The GPT Group (GPT) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to GPT's 2022 Annual Results Briefing. I'd like to start by acknowledging the traditional custodians of the lands on which our business and our assets operate, and pay my respects to elders past, present and emerging. Joining me for today's presentation are Anastasia Clarke, the group CFO; Chris Barnett, Head of Retail and Mixed Use; Martin Ritchie, Head of Office; and Chris Davis, Head of Logistics. Before I commence the results presentation, I note that I recently advised the Board of my intention to retire by the end of this year. I am privileged to have been the CEO of GPT for more than 7 years now, and I feel it is the right time for me and for GPT to commence the CEO succession process. I have given my commitment to the Board to not only assist for the smooth and orderly transition, but to continue to lead the business and build upon the momentum we have until my successor has commenced in the role. Turning now to the results for 2022, firstly, I am pleased to report that despite the change in the macroeconomic conditions with rising interest rates and higher inflation, GPT delivered solid results for the year. FFO per security was up 12.4% on the prior period to $0.324 and distributions for the full year were up 7.8% to $0.25 per security. This is at the upper end of guidance we provided at the beginning of last year. NTA and total return were impacted as a result of the value of the investment portfolio declined 2.2% in from June 30. The weighted average cap rate softened 20 basis points to 4.86%. This was mainly driven by the office portfolio, and I will provide more detail on this in a moment. Our diversified portfolio has strong occupancy of 97.5%, with both retail and logistics, benefiting from favorable leasing conditions during the year. Office continues to be more challenging, and Martin will speak to the strategies we have in place to increase occupancy during the year. Including the new mandates we secured in the second half, our platform has expanded to $32.4 billion in assets under management. Valuations are clearly top of mind at the moment. Our entire investment portfolio was independently valued at December 31. Overall, valuations declined $159 million for the year, with the devaluations in the second half more than offsetting the revaluation gains in the first half. As you can see on the slide, cap rates expanded for each sector in the second half with logistics softening by 31 basis points and office by 26 basis points, while retail remained relatively flat. You will recall that retail valuations had already softened somewhat through COVID. Rental growth and the strength in underlying income fundamentals for both logistics and retail, provided an offset for the expansion in cap rates and discount rates. And as a result, the impact on the valuations was less than for the office sector. Turning now to Slide 6, 2022 was an active year for the group. Our funds platform expanded to $19 billion with the addition of the $2.8 billion UniSuper mandate and the $2.7 billion Australian Core Retail Trust. We are delighted to be awarded these opportunities, and this is a testament to the quality of the management platform, our best-in-class governance processes and being a trusted partner. In retail, the team worked exceptionally hard over the last 2 years in challenging conditions to ensure our assets were well-positioned for the post-COVID recovery. We introduced new retailers to enhance customer experience, trading performance has been very strong, and portfolio occupancy is 99.4%. Melbourne Central continues to recover despite the Melbourne CBD lagging other cities in the return of office workers. Our Logistics portfolio has grown to $4.5 billion in value and now represents 28% of the group's diversified portfolio. We completed 4 developments and 3 fund-throughs with all assets being leased on completion at rents well in excess of underwriting. Our secured logistics development pipeline will continue to provide high-quality product for both GPT and the QuadReal partnership. In office, while market conditions remain challenging, we continue to see the flight to quality thematic playing out. We delivered over 33,000 square meters of fitted suites during the period as this segment of the market is the most active with tenants willing to move quickly and prepared to pay higher rents to be in quality space. And finally, we continue to innovate and drive leading outcomes in ESG. This was recognized in the S&P Global Corporate Sustainability Assessment with GPT being ranked the #1 real estate company globally. The group's leadership in ESG is becoming increasingly important as tenants select assets with strong environmental credentials. We remain on track to have all our owned and managed retail and office assets, certified as operating carbon neutral by the end of 2024. We're also targeting to achieve upfront embodied carbon neutral for the group's development pipeline. This involves reducing, or where possible, eliminating embodied carbon to the design and construction phase. Carbon that can't be feasibly eliminated will then be offset with high-quality nature-based offsets. We have secured our carbon credits through a partnership with Greenfleet, where we are rehabilitating 1,100 hectares of native forest. The initiative will generate sufficient carbon offsets for our operations and at the embodied carbon that is not eliminated in our development projects. We have reduced emissions by 86% from our 2005 baseline by optimizing how our assets operate, investing in technology and purchasing renewable energy. So in summary, we have delivered a solid set of results for the year. We have enhanced our platform through the addition of new funds mandates. We have been innovative and driven leading outcomes in ESG, and we continue to take a prudent approach to capital management. I'll now hand over to Anastasia to cover the financial results in more detail.

