Axis Real Estate Investment Trust posted a 7.8% increase in total trust income of RM242.4 million in FY2021 compared with RM224.9 million in the previous year. This group attributes the increase to mainly the completion of its 5 new acquisitions, the commencement of new tenancies at Axis Industrial Facility @ Rawang and positive rental reversion in FY2021.
In addition to the higher total trust income, its net income was also driven by higher gain in fair value of investment properties, which led to a 41.0% increase in its net income to RM200.4 million from RM142.1 million in the preceding year. The gain in fair value in FY2021 was RM67.8 million in contrast to RM19.0 million in the preceding year.
For the fourth quarter ended 31 December, Axis-REIT recorded a total trust income of RM62.9 million and a realised net income of RM36.4 million, a year on year increase of 9.4% and 13.3%, mainly due to contributions from newly acquired properties and positive rental reversion.
In 2021, the property management company also successfully completed the acquisition of 5 properties worth a total of RM223.2 million, raising its total investment properties value to RM3.6 billion.
Chief Executive Officer Leong Kit May says, “ Since our listing in 2005, our portfolio has grown from 5 properties to 58 properties with the total asset value rising about 10-fold to RM3.8 billion currently. Moving forward, we will continue to pursue high-quality accretive acquisitions with strong recurring rental income by leveraging on our healthy gearing level of 31%, to deliver sustainable EPU and DPU payout to our unitholders.”
Meanwhile, in a separate filing to Bursa Malaysia, Axis-REIT announced it has secured Shopee Express Malaysia Sdn Bhd, an e-commerce operator, to lease the entire Bukit Raja Distribution Centre 2 for a period of 15 years, upon completion of the proposed development of BRDC 2. The proposed development entails the construction of a single-storey warehouse and ancillary buildings, enhancement of an existing 3-storey office block with a total gross built-up area of approximately 620,096 sq ft.
Development work is expected to commence in the first quarter of 2022 and to be completed for handover to the Lessee latest by 31 August 2023. The estimated development cost (excluding land) of this proposed development is approximately RM130.0 million. This is equivalent to 3.9% of Axis-REIT’s FY2020 total asset value of RM3.4 billion.
