China rental revenue. So minus 3% in first half, minus 4% in second half. More or less, I think the pressure is still on. In July, we said that we hope that we see a bit better in fourth quarter. It was a bit better in the fourth quarter, but we never expected the third quarter so bad. So that's why that offset each other. However, you look at the mix between the office and the retail, 19%, 81%, basically stay the same across the 5 years. And by the way, this year, if you look at the Mainland rental, we are the second best in our history, even though with all the negative that we talk about. So I think in terms of absolute level, it's still high, but of course, the pressure is still on. If the sales continue to drop, of course, there will be pressure going forward. If you only look at retail, basically, it's exactly the mirror, the same, minus 3, minus 3, but the mix has been a little bit different, and then I can explain later in the other slides. So this is retail. The good news, if you look at the sales, although it's not pretty overall minus 14% sales in the whole year. However, you look at the fourth quarter, the fourth quarter is only actually minus 10% and sub-luxury more went up by 7%. Luxury outside Shanghai, minus 11%; and Shanghai, minus 14%. And I would say fourth quarter is one of the best out of the very troubled and tough year in the last year. So will that be the end of toughness? Let's see. No one knows, right? But at least, the down is narrow. At least we see fourth quarter is a little bit more vibrant. I can give you a little bit of the taste of January. January is strong, but I'm not happy yet because last year, Chinese New Year was in February. This year in January. And therefore, even though January is good, might not reflect the true picture. And that's why we have to look at February as well. But overall, is quite strong. Both the sub-luxury and luxury is doing a bit better until 22nd, because we look at the number until 22nd. But never say never. The market is still confident. It's very tough, and that's why we will see and we will look at the 2025. And then in the Q&A, we can discuss more on that. One thing, actually, we are proud of ourselves, and this is what we aim to achieve in 2024, when the market was so tough, we said that we want to consolidate brands. We want the store, when they close, they will come to us. We said we want to increase the occupancy. And then if you look at most of our malls, even though some of the troubled one, actually, we managed to increase the occupancy step by step. There's a lot of hard work that we do to enrich the mix, to also adjust according to the customer need as well. So on the right-hand side, you can see, even though in a tough market, we managed to increase 4% of LFA of the luxury sector. And Personal Care and Beauty increased 17%. Because these two, you all know that even though today, they are cosmetic, they drop, but they dropped less. I can tell you from the paying report, the luxury goods dropped the most was watches. The second one dropped the most was jewelry, Leisure goods and [ F&A ]. The less drop was cosmetic, only 9%, 10%. So I think we managed to increase the LFA of Personal Care and Beauty by 17% because of the trend that we see. Food and Beverages, I think it's just the aberration because we want to increase on this one because we all know that in today's market, you need to provide economical price. But at the same time, you also provide a place for the people together. So F&B, you will see that in 2025 will increase. And the 3% is the sub-luxury content that we managed to increase as well. And the chart on the right-hand side below also show you, this is the first time we want to show you is that both the renewed, the cases as well as the new leases signed, actually, it's the record high. So that means the effort, the deal that we are making with the tenants are the record high. We sign more deal, not because they die because we want to consolidate. We want to increase, and therefore, we can manage to increase the occupancy almost across. Some of the examples, I don't want to name each one of them. That shows you that we still manage to expand store, increase duplexes, increase VIC launches, increase different experience for the customers. As we mentioned, nowadays, shopping is not by destination. You have to increase the experiential elements into the shopping. So you can see that Loro Piana, for example, the VIC salon globally, first time ever they have the VIC salon in the shopping mall. The first one is in Plaza 66. So second, if you look at even Parc 66, we expand different shops and try to expand the leisure. Some of the brands like Arc'teryx, Descente, they are actually improving a lot and more. So, I think these are the examples to show you that in the last 2 years, even consolidation happening, we have a lot of consolidation in our malls, in our portfolio. Mainland, back to Mainland office. Office, tough. You can see that the drop widen, not only because the market is tough but also because the vacancy of the home market actually increased. We managed to have comparatively high occupancy in most of our office. We are hoping around 80% to 90%, except Wuhan. So I think, overall, when the sentiment is weak, everyone looks for downsizing or relocating in cheaper location, this is really the market we are seeing. And that's why our strategy is to retain our tenant as much as we can, try to retain and also improve our service. And therefore, we hope that our ecosystem, our shopping mall, our hotel, the whole complex will be able to attract the multinational or top tenant to stay with us. Hong Kong, as I mentioned, you can see that the second half widened partly because there's one major retail deals that we renewed was in March this year. And that's why we still managed to get a very high rent in January and February and middle of March. But basically, from second half onwards, basically it's the new rents. So the 2% delta is mainly because of that. Otherwise, if you look at excluding that deal, retail is more or less minus 1% or flat to last year. So I'll pass on to Kenneth to talk about the next few page, then I'll talk about the development next time.