Thank you, Bob, and good morning. Commencing on Slide 9 with the financial results for the year. Our statutory profit of $469.3 million is driven by funds from operations of $620.6 million, partially offset by decreases in valuations of $159.3 million, due to negative revaluation movement in the second half mostly in the office portfolio. FFO per security grew 12.4% on the prior year, and I'll provide more detail on the FFO in a moment. Free cash flow grew 6.7%, driven by strong underlying operating cash flow performance, partially offset by higher office lease incentives. The distribution per security of $0.25 represents a 96% payout of free cash flow and growth on the prior year distribution of 7.8%. Turning to each portfolio's performance on Slide 10 in the segment result. Retail segment income grew 23.9% to deliver $289.8 million in FFO. Strong growth in retail earnings was driven by underlying rent increases and the cessation of COVID rental assistance. The retail portfolio result is partly offset by noncore asset sales, which were in the prior period income. Office net income grew 8.8% to $293 million of FFO. The office result includes the full year contribution from acquisitions and developments. In addition to underlying rent growth partially offset by lower portfolio occupancy. Logistics contributed $186.3 million of FFO with growth driven from the upweighting to the sector through acquisitions and developments fully leased on completion. Funds Management profit grew 18.8% to $57.4 million of FFO as a result of growth in funds under management, which now stands at $19 billion across the 3 sectors. Finance costs increased materially to $139.9 million, up from $85.2 million firstly due to a higher cost of debt of 3.2% compared to the prior year of 2.4%; and secondly, driven by a higher average debt balance to fund acquisitions and developments, net of divestments. I will speak further about the group's hedging and cost of debt shortly. Corporate costs and tax expense of $66 million is in line with the prior year. Lease incentives have increased year-on-year due to office leasing, overall delivering results of AFFO growing by 10.3%. Now turning to the group's hedge position and projected cost of debt. Our interest rate exposure in 2023 is hedged at a base fixed rate of 2.5% for 78% of drawn debt. Margins remain stable at 170 basis points, and our all-in forecast cost of debt is in the mid-4% range for 2023. Our average fixed rate over the next 3 years is 2.9%, which is lower than current market levels, and we will continue to add hedges to remain protected through time and to manage the group's cost of debt. Turning to capital management on Slide 12, NTA has decreased to $5.98 per security due to portfolio valuation decreases in the second half. Net gearing is 28.5% at balance date, reducing to 27% on a pro forma basis after adjusting for divestment proceeds of approximately $340 million, received post balance date or due to be received in coming weeks. Gearing is in the lower half of our stated management range of 25% to 35%, providing significant headroom to lender covenants of 50%. As a sensitivity, a 25 basis point cap rate softening across the entire portfolio would increase gearing by 1.4 percentage points. The group retained significant liquidity of $1.1 billion which funds commitments and debt refinancing through to early 2025. The cost of debt has increased due to the RBA raising interest rates by 300 basis points. This, in turn, resulted in a reduction in our ICR from 7.5x in 2021 to 5.5x in 2022. For 2023, assuming an estimated cost of debt in the mid-4% range, ICR would reduce to approximately 4x well above covenants. Our credit ratings remain within our target A's base range. We are mindful of the risk of further asset valuation decreases in forming our ongoing disciplined approach to capital management. In summary, the group is positioned well with a strong balance sheet heading into the forward period. I will now pass to Chris Barnett for an update on our retail portfolio.

