CapitaLand China Trust Highlights Retail Recovery as Revenue, Profit Dip

Singapore-listed CapitaLand China Trust on Tuesday offered an upbeat appraisal of the REIT’s first-quarter performance, highlighting year-on-year increases in sales and foot traffic and a gradual rise in occupancy across the retail portfolio.

Retail sales at the trust’s properties rose 15.4 percent compared with the same quarter a year earlier, CLCT’s manager said in an operational update. Footfall rose 10.6 percent year-on-year while retail occupancy crept up to 96.4 percent from 95.4 percent in December 2022.

Despite the positive signs, the REIT’s first-quarter gross revenue fell 2.9 percent year-on-year to RMB 475.5 million (now $68.8 million) as net property income dropped 1.6 percent to RMB 339.1 million, the manager said.

The declines were attributed to the wind-down of CapitaMall Qibao in Shanghai, idled assets undergoing refurbishment or reconfiguration, and the lag time from committed occupancy handovers at the S$5.2 billion ($3.9 billion) trust, which comprises 11 malls, five business parks and four logistics parks.

Post-COVID Bounce

CLCT said retail leasing activity picked up in March after slower take-up in January and February. The manager pointed to a continuous recovery in traffic and tenant sales since a pandemic-induced trough in 2020, with select malls already exceeding pre-COVID sales levels.

The mass return of shoppers was evident from surging first-quarter sales in key trade categories, including food and beverage (up 18.2 percent year-on-year), beauty and health (up 10.3 percent), leisure and entertainment (up 26.3 percent) and services (up 101.3 percent).

Turning to asset enhancement initiatives completed in the first quarter, CLCT touted value extracted from two malls in Beijing and Changsha.

CapitaMall Grand Canyon in the national capital’s Fengtai district recovered 1,700 square metres (18,299 square feet) of fashion space and brought in a diversified trade mix from tenants including automakers BYD and Volkswagen. The post-reconfiguration rental increase as a share of the mall’s 2022 revenue is 7.4 percent, the manager said.

CapitaMall Yuhuating in Changsha, the capital of Hunan, recovered 8,900 square metres of anchor supermarket space to create specialty tenant space that is expected to contribute from the second quarter onwards.

With the Chinese government naming the expansion of consumption as a priority and pledging to encourage spending, the trust is well positioned to ride the recovery with completed asset enhancement initiatives across multiple properties, according to the update.

New Economy Demand

The manager said CLCT’s five business parks are poised to benefit from structural upgrading of China’s economy towards tech development and innovation-driven growth. The REIT completed leasing in the first quarter for 46,712 square metres of space, representing 20 percent of expiring net lettable area in 2023, to bring business park occupancy to 89.8 percent.

The trust remains in advanced negotiations with tenants at its four logistics parks, which saw their combined occupancy wither to 95.6 percent at the end of the first quarter from 97.6 percent a year earlier.

CLCT acquired the warehouses in Shanghai, Kunshan, Wuhan and Chengdu for RMB 1.68 billion ($260 million) from Canada’s Quadreal in 2021, adding 265,259 square metres of logistics space to the portfolio.