Thank you, Weber. Let me report to you all on our property sales booked in 2024. As you can see, we have booked 120 units of the apartments sold at the aperture. And also, 2 houses sold early last year at Blue Pool Road. In Mainland, we have sold around 9 service apartment in 2 projects. And actually, for Wuxi Hang Lung Fu, we are planning to launch in the second half of this year. So overall, we have achieved HKD 1.5 billion of revenue sales. One point to highlight, as you can see in the result announcement, we have made around HKD 380-something million provision for 2 projects, namely Apertures and Wuhan Residence. The reason being is that we would like to split up the sales at the Apertures and as we need to provide more competitive terms in terms of rebate and so forth. So we have marked it down a little bit. And for our Wuhan Residence, when we look at our existing selling trend and so forth, we have marked down a little bit on them. So overall, the provision mix was around HKD 380-something million. Financial management I think one point to highlight, I think on this week, Tuesday, we have signed a HKD 10 billion syndicated loan with 13 banks. I think, overall, the response was very encouraging and well received. You guys are the expert in the real estate sectors. And now the market is really tough, particularly some of the developers are in a very difficult situation, but for Hang Lung, we are still able to get very strong support by the major banks in Hong Kong, for Mainland and Singapore as well. And in past years, we have increased our exposure in renminbi borrowing, both onshore and offshore. So we have increased the -- our borrowing, renminbi-denominated borrowing from 29% to 36% by end of last year. And for the debt profile, because this page summarizes debt profile as of December last year, have not yet reflected the HKD 10 billion syndicated loan that we have arranged. So if we add this HKD 10 billion syndicated loan, the offshore debt maturity profile expanded a little bit to, I think, around 3.2 years on average. But we will continue to sign up more lines coming years. But right now, the existing banking facilities can well cover the data to be due in the coming 2 years. Net gearing for HLP, the net gearing stood at around 33.4%. This year, I think previously, we have already told analysts that 2025 is the peak of our CapEx cycle. So I expect that the net gearing for -- by end of 2025 will be pretty much similar to where we were by end of 2024. If we don't take new projects, I would expect the gearing would start coming down next year onwards. Borrowing costs. Despite the USD and HKD, interest rates were quite high in the past years, but we still managed our overall financing cost at 4.3%. And I pass it back to Weber to talk about the key milestone on our sustainability effort.