Thank you, Anastasia, and good morning, everyone. I'd now like to take you through the results of our retail business, which has experienced an incredibly productive year. 2022 saw our assets trade free of lockdowns and restrictions and quickly rebound to outperform pre-COVID levels. Our financial results for '22 delivered growth of 23.5% over the prior year, predominantly as a result of the portfolio recovering post COVID. Our total specialty sales grew 30% for the year and are now 9.4% up on pre-COVID. This growth in sales has also driven specialty productivity to over $12,200 per square meter and delivered a portfolio specialty occupancy cost of only 15.7%. Our leasing teams continue to perform strongly, completing 581 deals for the year, improving our portfolio occupancy to 99.4%. A highlight for the year was being selected by UniSuper and Cbus property to manage their mandates resulting in an increase of our assets under management to now total $13 billion. Now turning to Slide 15 where the Australian retail market has experienced a transformative year. Rising out of the shadows of COVID, 2022 delivered growth in Australian retail sales of 11.4%. This growth is more than twice the 20-year average and was supported by low unemployment and high levels of household savings. Retail price inflation has had a positive impact on retail sales, and whilst it has increased our retailers' cost to doing business, most reporting retailers have shown that they've been able to pass these costs onto consumers, delivering improved EBIT margins. 2022 has also seen physical stores recapture market share from online. 87% of all retail spending in Australia last year was spent in a retail shop. Now turning to Slide 16, where our leasing teams have been able to achieve considerable success for the year with an improvement in all of our key leasing metrics. Strong retailer demand has driven deal volumes and improved center occupancy. Our tenants on holdover have halved and our leasing spreads are more favorable. For the deals completed during the year, all was structured with fixed base rents and annual increases averaging 4.4% and our leasing terms have extended to now average 4.7 years. Turning to retail sales on Slide 17, where our centers have outperformed 2019 growing at 6.8%, and our total specialty sales were 9.4% up on pre-COVID. Our Total Center sales have far exceeded their pre-COVID levels in the majority of our centers with Highpoint and Rouse Hill having grown in excess of 20%. The graph on the slide compares our category sales to 2019, where our largest categories, especially Dining and Fashion, grew by almost 10%, and Leisure was up 18.8% for the year. Supermarkets and discount department stores continue to grow strongly, and department stores have recovered being 12% up. Now turning to Slide 18 where I wanted to provide an update on Melbourne Central, which has experienced a remarkable recovery during the year. The center's turnover grew 73% on the prior year and its dollar per square meter MAT is only 5% of its pre-COVID levels. Total specialty MAT has improved to over $14,200 per square meter, and our fashion, leisure, food and technology categories are all outperforming pre-COVID. Melbourne Central has benefited from the return of university students and the recent announcement of 40,000 Chinese students coming back to Australia will be a positive for the center. There's strong leasing demand for the asset, and it continues to attract first-to-market retailers who are choosing Melbourne Central to open their CBD flagship stores. Testament to this demand, the center has achieved positive leasing spreads on average for tenants that have renewed throughout the year. Our outlook for the center remains extremely positive, supported by the center's rebound in the market yet to fully benefit from the return of overseas students and CBD office workers. Now turning to Slide 19 where 2022 has been another productive year for our team at Highpoint. The center has benefited from the recent reconfiguration works, introducing a new Kmart and Coles, whilst allowing our specialty retailers to expand into flagship footprint including the opening of the #1 Rebel sports store in the country. The center's dollar per square meter is 22% up on 2019, resulting in the center achieving record annual sales of over $1.2 billion, reinforcing the asset as one of the top centers in the country. Retailer demand is incredibly strong, with the center achieving a 99.9% occupancy in December, driven off the back of total specialty sales now averaging $13,700 per square meter. Strong sales productivity and retail demand resulted in leasing spreads averaging positive 3.5% on all deals achieved this year. Highpoint is going from strength to strength, and the asset is well positioned for future growth. Now turning to Slide 20, where undoubtedly, the highlight for the year was growing our assets under management to $13 billion with the introduction of both the UniSuper mandate and the Australian Core Retail Trust. It was an honor to have been selected to manage these mandates and their introduction has complemented the overall quality of our portfolio. The addition of premium assets like Karrinyup and Pacific Fair to our existing portfolio will ensure that retailers will have access to one of the most productive retail platforms in the country. The transition of these assets over to GPT has been seamless, and we've added almost 1,000 new retail stores and welcomed over 60 million new visitors per year. Finally, on Slide 21, the outlook for '23 remains positive. The recent tightening of monetary policy will have an impact on retail spending. However, we believe this moderation will be buffered by low levels of unemployment and high levels of household savings. Our retailers are in great shape, currently benefiting from price inflation and improved margins. Our view on leasing demand remains positive, and with the low levels of center vacancies, we believe that leasing spreads will continue to improve. Of the exceptional recovery of 2022, we're confident that Melbourne Central will continue to grow with the return of overseas students and workers. Our assets are in great shape, and our quality portfolio is well positioned for future growth. I'll now hand you to Martin Ritchie for the office update.

