Good morning, everyone, and a very warm welcome to Arena REIT's financial year 2025 results presentation. I'm Rob de Vos, Managing Director of Arena. I'm joined today by our CFO, Gareth Winter, and our Chief Investment Officer, and as of today, CEO designate, Justin Bailey. Our results materials that we're presenting today were lodged with the ASX this morning, as was an announcement informing the market that after over 13 years with Arena, I'll be stepping down as CEO and Managing Director. It's a transition that has been well planned and one that I'm confident in. As you'll hear throughout the presentation, the business is in a very strong position. It has a clear strategy and excellent prospects for continued growth. I'm particularly confident in the safe hands of Justin, supported by a high-quality board and management team.
You can see on page three of our results presentation materials that in addition to Justin, we've expanded our team in preparation for leadership changes and further disciplined growth, with key hires across our property and investment team, as well as our corporate affairs team. Many of you already know Justin, who has been with Arena for a year and a half and is, in the board's view and mine, the ideal candidate to lead the business and our exceptional team into its next chapter. Justin, the board, and I are committed to ensuring a smooth leadership transition, and I'll be focused on making that happen over the coming months.
Leading Arena has been a career highlight for me, and I'm incredibly grateful for the trust placed in our team and proud of the success we've achieved in creating positive investment outcomes and increasing access for many Australian families to high-quality properties that accommodate essential community services. Following the transition, I'll be leaving with genuine excitement about the prospects of our business and what our team and our partners are capable of. Okay, into the results on page four. Financial year 2025 has been another positive period for Arena. The business has accelerated investment activity as the trajectory for market interest rate costs became clearer and new opportunities emerged where a competitive cost of capital and deal sourcing expertise could be used.
With an expanded and experienced management team and a balance sheet with substantial capacity, we remain well positioned to capitalize on further growth opportunities that are consistent with our strategy and investment objective. The growing needs of Australian communities continue to support the social infrastructure property sector. Population growth, government indebtedness, and a higher expectation for communities for improved quality and availability of the essential services that Arena accommodates provide the business with strong long-term macroeconomic tailwinds. In this context, Arena's portfolio, operations, and outlook are in a strong position. Highlights of the outcomes and achievements for financial year 2025 include a statutory profit of $81.5 million and an underlying cash-based net operating profit of $73 million, which is up 17% on financial year 2024. Our earnings per security increased to $0.1855, up 5.1%. Our net asset value per security is up 1.5% to $3.46.
We increased our investment capacity early in 2025 with a $140 million equity raise. We've also actively recycled older, less efficient assets during the year to position us well to execute on new opportunities as they emerge. We've taken advantage of that position with 11 operating properties acquired, the completion of 12 early learning centre developments, and we've replenished our development pipeline to now include 29 projects, securing an investment program that will support future years' earning growth for the business. Partnering and understanding the needs of our tenant partners and the growing community demand for their services has allowed us to achieve efficient long-term earnings growth. We're pleased to announce today distribution guidance for financial year 2026 of $0.1925 per security, reflecting an increase of 5.5% on financial year 2025. Moving on to the next slide there.
In an environment where we are seeing short and medium-term growth opportunities emerge, we remain committed to our strategic discipline and with a clear focus on the needs of our stakeholders. Understanding and addressing those needs underpins the long-term success of Arena. It helps shape our strategy, informs our decision-making, and ultimately best positions the business to create value on a long-term and predictable basis. Highlights and outcomes over financial year 2025 across key management focus areas include an increase in development and acquisition activity that has seen the portfolio increase to 295 properties. As you'll hear from Justin, those capital transactions have again improved the quality metrics of Arena REIT's portfolio and have also maintained our sector-leading WALE of over 18 years.