We set ourselves a target for 2025 and today, it's already 2025. So most of them are on track. Just to highlight a few. Our portfolio Plaza 66 extension will be the first project in China using nearly 100% low carbon emission steel. I think this is really the first time I think in Mainland, we can do the whole project with this kind of material. And someone asked, is really expensive? No, it's immaterial. So not because we want to do it, therefore, we pay more money on that, It's because overall, we believe that this is the right thing to do. Second, we also announced in April that 5 out of our 10 Mainland orbiting product -- properties now are already powered by renewable energy. I think also, I think is the first property developer in Mainland that we'll be able to achieve 50% or more of their properties actually in renewable energy. Others, I don't want to bore you with the information here. So I want to highlight what we said in the last 2 years or 1.5 years, that remember, we always had first objective for us, the overarching objective is to try to control the gearing as we discussed a few times ago, right? So we use different methods. You can see that we are very proactive to start to use SCRIP dividend. And then we have to adjust the dividend ourself. And also, I think the provision that we make also is kind of a hopefully, a onetime reset. So there's a lot of prudent management or financial management tools that we are very proactive to deploy and be more proactive to control. But we also want to look for opportunities to grow. And therefore, there are a few highlights I would like to highlight to you. So you all know that we are now having 11 projects, including Westlake 66 in Hangzhou and across 9 Mainland cities. And the completion of Westlake 66 will be in 2025 this year. They will open by phases. So 2025, we will have Westlake 66. And then by second half of the year, we will have Center 66 Phase 2 Wuxi. That includes the service apartment as well as the hotel. 2026 will be the Pavilion Extension of Plaza 66 that we announced last year. And also, 2027 will be Kimpton Xujiahui Shanghai at Grand Gateway 66, the hotel that we also announced last time. Okay. If you look at the main projects under development, Westlake 66, total 4.2 million square foot. They will be complete by phases from this year onwards. And Center 66, we completed 5.6 -- we complete the 4 million square foot, which is the office and the shopping mall, and now the remaining 1.6, we will complete by the second half of this year. Okay. To talk about a little bit more of Hangzhou, you will expect that we will get all the certificate of sustainability for all the buildings and as well as the mall. So therefore, it will be the best quality and the most sustainable commercial real estate in Hangzhou. Just to remind everyone that total gross floor area is about 4.2 million square foot. Out of that, 1.15 million will be the retail and 1 million will be the office and hotel will be 400,000 and the rest will be the car park and the others. So we will open the CDE Tower, I think, in the second quarter of this year, and then the rest of the tower will be the second half of this year. And the first 3 towers, we already got close to 40% committed. And of course, the office product, you just need to get the OP before you get the confirmation from the customers. So we managed to get 37% committed even before the OP. I think this is something we can manage to do that. But once we get the OP, I think the speed, hopefully, with the pace, we will pick up in terms of the occupancy. For the retail, we expect that we will open in first half of 2026. The leasing progress is very good. We already got 71% committed. The reason why we might want to do it in first half is because tenant of the retail actually require a little bit more time for the fit-out. And once you get the OP, you need to hand over to the tenant, and tenant need time. For example, the luxury brand, some of them need 9 months or even a year to do the fit-out. And therefore, we would like to, especially in a tough market, we would like to have more opening when we open the mall rather than like in the past, we opened for 50% and wait for the others to open. So I think this is more a strategic decision that we made that, hopefully, when we open, we have 70%, 80% of the store open and gradually, we will reduce the pain of waiting for the others to follow up. So I think this is the one that we want to say about. And then the 71%, this is confirmed. By the end of 2024, we believe that we will continue to get more committed deals in the next few months or even in the next few quarters. Mandarin Oriental, the timing doesn't change. Second half of 2026, over 194 guest room and suite. So altogether, you can see that we will open by phases second quarter, second half of this year, and the first half and the second half of next year. So by the way, the picture that I show you with the crane, that is our Tower A top. So you can see the whole Westlake from our tower. I think this is the last building that we can build, up to 150 meters in Hangzhou because Hangzhou, no more buildings will be that tall anymore. So I think it will be quite unique and hopefully, that will attract top quality tenant as well. So Mainland China service apartment. I think we have mentioned Heartland before. We have mentioned Grand Hyatt Residence before. And now we are completing the Center Residence in Wuxi, and that we have 2 tower. One is Tower 1, one is Tower 2, and they will be completed by 2025, and we will start selling in the second half of this year. Okay. This is Hong Kong. I think you all know Blue Pool Road. You all know the Aperture. You all know the Shouson Hill. I think this is our first time to talk about -- this is already in our book, which I think I remember maybe 2 rounds ago, 1 analyst, very sharp, and look at, what is the HKD 10 billion in your balance sheet? And this is the one that now we can announce because we just closed because this is not on the public market. We acquired through the private market. This is in the Jardines Lookout called 8-12A Wilson Road, and that is something we have acquired. And we believe with this portfolio, we can complete a quite a decent portfolio of houses as well as high-quality apartments in Hong Kong. And also, we have the investment property of Summit as well as the Burnside of 56 units. So I will stop here. And then, of course, I welcome any question.