Thank you, Chris, and good morning. I'll take you through the office segment results on Slide 23. The GPT office portfolio has delivered comparable income growth of 3.4% for the year, and the segment contribution is up 9.6%. Portfolio occupancy is reduced to 87.9% driven by expiry in December, and I'll talk later about our strategy to target occupancy of greater than 90% at the end of the year. Assets under management increased by 4.8% to $14.7 billion. Turning to Slide 24. The table shows that the office market continues to experience elevated vacancy. However, the flight to quality is continuing. Prime net absorption across our 3 core markets is positive compared to negative net absorption of secondary stock. We expect that prime grade will continue to be in most demand, benefiting our high-quality portfolio. Notably, nearly half of the market briefs in Sydney and Melbourne CBD requested fitted out space in 2022. And lastly, market research indicates that whilst large occupiers contracted by an average of 12.6% over the 18 months to June 2022, smaller occupiers under 1,000 square meters grew by an average of 20%. Smaller occupiers continue to be the most active in the market. Turning to Slide 25. It was another successful leasing year with 104,300 square meters of deals for an average lease term of 4.9 years. In summary, 85% of leasing commenced in 2022 and 2023, 71% of the renewals took the same size or larger space and key deals are listed on the right of the slide. The first 4 renewals were EY, Adobe and VEC kept the same size space, whilst ANZ took less. 2/3 of the space leased was with larger customers and the balance was with customers under 1,000 square meters. Our DesignSuites by GPT Workplace product continues to be successful. 48 DesignSuites were leased totaling over 22,500 square meters. On average, they achieved 14.5% higher rent and 4 months shorter downtime compared to prior valuation. On Slide 26, the graph on the right shows that we have a strong track record in leasing, maintaining occupancy above the prime grade average. Half of our current 12% vacancy sits in 3 assets due to 3 expiries in December 2022. We have strategies in place to lease the vacancy, and we are confident this will improve occupancy over the year. At Darling Park 1, we have refurbished 1 floor for marketing purposes which looks fantastic, and work is underway on 6 more floors, which are ideal for larger businesses. A space on-demand facility and DesignSuites are also progressing. At 60 Station Street, we are actively marketing several suites which are ready for immediate occupation and we'll have a whole floor refurbished and ready in quarter 2. And at Melbourne Central Tower, 3 vacant floors have been split into 7 DesignSuites, which we expect to lease in the coming months. We had expiry of 9% over 2023, which we have already reduced to 7.5% when including heads of agreement signed as of December 2022. Turning to Slide 27. The target is to achieve portfolio occupancy of greater than 90% by the end of the year. To increase our appeal to customers, we have created 3 workplace products designed to offer our customers a better workplace experience, greater flexibility and less hassle when leasing space. Our Space&Co and The Meeting Place products provide owner managed space on demand, including studios, collaboration space, office spaces and meeting room facilities for hire. These products are attractive to all our customers, including our larger ones who make up 85% of our portfolio as it gives them access to different spaces when they need them. Currently, we offer 8 venues with 6 more in the planning phase in 2023. Our target is to grow these products from 1% to 5% of the portfolio by 2025. And our DesignSuites product are a high-quality fitted workplace, which our customers can move straight into. We are deliberately targeting the 40% of the market, which occupy less than 1,000 square meters. They are underrepresented in our portfolio. However, they are attractive because they typically pay higher rents, make decisions quickly and are growing businesses. The DesignSuites are sustainably designed for repeated reuse targeting a 6-star Green Star interiors rating and upfront embodied carbon neutral certification using Green Star and Climate Active. Our target is to grow our exposure to the smaller tenant market from the current 14% to around 25% by 2025. Slide 28 provides an example of the success of our strategy. 181 William & 550 Bourke Streets was a traditional building made up of large businesses. After 3 major customers vacated, occupancy was low at 55% in June 2021. Our leasing strategy involved repositioning the asset through lobby and end-of-trip upgrades and introducing owner-managed space on demand. We diversified the income stream with DesignSuites, which increased small tenant exposure to 13%. Over the last 18 months, occupancy has increased from 55% to 85%. The expiry risk has reduced and the passing rental rate has increased by 7%. Finishing now on Slide 29, while the leasing market is expected to remain challenging, our differentiated workplace products are designed to target the most active part of the market, and this will drive our leasing results. Our sustainability initiatives continue to be a key focus. The GWOF operating portfolio is certified as carbon neutral since 2020, and all assets are now operating carbon neutral, with the last 3 Climate Active certifications to be achieved by the end of 2023. Our focused workplace strategy gives me confidence in our ability to lease space, and we are targeting improving portfolio occupancy to greater than 90% at the end of the year. I'll now hand over to Chris Davis.

