Axis Real Estate Investment Trust announced its first quarter results for the financial year ending 31 December 2023 posting a 5.3% year-on-year growth in property income to RM69.7 million on the back of a 5.2% increase in total trust income to RM70.2 million for Q1FY2023.
The REIT manager said the higher earnings were due to, among others, contributions from the properties acquired after Q1FY2022 namely Axis Industrial Facility 1 @ Meru and the ‘green certified’ DW1 Logistics Warehouse in Johor. The latter, being Axis-REIT’s largest acquisition to date, was acquired back in April 2022.
During the quarter under review, major capital expenditure totalling RM47.7 million was incurred of which RM44.1 million was incurred for the ongoing development of Bukit Raja Distribution Centre 2 and Axis Mega Distribution Centre (Phase 2). Higher property expenses were incurred due to higher maintenance cost. It also made a provision of doubtful debts of RM3.5 million for Yongnam Engineering Sdn Bhd, the lessee of Axis Steel Centre @ SiLC in Johor. Coupled with the higher Islamic financing cost of RM14.4 million in contrast to Q1FY2022’s RM10.6 million, all these factors ensued in a realised net income of RM32.5 million in comparison to the RM39.1 million for the preceding year’s corresponding quarter.
Axis-REIT’s management company, Axis REIT Managers Berhad has proposed to distribute 99% of the realised income available for distribution generated from operations for the first quarter of 2023. Subsequently, RM35.7 million has been set aside as the first interim income distribution for 2023. This translates to 2.05 sen per unit.
Axis REIT Managers Berhad chief executive officer/ executive director Leong Kit May said, “Moving forward, we believe subsequent quarters will improve progressively on the strength of this strong growing portfolio and the newly refurbished Axis Facility 2 @ Bukit Raja’s tenancy is starting in mid-May. As of the end of the first quarter of this year, we have already renewed 64% of the space that will be expiring in 2023.”