Thank you. So we will now start the Q&A session. Please feel free to raise your questions here in our office or by typing the question in the box on the webcast page. Karl Chan from JPMorgan.

So I have 2 questions. The first question is about the rental reversion. Can you share a bit more about the rental reversion trend in the second half last year? And what's your expectation for this year in 2025? And then the second question is about a comment that were made just now. You said that actually has been pretty good so far. Is this based on trial? Or is this based on tenant sales? And then can you share a bit more color on the split between VIP as well as non-VIP? Is VIP doing better? And then, yes, some colors on that would be great.

As I mentioned, our fixed rent has been increased even in a tough year. So the rental reversion in Mainland increased plus 6%. So this is really, as I mentioned, is the proof that we try to turn as much sales rents into the fixed rent. So this is happening. But because the sales rent portion is still big, and that's why the drop of sales rent could not be offset fully by the fixed rent. So I think this is in Mainland. In Hong Kong, it's negative, as you all know, right? So that's why the big tenant in Causeway Bay, I'm sure I don't want to mention, but you know when they renew, after we enjoy a very high rent since 2016, and you have the negative rental reversion. Your second question is in January, both [indiscernible] and sales increased, okay? But as I mentioned, because I also look at the last year, 3 weeks and 2 weeks before Chinese New Year versus last year in February, 2 weeks and 3 weeks before Chinese New Year is minor negative versus last year, Chinese New Year. But compared to January, it's a big plus. So as I mentioned, I don't want to complete now. But both the activities, as well as the sales, at least doing better or not as worse as 2024. So I think I do not want to predict or give you a guesstimate because the market is still very dynamic. But the sub-luxury portion actually continue to be strong. I may want to jump in with a little bit more color. Like, for example, when we look at our top VIP, they visit their active ratio, their number of times seeing us actually does not decrease, actually increase. The only drop is the average ticket size. So the average ticket size is almost dropped by 14% to 16%, depends on your level. The worst portion is the middle tier. Those we call [ Ruby ] at that level, right? Because they are very sensitive to price. And also, they have a lot of options right now. They can go to Japan and buy. They can go to department store when they offer discount and all that. But for top tier, we see that about 14%, 15%, that kind of drop in terms of ticket size. I give you another data, which I just look at based on what I see from [ Bain ] report. [ Hainan ], the total sales dropped by 30% this year, okay? Ticket size also dropped by 15%. Traffic dropped by 15%. So if you look at across Mainland, because of the confidence issue, across the board, ticket size dropped. And therefore, you can see that [indiscernible] the downgrade of consumption. That is the main part. So hopefully, the confidence somehow at some point when they are stabilized or increase back. Hopefully, that 1 will improve our numbers. If I look at the overseas spending of luxury is now already account for 40% in 2024. So people are traveling, only 60% left in China. So that means I hope that they will not be 0 in China and 100% in overseas, right? So therefore, right now, you come to a new base more or less from a very high base during the COVID time to 40% overseas, 60% local. So therefore, I see -- I hope even though the downward pressure is still there, but the downward percentage of growth or loss will not be that high in 2025. And we still believe that first quarter will still be tough because last year, first quarter was still very strong. But overall, we believe that might have mild increase in 2025 for the full year. But don't call me that because I was wrong 2x already in the last 2 result announcement. So we -- but we hope that the base has been rebased. So look at the trend. Hopefully, the confidence could be back. And I just look at some of the mobile phone sales, they have been double or increased because of the new policy for them to replace their mobile phone. And some of those, hopefully will give a catalyst and trigger the consumption kind of ambience and therefore, hopefully, that will have some increase and improve in terms of sentiment.

Cindy from Citi, it's your turn now.