Thank you, Martin, and good morning. The logistics portfolio has performed strongly in 2022, achieving a segment contribution of $188 million, up 21.6%, driven by fully leased developments and prior year acquisitions. We are capitalizing our momentum in the market, delivering comparable income growth of 3% with this accelerating from 2.4% in the first half to 3.8% in the second. Portfolio occupancy has increased to 99.2%, with leasing activity resulting in positive spreads including a number of deals that were rebased to higher rents in 2023. We are delivering enhanced returns through development completions and our partnership with QuadReal with logistics assets under management growing to $4.7 billion. Now on Slide 32. Elevated tenant demand, coupled with record low vacancy has delivered market rent growth for the year of 20% in Sydney and Melbourne. Delayed delivery of supply has contributed to the extreme tightness in the market. The business case for occupiers to relocate into modern, well-located facilities and invest in their supply chain remains compelling, with operational efficiencies more than offsetting increased rents. Demand continues to benefit from strong growth in retail sales and e-commerce, underpinned by population growth. We are currently tracking 1.4 million square meters of briefs, up 25% on 6 months ago. This reflects pent-up demand as tenants are unable to access space in the current market. Of the stock under construction, 50% is pre-committed. Tenants are competing for the remaining space in these developments, and as a result, vacancy remain low as projects reach completion. Moving to Slide 33. Leasing of 279,000 square meters was completed during the year, with operational leasing spreads of 15% and development leasing 9% above feasibilities. The developments were fully leased on completion. Key deals include Bunnings, who took 40,000 square meters in Summerton and JB Hi-Fi who increased their footprint in our Berenberg estate by 50%. We're also working closely with existing customers such as DHL as they grow their networks. Now turning to our expiry profile on Slide 34. Over the next 3 years, we have the ability to access market rent growth across the 1/4 of our portfolio. We have 21% of the portfolio expiring to 2025. A further 4% will benefit from higher rents for deals agreed in 2022 that will commence in 2023. This includes a facility in Sydney, where we had multiple groups competing for the space, achieving a rent uplift of over 35% with no downtime. We also have 61,000 square meters of developments to be leased this year. The quality of our assets and the significant movement in market rents positions us well to capture upside. Moving to development and our QuadReal partnership on Slide 35. $460 million in developments were delivered. This included the first 4 assets with QuadReal with half of the $2 billion fund target now committed. We have delivered excellent returns in our completed developments with a margin in excess of 30% and average yield on cost of 5.7%. The QuadReal fund also acquired a 35-hectare site in Epping in Melbourne's North. Our pipeline of 10 projects are 100% weighted to Eastern Seaboard markets, providing growth opportunities for existing and target customers. We expect to invest in the order of $200 million to $250 million in our developments in 2023. Looking at sustainability on Slide 36. We're implementing initiatives to anticipate customer needs and future proof the portfolio. We're excited to have delivered our Foundation Road project in Melbourne. This asset achieved a 6-star Green Star rating and is also Australia's first upfront embodied carbon neutral logistics development, certified by Climate Active. We're also engaging with customers in our existing facilities to deliver operational efficiencies through our rooftop solar program. Turning now to outlook on Slide 37, we are focused on executing leasing strategies to maximize income, capitalizing on the undersupply of logistics space. We will continue to enhance returns through developments and our partnership with QuadReal. We're engaging with our high-quality customer base to expand them across multiple assets and to deliver sustainability outcomes that have a lasting impact. Our view on the occupier market remains positive, and we expect vacancy to remain very low through 2023, setting the scene for strong rent growth. Our portfolio is well positioned, made up of prime assets, complemented by strategic land holdings in core markets. I will now hand back to Bob to provide comments on the outlook for the year.

Thanks, Chris. We have seen a rapid change in economic conditions over the last 12 months with high inflation and the RBA responding aggressively with interest rate rises. However, we have demonstrated the resilience of our business with the diversified portfolio of retaining high occupancy, and we expect this to continue despite an anticipated slowdown in economic growth this year. As flagged by Anastasia, our cost of debt increased in the second half of 2022, and this is a headwind for earnings growth for 2023. Higher bond yields have started to lead to a softening of valuation metrics, and this is creating some uncertainty for valuations. Institutional investors remain cautious and are sitting on the sidelines, but I expect that we will see transaction volumes pick up in the second half of the year. We continue to see good momentum across our retail portfolio with strong sales growth and leasing activity. While we expect sales growth to moderate as the economy slows, our portfolio is well placed with fixed rental increases and positive leasing demand. For the Office portfolio, we expect occupancy to improve in 2023. We are seeing demand from tenants who want to be in high-quality buildings with strong sustainability credentials and amenity. We are responding to changing customer preferences and this is achieving results. There is clearly a flight to quality as businesses use both flexibility and their workplace to attract talent. In Logistics, market conditions are expected to remain very favorable, with strong tenant demand, low vacancy and constrained supply. Our development pipeline and partnership with QuadReal positions us well for further growth in this sector. And finally, the UniSuper mandate and ACRT provides increased scale to our retail and funds management platform, and we expect that this will provide further growth opportunities in time. We have a strong balance sheet, and we will continue to take a prudent approach to capital management, given the economic uncertainty increasing the potential for further softening of valuation investment metrics. In terms of earnings and distribution guidance for the year, the group expects to deliver 2023 FFO of approximately $0.313 per security and a distribution of $0.25 per security. So that concludes our remarks. And I'll now like to hand back to the operator for your questions.

