Perennial China Retail Trust (PCRT) has posted S$43.6 million in amount available for distribution to unitholders for the year ended December 31.
This brings its full-year distribution per unit to 3.86 Singapore cents.
For the fourth quarter, amount available for distribution to unitholders was S$11.2 million.
The China-focused retail development trust said distributable income for the full year was S$22.1 million — about 15 per cent lower than its forecast.
PCRT recorded S$84.6 million in net profit for the full year, largely attributed to a fair value gain of S$60.3 million and from earn-out of S$21.9 million.
Looking ahead, the trust manager expects China’s economy to slow to a more moderate pace.
It added that it could look at the strata-sale of non-block retail and other components in integrated developments to generate cash flow and development profits.
Pua Seck Guan, executive director and CEO at PCRT said: “Shopping malls are no longer a new thing in China, compared to ten years ago. So in the market there are people who know how to do it, there are some good operators in the marketplace. We have to be very disciplined. The sort of ramp-up is not as quick as compared to the past, so we need to have a balanced strategy. While we feel that the assets will have tremendous value in coming, we also need to balance it with certain short term gains to the investors.”
PCRT’s stock price closed 3.2 per cent higher at S$0.64.
Source : Channel NewsAsia – 14 Feb 2013