This is Cindy from Citi. So maybe 3 questions from me. One, I want to jump back into the retail sales. So you shared pretty constructive outlook for 2025, I'd say. But if we're looking at Shanghai alone maybe, so even in fourth quarter last year, still kind of underperforming. And I suspect '25, '26, a lot of new supplies are coming online. So how should we cope with that situation? Anything we can do proactive to get more offer in the market? This is the first question. And the second question, I want to touch a little bit on dividend. So we mentioned multiple times is a onetime reset. But I'm just trying to understand a little bit more on, say, what are the underlying assumptions on, say, future rentals or CapEx to underpin that onetime reset? Al, what are the potential upside or downside we could be seeing? And then the third question is on the finance cost after this $10 billion refinancing, where could we see or expecting in 2025 for finance cost to saving, et cetera?

Maybe some of you can answer the others. This is exactly the Page 6 or 7 I mentioned. Yes, new supply will come and new mall will be open. That is usual like before. But what we can control is to consolidate as much as we can before they open, right? So if you look at all the other malls, I think Plaza 66 and Grand Gateway, we are close to 100% up to us to improve the quality of tenant before new supply come. I think this is the only thing we can do. This is one. Second, the reason why we extend Plaza 66 with extension is also we want to improve the products, improve the offering and make the experience of customers and enhance them to the next level. And therefore, we can compete with the new renovated shopping mall. The third, of course, is really improve our customer experience as well and how we can make that by leveraging on our CRM program, making sure that we treat the best customer, the best and making sure that when they come, even though we know that they might consider going to Japan because they are cheaper, we can offer them something not only money can buy, but also the offer that they will still stay with us. So I think these are the few things we are working very hard, not only in Shanghai, but across the whole portfolio. The second one, I want to add, but hopefully, Kenneth or Adriel will mention. Now of course, onetime or whatever we said is our intention. We still believe one time. We said this is really a strategic to give us space, right? If you look at a few things we have done, I would say, I call it cash preservation tools. The last few years before when Ronnie talked about [indiscernible] . I think that was maybe 1.5 years ago. We are doing it. We are adjusting dividend even though at the time, no one likes the idea. We are doing scrip dividend because we believe that would be the fastest way for us to have some breathing space. We are prudent to do provision because we believe that we don't want to hang on. And hopefully, when the market will rebound, we want to adjust based on what we see in the market. We go to do the financing, even though we believe that there is other choices, but we believe that going out and do the syndicated loan is the best way. And then lucky, we start in October and confirm everything by November. If we are late by 2 weeks, maybe the price will be increased by 10 bps. No one knows, right? So -- and we increased the renminbi borrowing to 36%. We improved the occupancy to consolidate. These are all strategic reset that we are trying to do because this is what we can control. Market sales growth, something we can't, right? So therefore, I hope that you can see management are proactively doing that because we really want this is a -- one whatever, right? So therefore, we believe that should be enough, right? Now of course, there are still other things we hope that we can speed up like selling the capital recycling of some of our property sales. We would love to do that, but we also do not want to sell at cheap. And therefore, we have to do provision again, right? So therefore, I think we have to strike the balance between the 2. But we believe that we will have that kind of choices to make. But I think overall, management really try to strike the balance between the 2. But at the same time, also allow us to have some dry powder when we have some opportunity to expand. So that's why this is what I want to say and maybe Kenneth or Adriel...

I supplement a bit, you asked about the financing cost. Based on the latest forward rate and our forecast, we believe that the financing cost in terms of percentage this year should be slightly lower than last year. But this is based on the forward rate and some assumptions. And we will continue to try our best to increase the renminbi bond portion, both onshore and offshore. But as you may know, the CNH market in Hong Kong, the market debt is not that deep. But you can see we have already increased the exposures to 36%. And on your question about dividend, again, we never say one-off, even we wish it will be a one-off reset. But I think from time to time, we have a lot of stress tests. We have the 5-year forecast. We believe that this adjustment is essential if we want to speed up the deleveraging process. If you look at our payout ratio right now, after all these provisions, the payout ratio based on underlying profit is around 80% for 2024. If we can -- according to our business plan, if we don't have further provision and if we can achieve the leasing business according to our plan, I think the payout ratio may come down at the current -- assuming the same dividend. And hopefully, we can further deleverage so that our credit profile will be further enhanced.