[Operator Instructions] The first question comes from Caleb Wheatley from Macquarie Group.

Bob, congratulations on your tenure at GPT. My first question is just on guidance. I consciously noted the [indiscernible] mid-4% range in 2023. What other factors you would be thinking about as partially offset to that rising cost of debt, particularly around underlying growth in the retail office and logistics portfolio, please?

Yes, thanks, Caleb, for that message and also your question, I guess the key things for us, yes, we do have a step-up in our debt costs or funding costs this year, and Anastasia, I think, gave a clear picture on that, where we do see opportunity for us is clearly our retail portfolio continues to perform very well. and same as logistics -- in some logistics. We have added the QuadReal and the ACRT mandates during the year as well, and we'll get the full year benefit of those this year. So I guess the -- they're the main key drivers for us in terms of earnings growth for the year or earnings outlook for the year. Anything else you want to add to that, Anastasia?

And just that continual growth in the logistics development that we've been able to get the good track record having fully leased on completion, we'll see our top line growth in logistics.

And just on the dividend guidance as well, I'm just conscious that you obviously have the target on office occupancy and that might come with some incentives. But any color you can provide on how you thinking you at that maintenance CapEx to incentives and how that fits into the dividend as well, please?

Yes, good. Look, for the year, we have a payout ratio that we apply of, say, 95% to 105% of free cash flow. We're expecting that we will see a step up, a modest step up in incentives this year. A lot of the leasing that we think we'll be doing will be particularly in the second half, so of the year. And so I'd expect we will see a step up, but we expect that our distribution will be in that sort of the midpoint of that range in terms of free cash flow for the year.

My second question was just on your occupancy target. So targeting greater than 90%, obviously, come off quite a bit in the second half of FY '22. Just can you give a bit more color in terms of the strategy you're going to implement here, consciously going to be focus on smaller tenants. What else can you do to really get that occupancy number coming up, and then what might that mean for tenant incentives and releasing spreads, et cetera, as you execute on those deals.

It's a good question. I'll just hand to Martin in a moment. I guess, first of all, we had 3 major -- as Martin mentioned, 3 major expiries that occurred late in December. And that's really what drove the occupancy down and they were CBA, Darling Park. We had Deloitte out at 60 Station Street and NBN at Melbourne Central. So with the 3 things, and they add up to about 4% of the portfolio. So they are the main drivers of the drop and they didn't locate or their leases didn't expire until December. So we're clearly activating those spaces and repositioning those for leasing. And I guess I just wanted to reiterate that from a portfolio perspective, we're 97.5% occupied. So Office is a key component of that. But across the portfolio, 7.5% is a strong occupancy. So Martin, just in terms of -- you might be more color on the strategies.

So, color on the strategies, with those 3 key expiries in December, we were able to negotiate early access to 2 of them. So we could commence all the refurbishments that you need to do in order to bring space back to market early. So that gives us some acceleration on our leasing program. Undoubtedly, yes, there is a lot of work to do in the portfolio and the DesignSuites pipeline will probably make up around 1/4 or 1/3 of the leasing we expect to do this year. But we ended 2022 with a very good carryover of about 84 transactions that still haven't happened yet. So we are still in negotiations with quite a number of parties that could result in further leasing in the portfolio in the first half of this year.

Thank you for your time this morning, team, and congratulations again, Bob.

Your next question comes from James Druce from CLSA.

And just to echo Caleb's comments, congratulations on your stewardship of GPT for the past 7 years or so. Just to dig into 1 more assumption to the '23 guidance, talking about development volumes picking up for logistics, can you just provide a bit more color on how you see the development margins and the volumes coming through, please?

Yes, I have to ask Chris Davis, to give you some color on that. Chris?

Thanks, James, for the question. So we've got 3 projects finishing this year, which in terms of total spend for those projects, but also some additional projects were likely to commence in the second half, we're looking to spend in the order of $200 million, $250 million during the year. And in terms of the unit cost, you saw last year with the unit cost was 5.7%. And for the project completing issue, we expect it to be around 6%. So we're seeing very strong growth in rents, obviously, strong demand, but also the low vacancy environment really helping us.

And just on the occupancy costs of 15.7% for the retail portfolio, if we think of specialty sales up 9% on pre-COVID, occupancy costs pre-COVID were around 17%. It suggested that portfolio income hasn't really grown since pre-COVID levels. So first question, is that how we should think about things? And my second question is, is 17% realistic occupancy costs you can get back to? Or is 16% a new normal?

Chris Barnett?