We've seen a small expansion in market yields, which has been mitigated by passing and market rent growth, particularly across the early learning centre portfolio, providing for an overall uplift in portfolio value of 1.5%. The passing yield for the portfolio is now just under 5.5%. The portfolio is 100% occupied. Our weighted average like-for-like rent increases for the year was 3.5%, which includes 30 market rent reviews, which were completed at an average increase of 6.8%. We've made further progress on our renewable energy projects, with 92% of the portfolio now being powered by solar energy. These initiatives are not only reducing the energy intensity of our portfolio, but they are lowering utility costs for our tenant partners and are favored by our tenants' customers, the families and communities that use our properties daily.
We've divested five assets in the period for a total of $37.5 million at an average 18% premium to prevailing book value and recycled those proceeds back into our development pipeline and acquisition programs. We've acquired 11 operating properties and have completed 12 early learning centre developments. We've further expanded the development pipeline, which now has 29 projects at various stages of completion, all of which we anticipate completing over the next two years, with a forecast total cost of $227 million and $176 million of expenditure forecast to complete as of 30 June. The anticipated net initial yield on all costs for these projects is 6%. Moving on to an update on our sustainability programs. As many of you will be aware, sustainability is not something we treat as a separate project or division at Arena REIT. It's part of who we are and how we run the business.
We believe that by embedding sustainability in every decision we make, we're creating long-term value for you, our investors, and delivering real benefits to the communities we invest in. We're proud of the positive social impact our portfolio delivers across our early learning centres and healthcare properties. These are essential community services that tens of thousands of Australians rely on daily. Over the past 12 months, we've achieved zero organizational Scope 1 and 2 emissions. Our emissions reduction plan is on track with a clear path to net zero financed emissions by 2050 and an interim goal of cutting emission intensity by 60% to 70% by 2030. These steps aren't just good for the environment. They make our tenants stronger, lower operating costs, and enhance the long-term value of our assets.
For those wanting further detail on our sustainability programs, please take a look at our 2025 sustainability report, which we anticipate will be released in late September. I'll now pass you over to Gareth to provide further details on our financial results.
Thanks, Rob, and good morning, everyone. Just turning to page eight of the presentation, you will find a summary of Arena REIT's FY25 operating income statement, which shows the 17% increase in net operating profit to $73 million and a statutory profit of $81.5 million. There is a reconciliation of net operating profit to statutory profit in the appendix to the presentation, with the most substantial items being the periodic revaluation of investment property and derivatives. Operating EPS of $0.1855 is 5.1% higher than FY24, with the key driver of the increase in operating profit being the relative 15% increase in property income. The increase in property income is from a combination of rent reviews and capital deployment. Like-for-like rent reviews averaged 3.5%. As inflation has more recently declined, we have moved back towards the minimum annual rent escalation mechanisms in the leases, which averages close to 3% per annum.
There is also additional growth from market rent reviews, which averaged 6.8% in FY25. Also contributing to the increase in income were the acquisition of 10 operating early learning centers and a healthcare-based asset during the year and income from Arena REIT's ongoing program of investment in early learning center developments, with 12 early learning centers completing during the year. Just looking at some of the other line items, other income is interest income, which is higher than the prior year, with some of the proceeds from our July 2024 equity raise held in cash pending near-term property settlements. There has been a modest change in property expenses. The expenses are ultimately linked to the size of the portfolio and are largely comprised of independent valuation and property inspection costs. There has been a $700,000 increase in cash-based operating expenses.
This increase was expected and was flagged in our FY24 results, with the increase being primarily from our investment in our team resources to support growth and succession planning, including the Chief Investment Officer role and other roles in our property team. Our cash-based MER remains at around 33 bps. The increase in finance costs is largely due to the acquisition of operating properties during the year, with total debt increasing by $60 million over the course of the year, albeit gearing has remained stable given the equity raising, and our overall cost of debt remained relatively stable during the year. Capitalized interest on the development book for the year was $3.3 million, which is slightly higher than the comparative period by $0.4 million, reflecting greater average value in the development WIP.