So I'll just add 1 quick comment on sales for '25 -- '24, '25, '26. You have to remember, in 2019, so pre-COVID, Chinese were doing the luxury -- only 1/3 of the luxury spend in China. During COVID, 1/3 went to 3/3, so 100%. And now it has fallen down to somewhere just under 2/3, probably about 60% onshore and then 40% offshore. And so if you compare us to retail sales to 2019, it's still at about 200% of 2019 numbers. So everybody is talking about. You remember, retailers are very short term. They're week by week, day by day, at best, quarter-by-quarter. And so their reactions are tend to be driven by relatively short-term numbers, at least short term when compared to what real estate developers are looking at. And that's sort of driving consolidation. But more than anything, I think that's driving the tone of the conversation and the tone of retailers and the street, so to speak. I think if you take a step back, sales in Mainland China are not bad by historical standards despite the 20% drop in Shanghai or even across the board. So travel to not just Japan, but everywhere, is sort of back to close, whatever, 60%, 70% of pre-COVID levels. So that's definitely this renormalization, right? COVID was abnormal, and we are finding that new sort of balance. I think that's 1 important thing to keep in mind. And of course, when you go to the shopping centers, I'm sure some of you have done site visits, you realize that actually the tempo and the vibrancy within the mall is very different from what you hear other analysts or pundits or press in Hong Kong talking about. So I encourage you really to trust your eyes rather than just what you hear rumors from around. I think the mood although it is definitely not brilliant. It's not a very strong sense, but it's definitely not as bad as people are suggesting.

Okay. Maybe 1 more question from Simon before I move on to the online questions. Simon from [indiscernible].

One quick question. [indiscernible] 4 area. I think that's very interesting [indiscernible].

I think [indiscernible] the mic so that online can hear you.

In relation to the level 4 area, I find it quite interesting because personal care and beauty product, we were supposed to have a lot of online competitions. You actually have expansion quite aggressively. Just wondering what's going on over there. And to your earlier point about food and beverage, this year, you see a lot of opportunity there. Was that strategically trying to drive some foot traffic over there? And then I think secondly, I just wanted to touch on the CapEx numbers as well as I think, Kenneth, you mentioned you did provisions. I'm wondering on your book, your per square feet cost on your current units. Okay. Nevermind.

[indiscernible]

To answer your question, this is a very common question. If the people can buy online, why to come to you, right? Because these are brand managed they are doing more than just selling at the counter. They are doing the service as well. So therefore, they are Chanel, Dior, [indiscernible], own managed counter. So we increased quite a lot in Olympia 66, [indiscernible] 66 and even Grand Gateway 66. So once you get the cluster, this cluster actually require traffic. And it's a chicken and egg issue. For example, Parc 66, once we upgrade our facilities after the AEI, we actually create a cluster of the cosmetic. And because Parc always have traffic. And once we get the traffic into this cosmetic, they feed into the sales, and they are a lot more productive than other luxury. So I think to answer your question, this is really a trade that you don't just do what SoCO do, for example, in Hong Kong. You have to do something more than encounter, and therefore, you can provide service. Therefore, the people can go there more. So this is one. This is also part of the luxury consumption downgrade. When you can't buy the bag, you will buy the lipstick. So that is also why you can see the drop of the cosmetic in Mainland is less. As I mentioned, the watches down by 35%, the cosmetic down by 10%, right? So this is the first one I want to answer you. The second one is F&B. F&B, we want to increase. So happened by the end of the year, there's some early termination. Definitely, we want to offer all range of F&B and therefore, you can attract customers. The reason why sub-luxury doing well is because people will still come out, but they may not want to spend $1,000 per person. They may want to spend only $200 per person. So you have that -- you have to have that kind of choices in the shopping center. And that's why F&B also is one of the driver that we will drive up across the board.

Okay. So from the online, a couple of questions on Heartland 66 that have seen negative results. So any more color on what is being done to turn around the situation?