Thanks, James. I think when you look at our occupancy cost at minus -- sorry, at 15.7%, that is a low occupancy cost compared to historically what we are used to. We have had a couple of years of negative leasing spreads as you would understand, and our leasing spreads are continuing to improve. I think of the strength of our sales productivity across the board, specialty sales now exceeding $12,500 a square meter. I think you are going to see improved activity especially given the low level of vacancies in our centers to able to improve the occupancy closer to what has been a historic average of about 17%.

Your next question comes from Sholto Maconochie from Jefferies.

Kudos Bob, Martin, and Chris on a good result and all the best for the next endeavors. Just a couple of follow-on, most have been answered. It seems that pretty strong underlying growth in the business going forward, also on the debt costs. Is it mainly the second -- the first half drag and the net pickup in the second half driving that guidance for office leasing? Can you get that December end impact coming in the first half?

No, I think it's really -- we're expecting that it will be still a challenging year for the office sector. It's really the growth coming through the other pieces or the other sectors of the business, and also the addition of the mandates that we secured in the back half of last year with ACRT and UniSuper. Anything you want to add to that, Anastasia?

So the office occupancy second half growing is what Bob was referring to, but we will see a progressive lease-up and income contribution on a fairly stable basis throughout. Interest costs will be more of a headwind in the second half than they will be first half.

And any good progress on the funds management initiative. Is there any more mandates you're looking at?

Look, we'd love to take on more mandates and there may be some opportunities that present themselves. Too early to be too specific on anything like that at the moment. We just took on, as I said, ACRT in December. We're very much focused on embedding that in the business. They're fantastic assets and the team are really excited about it. And we'd like to think we drive strong performance. We'll see more capital flows from those sorts of opportunities.

And just finally, I think on the spreads, you said improving. One of your peers with the Melbourne portfolio expecting to deteriorate. What are you assuming on your retail leasing spreads this year?

I don't think we've given actual guidance on that except to say we think that will continue to improve, to be quite frank. So that was the guidance on them. I wouldn't say whether they're going to be positive yet or not, I think there's a little bit of water to flow under the bridge given, I guess, the broader macroeconomic situation. But our retailers are in good shape. There's still strong demand for the assets we have. So we're still seeing strong inquiry. As I said, we're 99.4% occupied in retail. So we think we're in really good shape from that. So in terms of spreads, I'd like to think we'll continue to improve. And hopefully, they will start to turn positive. But at the moment, they're just slightly negative. And I'm looking at Chris at the moment, saying the pressure's on Chris. Get those brands in heading in the right direction.

That's everything from me, and good luck in your future endeavors, Bob.

Your next question comes from Grant McCasker from UBS.

Just a few questions. First of all, are you able to talk on sales trends that you've seen in January across the portfolio. Have you got the sales target yet for January sales?

Chris, would you like to talk to that?

Hot off the press in our portfolio for the month of January, around about 10% up on 2021, which obviously had an Omicron effect if you remember January -- sorry the 10% is up on 2019, so pre-COVID. But we are averaging around about 35% up on 2022 January, which was pretty heavily impacted by Omicron across the portfolio.

So, so far, the strength of sales continues, which is probably not great news from an RBA perspective. The sales have continued to be strong. Probably seeing more of the sort of larger good sort of the sales and that sort of area is slow, but we haven't seen it really translate too much into our portfolio as yet. That's fair to say.

And is that consistent across the entire portfolio?

Yes, pretty consistent across the portfolio. Yes, it is.

Across asset teams.

And then just on the office portfolio, given the level of occupancy declines, are there any materials that make whole payments paid in the second half that's calling it?

There's always a few make-whole payments in it, but I'm not sure we'd be calling out anything materially in that, to be quite honest. There's always a number of them in any year. And there's probably -- there would have been some in the second half of the year as well, but nothing...

It looked a bit unique, given the decline in occupancy.

The decline has actually occurred right in December to be quite frank.

So should we expect some to come through then in first half, or is some included in guidance or material, like above normal levels in '23 then?

No, I wouldn't say there's a huge significant amount of those, including [indiscernible]. There will always be some one-off surrenders or make payments, et cetera. There's always a component of those. But our underlying assumptions are that we'll lease the space to be quite frank, and that's what's going to drive the income.

Sure. And finally, just on the funds, are you able to talk about secondary transactions and trends you're seeing across both the office fund and retail fund?

Yes, happy to do that. We have seen secondary transactions in our office fund. There's about 400 million units -- I mean dollars of units, I should say, that were traded during the course of year in the office fund. There weren't too many secondaries at all traded in the retail funds. So it's really mainly being in the office fund that we've seen that trading activity. And currently, I think there's about another 120 million or 130 million of units that are available in the secondaries market at the moment in the Office Fund. But the 400 million units we cleared last year.