The higher statutory profit of $81.5 million was primarily due to the higher asset revaluations of $24 million compared to $4 million in the prior year. We've paid distributions of $0.1825 per security for FY2025, which was in line with our guidance, which represents growth of 5% on FY2024. We've provided guidance today for FY2026 distributions of $0.1925 per security, which represents growth of 5.5%. In terms of some core assumptions for the guidance, we've used a forward BVSW curve and an average rate of 3.3% across FY2026, noting that our hedge cover is expected to average around 80% across FY2026 at a rate of 2.8% and an average CPI assumption of 2.5% each quarter. At this level, the CPI, obviously the minimum rent escalation, comes into force. Our payout ratio is expected to be consistent with recent years, noting FY2025 was 98.4%.
Turning to page nine, there's a waterfall chart of EPS change for the period. The chart demonstrates the relativity of the individual items supporting EPS growth, noting the key drivers of growth remain periodic rent reviews and the deployment of capital into acquisitions and developments, with the main offset being funding mixed from the capital raise prior to those funds being deployed into new investment, noting that the full benefit of our FY2025 acquisitions will not be realized until FY2026. Turning to page 10, this slide presents a summary of Arena REIT's balance sheet. The full balance sheet is in the appendix to the presentation. Key points here to note are the 12% growth in investment property, being primarily due to $224 million invested in acquisitions and development CapEx during the period.
Positive asset revaluations of $24 million, which has been offset by asset sales, noting that we have $15 million of asset sale proceeds in receivables, which will be received in the first quarter of FY2026, and a further $35 million of assets held-for-sale, of which $18 million is subject to contract. The asset divestments represent capital recycling into new developments to improve our overall portfolio quality. Gearing of 22.8% is stable, notwithstanding the significant capital deployment during FY2026 due to the $164 million of equity raised during the year and the positive asset revaluations. Turning to slide 11 and a capital management summary, the highlights here are to support new investment, we completed an institutional placement of $120 million in July of 2024, together with an FPP, which raised $24 million in August. That has been supplemented by a further $20 million raised through our DRP.
We completed a debt refinancing in April of 2025. The facility was expanded by $100 million. All tranches were extended by a year, with a weighted average term now of 3.9 years, with no expiry before 31 May 2028. Pricing was also reduced across all maturities. At 30 June, we had immediately available liquidity of $163 million from the debt facility, which together with the capital recycling from the proceeds of asset sales, covers our development commitments of $176 million. Our relatively modest gearing allows us to further consider expansion of our debt facility for new investment opportunities. In FY2023, we introduced a sustainability overlay on our debt facility with a range of targets across our solar program, emissions reductions, and modern slavery program. This results in a modest pricing adjustment in relation to those targets, and those targets were fully achieved in respective FY2025.
Our all-in weighted average cost of debt at 30 June has increased slightly to 4.1%, which was expected and primarily due to natural change in our swap book as expiring swaps roll off and new swaps commence during the year. This was offset by improved pricing on our debt facility. The primary objective of the hedging program is smoothing rates through the cycle, with a substantial and sustained increase in floating rates since FY2023 mitigated prior practice of holding consistently high levels of hedge cover. At June, we had hedge cover at 69% on our active swaps, with a weighted average term of 2.3 years and a weighted average rate of 2.45%. The average hedge rate, including forward start hedging of the current book, averages 2.78% in FY2026 and 3.06% in FY2027.
The hedge book, including forward start hedges, provides cover across FY2026 and FY2027 within our target range of 70 to 80%. We will continue to add to the hedge profile over time to increase cover for FY2028 and FY2029, but still maintain the scope to participate in further interest rate reductions in the hedging program as our development pipeline is funded. Finally, it is important to note that Arena REIT continues to operate with substantial headroom in our banking covenants, and I'll now pass to Justin to give us an update on Arena REIT's property portfolio.