I think I will not only talk about Forum and Heartland. I would say, okay, if you look at the revenue, right, other than Shanghai because of the high base and also people traveling, we have 4 malls performed below our performance, basically Forum, Heartland and Shanghai, these 2. Otherwise, all are positive. Center positive, Olympia positive, Spring City positive in terms of rent revenue and also all the [indiscernible] are positive. Okay. Then I go to Heartland. The tough market in Wuhan today is that 3 competitors, I don't want to name them, but you all know, and 2 of them are department store, and they are doing discount on an ongoing basis, 365 days. So even today, they are doing 10% rebate. How you can match that, right? So therefore, what we are doing is to provide what Hang Lung is famous, is activities happening, money cannot buy experience to match that. But in a tough market today, people go for discount. So therefore, when it used to be only 2 player, now suddenly you have 3 players and the pipe is shrinking, not growing. There is a brutal kind of cannibalization between. So what we are doing, of course, I can't share too much of the details. We will have a big launch again for this mall in a few months' time. We will have some addition of different tenants. We will improve F&B. We will improve experiential. We will improve traffic. We will make it become a destination. We don't want to compete price because you will never win in Chinese term, [Foreign Language] you can't win forever, right? So -- but unfortunately, in Wuhan today, is in that kind of mode, right? The Forum is purely because of the repositioning because we have to transit ourselves from a luxury mall into sub-luxury mall. There will be a transition period. But you can see that we are moving from 81% to 87%. We are improving F&B. We are getting more relevant to the office tenants up there. Hopefully, we will do as good as other sub-luxury mall in the future. Other than that, basically, all other 6 malls are doing well. Compared to the market, we are better than the market. Shanghai basically is in line with the market.

There's 1 more question from online regarding Hangzhou projects. More specifically, what is income prospects or at the bottom line with its net operating income be able to cover the increase in financial costs.

I think not only financial costs, financial costs, of course, should be okay. Of course, when we buy that piece of land at that time, the market was very different from today. But we still managed to get decent tenant into the mall. And as I mentioned, as a retail, we already got 71% committed. They are all not mom-and-pop store. They are international brands, which we also learned from Wuhan that we need them to commit to consolidate to us. So that's why it required a lot of effort to do that. Second, in terms of office, you can see that we already have commitment from others because, as I mentioned, this will be the best building in Hangzhou. Now of course, it might not be as high as what we thought. But as today's market, whatever fish in front of you, I think you should catch them now because I think as a long-term investment properties, I still believe that once you get the tenant in, once you get the traffic, once you get the ambiance, everything will be improved accordingly. And I also believe that Hangzhou is one of the best city in the whole China today. If you have a chance to go to Hangzhou when they count down in the December 31, they have 120,000 people outside of [indiscernible] next to Westlake, that many people in other cities. So I see the vibrancy. I see people hunger over there. So I believe that once we get everything into full operation, it will actually help a lot in terms of the revenue, in terms of EBIT, in terms of covering the costs and all that. Actually, I would say it will be one of the best projects, hopefully, in our portfolio.

Mark from UBS.

So I want to have a small follow-up regarding on the Hangzhou project. Maybe Kenneth will be a bit more technical. Just want to check because this is a newly completed IP, when we need to require to do a valuation test for that project because it's transferred from, we call it, investment property under development and then to investment property. So do you see we need to mark down any of the value? So that's the first question. And the second question is, I think we discussed a lot on the maybe absolute DPS. But since maybe last year, we introduced the scrip dividend program, right? So do you think that will be a new norm going forward to have this kind of option?

Let me answer you the first question. Actually, before the completion of the investment property, we have already need to do the asset appraisal every 6 months. So the completion of Western 66 will not lead to a significant change on the valuation, okay? This is one. So second question is on the dividend. Actually, our discussion is more on the per share basis. The dilution effect, yes, we understand. But because of -- first of all, we believe that our underlying business will continue to grow. And secondly, this scrip dividend arrangement is not a permanent arrangement. I cannot disclose or confirm when we stop it, but we have a plan. This is an interim measures to control our gearing. As I mentioned, our gearing will start dropping next year. So we may be visit every 6 months during our Board meeting. And then I would believe that this would not have a significant on our payout.

Raymond from HSBC as the last question from -- for this analyst briefing.

