Charter Hall reweights to Aussie platform

Charter Hall has posted a 68.1 per cent decline in its yearly statutory profit, after divesting offshore assets and reweighting towards an Australian platform.

Total funds under management decreased from $10.7 billion at 30 June 2011 to $9.4 billion at 30 June 2012, reflecting the company's disposal of the $1.7 billion Charter Hall Office REIT's United States portfolio and a number of offshore sales within its retail REIT's portfolio.

However, Charter Hall's domestic funds management platform grew 4 per cent over the year and now sits at $8.9 billion. 

The group divested a total of $2.1 billion in assets and acquired $500 million of core assets.

VIEW ALL

View all

It said renewed interest for Australian property among institutional and retail investors had driven $1.3 billion in capital into its unlisted wholesale and retail platforms since last financial year, of which $800 million was in core funds across 14 projects.

The 184 Australian properties managed by Charter Hall generated a gross rental income of $817 million from almost 3,000 tenants, while the company's top ten tenants generated 42.7 per cent of the property investment portfolio's gross income.

The REIT's Australian portfolio completed 241 leasing transactions, while specialty rental rates grew by 4.9 per cent over the financial year and occupancy remained steady at 98.6 per cent.

Refinancing debt facilities during the year and restructuring over $750 million of Australian and offshore debt facilities allowed Charter Hall to reduce its overall debt cost from 7 per cent to 6.3 per cent in 2011-12 financial year, it said.

The management team indicated it would continue to focus on completing the re-weighting to Australia by realising equity from European and other offshore assets.

"Given the continued resilience of the non-discretionary retail market and with 84 per cent of the REIT's Australian portfolio consisting of high quality neighbourhood and sub-regional shopping centres, the REIT is well positioned as we move into FY134 and beyond," he said.