Thanks, Gareth, and good morning, everyone. I'm Justin Bailey, Arena's Chief Investment Officer and as of today, CEO designate. I thank Rob for his early words. I'm incredibly excited to be transitioning into the role of CEO and Managing Director later in the year. I've worked closely with Rob and the Arena board over the last 18 months, getting to know the business, our team, and our stakeholders. I look forward to working with our expanded Arena team to build on the company's track record, consistent with our strategy and our investment objectives. Today, I'll provide an update on Arena's portfolio and operating environment. Starting on slide 13 of the presentation, Arena's operating portfolio comprises 271 early learning centres and 10 healthcare properties with a value of $1.74 billion.
Consistent with our purpose of building communities together, our portfolio supports the delivery of essential services, including childcare, primary healthcare, disability accommodation, and key healthcare worker accommodation across many Australian communities. Demand for these essential services has resulted in the portfolio being in an excellent position. The portfolio is diversified both in terms of geographies, with the properties located in major population centres, and particularly the East Coast, and in terms of tenants. We currently have 35 tenant partners, with no individual tenant accounting for more than 21% of our income. The passing yield on the portfolio at 30 June was 5.47%, representing a slight expansion in yields over the full financial year of 8 basis points, with our early learning centre yields expanding by 5 basis points to 5.41% and yields on our healthcare assets expanding 41 basis points to 6.09%.
The net valuation movement for the portfolio over the period saw an increase of $24 million, driven by strong increases in passing and market rents, particularly in our early learning portfolio. A detailed breakdown of our early learning centre valuations, including developments, is included on slide 27. Moving on to the lease expiry profile on slide 14, we have no lease expiry due in FY2026 or 2027 or 2028. As you can see in the graph on this slide, we have less than 1% of the portfolio's income expiring prior to the end of 2032, and over 60% of the portfolio lease income expires from 2040. We continue to focus on portfolio WALE as a priority, targeting acquisitions with long-term leases in place and, where possible, putting new leases in place, renegotiating existing lease terms to extend leases, and adding new 20-year leases through our development program.
This active management of our portfolio has helped extend our WALE over the second half of the year to 18.4 years. Since 2020, we've been able to increase the portfolio WALE from 14 years, consistent with our investment objective. Moving on to rent reviews on slide 15, like-for-like rent increased by 3.5% in FY25 as a result of annual and market rent reviews completed during the year. The vast majority of the portfolio's income is structured with an annual escalation that is the higher of CPI or an agreed fixed amount, typically 3%. This provides continued income growth linked to CPI in periods of high inflation, as we've seen in recent years, but importantly provides a floor on rent growth as inflation abates, as we're now seeing. Thirty market rent reviews were completed in the period. Those reviews were resolved at an average increase of 6.8%.
Of those reviews, 25 were capped at 7.5%, with the reviews hitting the cap on 21 properties. In FY26, we have 43 market rent reviews representing 10% of the portfolio's income, of which 31 are capped at 7.5% and 12 are uncapped. We are still seeing continued growth in market rents as a result of strong demand for early childhood education and care services, which is evidenced by high occupancy and increases in daily fees in the sector. Over 40% of the portfolio's income is subject to market rent review over the next four years. Moving now on to slide 16, we've had a strong focus on portfolio curation in 2025, taking the opportunity to divest poorer quality assets and invest into better located and higher quality properties. We completed 11 acquisitions in FY25, totaling $129 million, at a weighted average initial yield of 6.1%.
That comprised 10 operating early learning centers, all tenanted by existing tenant partners. We also acquired a purpose-built key healthcare worker accommodation property backed by a 19-year triple net lease. All of those acquisitions were made in the first half and are performing in line with expectations. We sold five early learning center properties during the period for total proceeds of $37.5 million. The sales represent a premium to book value of 18%, with the majority of proceeds to be received in FY26. The result demonstrates the deep liquidity in the secondary market for childcare assets, which allows us to recycle capital from underperforming centers into well-located high-quality properties and our development pipeline. Portfolio curation will remain a key focus for us in FY26. Turning to slide 17, we completed 12 early learning center developments in the financial year.