So actually very quick 3 questions on this one. The first one is actually about Westlake 66 shopping malls. As you mentioned, you want to deliver a very vibrant opening in the early 2026. Like -- and actually, it's great that we see -- this is maybe the first time we see the commitment rate for your retail shopping mall. Can you share with us more like what is your expect occupancy rate when you opened the mall in early 2026? That's the first question. And the second question is actually about the turnover rent. As you mentioned, like the fixed rent in your China retail mall increased by 6% in this tough situation. Can you share with us like the percentage of turnover rent to total retail rent in last year, rough percentage? And how do we see the trend going forward? That's the second question. And the last question, I actually just want to learn from Kenneth on the finance market because investors actually are of growing concern about the ripple effects of the recent liquidity issues in the sectors here. Do we see any risk about like the potential repricing risk or any further like potential risk premium on the refinancings that will spread over the sectors? Or do you think that investors are over concerned about this risk?

I'll answer you this question first. If we have 71% commitment now, and we will open from now a year or more, I don't believe that we will be lower than that. So I believe that by -- when we open, I think we'll be close to 90% plus. So I think this -- that is the reason why we want to have every thing because in days, when we open and most of the mall, I don't want to name some of them, right? They always leave the L1 and L2 empty and open the rest first. But in today's market, you can imagine when you open this way, your competitor will say, [indiscernible] already, not good, right? So you can't do this way. So therefore, some other developer, I also don't want to name. Some of them, they complete already, but they still don't open yet, right? We are already in the middle. I think we want to be cautious. We want to make sure that when we open, it's a [indiscernible] rather than just talk to you a little bit here or there. So I think this is the reason why. Then I pass to you on the finance part.

Financing. I think many of you guys, even though you guys are equity analysts, but you may also talk to your DCM colleagues and so forth in the past few days, we have observed a kind of spillover effect and some of the names -- I think in the bond market, last night I talked to DCM bankers, some companies with perpetual right now, the yield is very lucrative, right? So we understand this uncertain. But if you ask me whether there's a huge impact on Hang Lung, at this moment, no. Because 1/3 of our borrowing actually onshore, the LPR-based borrowing. And I would say in the current market, yes, banks are more cautious on lending, and that's why they would prefer to lend to Hang Lung rather than those developers with more DP or with less or not the credit profile is not as great as us. But definitely, the situation in Hong Kong right now is challenging. And as we mentioned, if I go to the market right now to do the same syndicated loan, first of all, the pricing will be higher for sure. And the commitment amount may not be as big as right now. And I think for lenders, they are chasing for quality as well, okay? I'm glad that actions speak louder than words. If you look at the list of the banks who support us, many of them are the major banks in the regions. So I think the market volatilities should be short term. There could be market dislocation, but I think that for Hang Lung, you guys know our financial management. We are always very prudent and add ahead of the curve. So hopefully, this short-term market turbulence would not lead to a significant increase in our financing costs. And with all these dividend adjustment, cash preservation measures, I think banks are quite happy, and we should be able to keep our financing margin at the current level.

Just to add for fun. Yesterday, Trump asked everyone to cut interest rate. So -- but Japan just raised interest rate this morning, right? But anyway, I think no one knows, to be honest. I always said that what we control, what we can control, we control. We need to be proactive. We have to be proactive. So I think this is what the management can do, right? So if the market is okay, if anything happened in the market, we just need to prepare ourselves to deal with whatever happened, right? So you can see that we already decided not to do U.S. bond. We don't have any U.S. dollar borrowing. Because our business is renminbi and Hong Kong dollars only, okay? There are some decisions that we have made 4, 5 years ago, not because of political lens that we have, but because we try to mitigate any FX risk or any other political risks. So I think I just want to show and hope you can see we are proactive. We are not shying to call it out. No one love us to cut dividend last time. But we have to say that in order to protect our capital to make sure that we are adequate, I don't like it, but we have to do it. So same thing on the scrip dividend is a short-term measure. but also good for the group if we want to acquire more when no one want to acquire, right? So therefore, I think overall, we think through. We want to make sure that we can act before the market turn on us. So I think this is really something I want to mention this again.

So this wraps up the analyst presentation for our FY '24 final results. Thank you very much for the participation. We wish all of you a prosperous years of snake, and we'll see you next time. Thank you.