KUALA LUMPUR: Sunway Real Estate Investment Trust
(REIT) is keeping a positive outlook for its 2023 financial year, underpinned by stable domestic economic growth, growth in the retail sector and further recovery in the hotel segment.
It said its optimism was further backed by full-year income contribution from Sunway Carnival Mall (New Wing) and Sunway Resort Hotel in 2023.
Sunway REIT CEO Datuk Jeffrey Ng said the REIT is closely monitoring inflationary and interest rate trends despite tapering inflation in recent months.
He added that the REIT strives to negate the impact of higher interest costs through dynamic capital management strategy and achieving higher net property income (NPI) from the existing assets portfolio and new acquisitions.
"Sunway REIT is actively pursuing acquisition opportunities and we aim to make headway on the acquisitions front in this financial year.
"Sunway REIT’s healthy gearing of 37.6% and debt headroom of approximately RM1.2 billion will enable us to fund yield accretive acquisitions," he said in a statement.
For the 2022 financial year, Sunway REIT posted a net profit of RM323.56mil, which was a 153% improvement over the result a year earlier, on the back of revenue of RM651.45mil, up 37.92% from 2021.
The REIT recorded an earnings per unit of 8.86 sen as compared with 3.07 sen.
In line with the performance, the REIT proposed a distribution per unit (DPU) of five sen for the six-month period to Dec 31, 2022, which represents a 79% increase compared with the same period in 2021.
Total DPU for the year doubled to 9.22 sen, which translates to a distribution yield of 6.3% based on the REIT's unit price of RM1.46 as at Dec 31, 2022.
In the fourth quarter alone, Sunway REIT recorded a net profit of RM50.82mil, more than three times the net profit of RM16.19mil in 4QFY21.
Revenue was also improved to RM186.72mil from RM157.8mil in the previous comparative quarter.
Trading in Sunway REIT's units will be halted from 2.30pm to 3.30pm following its earnings announcement.
The REIT was last traded before the midday break, one sen or 0.63% lower at RM1.59 a unit on the back of 814,800 units traded.