Can you give us an idea of where pricing of those trades occurred?

They weren't too far off CUV or book. Just slightly below.

Your next question comes from Ben Brayshaw from Barrenjoey.

I just had a couple of questions on the addition of the AR -- sorry, ACRT and UniSuper portfolios. Firstly, from a funds management perspective, I was wondering if you sell for Anastasia could talk about the operating margin you expect it to rise from the $5.5 billion of incremental FUM. And secondly, perhaps this is a question for Chris, just in terms of the additional scale within the asset class, how are you thinking about what that might allow GPT to do in terms of leasing and/or the network effect going forward?

Anastasia takes the first part of that question.

So for the retail segment inclusive of funds management fee income, you will see a contribution to FFO for full year across those mandates of around $17 million. Now overall there will be some deduction there for income tax, et cetera. What I would say within the retail segment, you've got a fee level of growth of around 30%, and you've got a platform growth in scale of costs of around 20%, so quite a positive profit jaws effect.

Maybe Ben, I'll just talk about the quality of the portfolio. And I think the thing that excites us the most is really just the complement that the premium assets of both UniSuper and ACRT bring to GPT, the likes of Karrinyup and Pacific Fair just sit so comfortably in our existing portfolio of great quality assets like Highpoint and Melbourne Central and Rouse. And I think when you do sit down with retailers today, leveraging the benefit of that quality portfolio means that the retailers now have access to probably one of the most productive portfolios in the country.

Your next question comes from Alex Prineas from Morningstar.

Just on the industrial developments, are you still acquiring land for some of those planned future developments or is that largely based off of land that you've already acquired and haven't turned soil on the construction?

The land we've -- the land bank we've had, we've acquired over a period of time. We only did 1 acquisition of land last year, and that was in the QuadReal -- GPT QuadReal JV. We acquired some land in Epping North. But I guess we're seeing deals where we're being quite cautious about our underwriting and the pricing of that. So look, we continue to look at opportunities in the market. We do think there could be some opportunities that present themselves probably more favorable pricing in the coming 12 months. We'll look to replenish at the right time. But fortunately, we have a good pipeline in front of us that we continue to work through, has an end value of circa $1.9 billion. So we're not desperate to go and find new supply at the moment. But we will look to replenish in time, and we look to try and do that at the right time in the market.

And then just on the estimated 5.5% yield on costs for future industrial developments, can you just run through some numbers on why that's a sufficient yield given where cost of debt are at and uncertainties around construction cost at the moment? Why is that a number that stacks up?

Yes, that's a good question. And I'd say, first of all, the way I think about it is in most cases, we've already paid for the land. So the 5% yield on cost is really, if I look at the incremental spend and the dollars being allocated, it's a higher return on that incremental spend, given we've already got some costs in the land, if I can call it that, about 30% usually is for your land, 25% to 30%. So I think that is the best use of our capital. I still think they give a good return, and we have high conviction on logistics over the longer term and think that we'll continue to see strong rental growth. So while the initial yield is in that sort of 5.5% yield on cost. We also see then step-ups or increases in the 3% or more per annum. So we do think it's a reasonable return out of that.

Your next question comes from Richard Jones from JPMorgan.

Just interested in the cost to lease take and space in the office portfolio today, whether you could compare how much that is going to cost to lease as opposed to what it might have cost 2 years ago just in terms of, obviously, leasing costs, but also the CapEx that you're investing in those 3 buildings that you called out in particular?

Martin, would you like to take that?

I think generally, most of the leasing costs, leasing fees, agencies, marketing that sort of thing, that hasn't really changed. Really, the main changes is the incentive. So incentives averaging about 35% of gross in our portfolio and probably pre-COVID. I'm not sure what the number was, but it would have been considerably less than that. So that's the main change is the incentives.

So the [indiscernible] cost and the capital commitments you're making on lease, filling those floors is not different than what you're saying.

So when we're building our DesignSuites, we're effectively utilizing the amount of money we would otherwise have spent on incentives for the tenant to build the fit out. The tenant then leases the completed product from us.

So we're not providing an incentive on top of that I think what you're saying.

That's right. So costs have gone up, there's no question. But typically, you may have provided a fitted out plus an additional incentive that part of the fitted out would be only part of the incentive. Today, I would say the fitted out is a larger part of it because costs have gone up as well.

Thank you. There are no further questions at this time. I'll now hand back for closing remarks.

Well, thank you all for joining the call this morning and listening in, and that wraps up the briefing for today. We do look forward to seeing you all, or many of you anyway, over the coming weeks. So thanks for joining us today for the presentation. Appreciate it.