Those developments represent a total investment of $83.1 million and an initial passing yield on total cost of 5.8%. Our continued record of development completions demonstrates Arena REIT's ability to manage programs of ELC development at scale. We currently have 14 developments underway, which will complement the portfolio and deliver future earnings growth. In addition, we conditionally contracted a further 15 developments prior to June 30. Including those, our pipeline has 29 developments with a total forecast cost of $227 million. The forecast weighted average initial yield on all costs for the pipeline is 6%, and the projects are scheduled to complete over FY26 and FY27. Consistent with our approach to development, each of the projects is being undertaken on a fund-through basis, which provides contractual protections for time and cost overruns, and each has an agreement for lease in place based on our standard form 20-year triple net lease.
In the past 10 years, Arena REIT has delivered 90 ELC developments. It demonstrates the capability of the Arena REIT team to source and deliver new purpose-built properties for our tenant partners around the country and remains a key focus in our strategy. Moving on to slide 18, Arena REIT's early learning portfolio remains in a strong position. Our occupancy is 100%. Our tenant partners' average underlying business occupancy remains stable from FY24. Average daily fees have increased to $155 a day at March 2025, up 9.75% from March 2024. This average daily fee remains below the government's benchmark fee of $161 a day. As you can see on the graph on the bottom of the slide, the government funding package continues to suit our portfolio, which is typically geared towards middle-income families.
Our average rent across the portfolio has increased to $3,240 per place, but while rents have increased over the period, on average, affordability of rent for our tenant partners has improved, with net rent to gross revenue dropping below 10% to 9.9%. Net new ELC supply over the period was 3.5%, generally in line with the prior year. Reforms introduced over the last two years are expected to further increase demand by improving affordability and access for families, including the announced removal of the activity test in the government's three-day guarantee bill passed in February this year. I'm now on slide 19. The benefits of early childhood education and care are well established: improved lifelong learning outcomes for children, greater workforce participation, increased financial security, particularly for women, and improved economic productivity.
The return on investment for government is estimated in various economic studies to be $2 and up to $7 for every dollar invested in early childhood education. Childcare remains a centerpiece of federal government policy. As we've seen in the last two years, a series of policies all centered around providing expanded access to high quality, affordable childcare, which supports continued growth in the sector. Recent incidents of abuse and misconduct in childcare centers have brought into greater focus the regulatory framework and led federal and state governments to propose a range of measures designed to improve safeguarding of children and quality across the sector. We support the adoption of enhanced safety measures. We're working with our tenant partners in our role as property owners to support the response to regulatory reforms, noting that our leases are structured on a triple net lease basis.
In our view, the proposed changes increase oversight in the sector and will ultimately lead to a stronger and a safer sector. Moving on to the next slide, our existing portfolio of community-based healthcare and healthcare accommodation properties continues to perform in line with expectations. The longer-term fundamentals of the healthcare sector remain attractive. Community demand for healthcare services will continue to increase as a result of Australia's growing and aging population. We continue to closely track the sector and see that we are entering a period where there may be increased opportunity for investment as pricing shifts to more attractive levels. As we reported in our half-year results, we acquired a key healthcare worker accommodation property in December, fully leased to Bendigo Health, a Victorian government entity.
The property was purpose-built under a long-term triple net lease arrangement and provides essential support to the delivery of healthcare services in that region. Investment in healthcare and other social infrastructure property sectors remains part of our growth strategy. This investment highlights the features we're looking for when considering further investment. We remain disciplined in our approach with a continued focus on our investment objective, which is to deliver an attractive and predictable distribution to investors with earnings growth prospects over the medium to long term. I'll now hand back to Rob.
Thanks, Justin. I am now on the final slide. Today, we are announcing full-year distribution guidance for financial year 2026 of $0.1925 per security, an increase of 5.5% on financial year 2025. The portfolio is in a strong position.
