Data from Lippo Malls Indonesia Retail Trust’s latest disclosure is in the Singapore REITs table.
Lippo Malls Indonesia Retail Trust (LMIRT) has posted yet another quarter of falling occupancy, as the Omicron variant continues to cast a cloud of uncertainty over the country.
The REIT’s average portfolio occupancy was at 80.9% as at 31 December 2021, down from 84.5% as at 31 December 2020.
The occupancy as at 31 December 2021 is however higher than the industry average of 76.5% for 2021.
For its 4Q 2021, the REIT posted a distribution per unit of 0.09 Singapore cents, up from 0.04 Singapore cents for the same period a year ago.
Rental revenue for 4Q 2021 increased to SGD27.9 million from SGD13.8 million in 4Q 2020 mainly due to the contribution from the newly acquired Lippo Mall Puri.
“As conditions stabilised towards the last quarter of the year, we were seeing more favourable consumer behaviour with increasing shopper footfall to our malls as most of our tenants were able to resume operations at reduced restrictions”, said James Liew, the REIT's CEO.
“Average shopper traffic for the year has recovered to 48.0% of pre-Covid days in 2019 and based on 4Q 2021, shopper traffic has recovered to 55.4% of 4Q 2019”.
“The onset of Omicron has resulted in record high Covid-19 cases but as similarly experienced in other countries, the surge has not resulted in a similar surge in hospitalisations and fatalities”.
“Our malls are able to keep operating albeit under slightly more restrictive conditions. Shopper traffic as at 21 February 2022 declined relative to January 2022 but remained at levels comparable to the same period in February 2021 before the onset of Delta and Omicron”.
“Operationally, we are also working actively with our mall operator and tenants to increase our marketing efforts to attract shoppers to our malls as well as actively looking to optimise space to improve tenant mix and attract new and replacement tenants to boost occupancy,” he added.
LMIRT was last done on the Singapore Exchange (SGX) at SGD0.053, which presently implies a distribution yield of 6.6% according to data on the Singapore REITs table.