Our healthcare and childcare investments are performing well, with solid rental growth across the portfolio with long leases that have embedded and transparent income growth. Future earnings growth for the business will be underpinned by those contracted annual rent increases, including outstanding and future market rent reviews and the impact of our financial year 2025 and financial year 2026 acquisition and development completions. Looking forward, Arena's outlook is positive. Early learning and healthcare services are integral to economic stability and improving community outcomes. Those themes underpin Arena's portfolio value and investment objective. We're in a great position to explore and execute on new growth opportunities with gearing under 23%. Our expanded and experienced management team has strong industry relationships and expertise that will assist us sourcing those new opportunities in our usual disciplined way.
In closing, I'd like to congratulate Justin on his deserved appointment to CEO designate and to thank the Arena team and our tenant partners for their efforts and contribution to the positive outcomes that have been achieved for our investors and the communities in which we invest in financial year 2025. I'll now pass the call to the operator to open up for questions. Thank you.
Thank you. If you wish to ask a question, please press star, then one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. If you wish to cancel your request, please press star, then two. If you are on a speakerphone, please pick up the handset before pressing the keys. We will pause momentarily to assemble our roster. The first question will come from Lou Pirenc with Jarden. Please go ahead.
Yes, good morning, Rob and Justin. Justin, congratulations on a new job, and Rob, congratulations on a great career. You know, having covered the stock since IPO, it's been great to see the disciplined growth of Arena REIT. In terms of the questions, can you maybe talk about the development pipeline? Is that the 15 newly contracted developments? Is that one portfolio with one operator, or is it just an amalgamation of individual ones?
It's a great question. It's a mix of operators and a mix of developers. In that, there is one particular operator who's a very strong performing operator who has a number of agreements for lease that will support that, but it isn't one single portfolio.
Should we see the acceleration of the pipeline as something you're focused on going forward to accelerate that further?
I think it's been a key part of the business's strategy for a long time. We do see it continuing as a core focus, and we're encouraged by seeing strong regulatory support for the sector continue to present opportunities for us. It will definitely form part of the key growth for the business going forward.
Great, and maybe also on the acquisition of the stabilised assets, just interested, I mean, how much upside is there for you as a, I guess, a new landlord to push rents or to work with the operator to get better financial outcomes?
I think we've certainly been buying the properties with in-place income. We have to take the leases that we're buying into. We see a lot of opportunities that we decline because we don't like the quality of the leases. The properties that we've bought have leases that are quite close to ours. We will always look for opportunities to extend leases or change rents if there is an opportunity to talk about whether it's installation of solar or other augmentation of the properties there. We will actively look for that. At the moment, what you'd say is you'd value the cash flows coming from the leases that we acquired whilst we work through that.
Great, and then maybe a final one for you, Gareth. You highlighted the operating costs and the reasons for it. Is that something for FY2026 guidance where you expect further elevated operating cost inflation?
I think there's obviously a bit of a transition going on during the course of 2026, so there'll be some ins and outs. I'd expect that the overall cost would remain around that 33 bps mark.
Thank you.
The next question will come from Cody Shield with UBS. Please go ahead.
Good morning, Rob and team. Firstly, Rob, just congratulations and well done on your time with Arena REIT, and Justin, congratulations on the appointment. First question, I suppose, what changes should we anticipate with strategy post that leadership transition? Do you think there'll be any major shifts in portfolio composition, for example?
No, look, I think management and the board are very aligned in terms of the strategy that we currently have. The transition won't change that. As you'll have seen from our FY2024 results and looking at FY2025 and FY2026, we're clearly looking to execute that strategy well.
Okay, and just maybe on slide 20, I think this might be the first time we've referred to looking at other social infrastructure assets and not just health assets. What type of asset might that entail?
I think we've always given ourselves the opportunity within the mandate to consider opportunities in social infrastructure outside healthcare and early learning. We're not signaling anything at this particular point in time to say there is a message here about a particular sector that we're pursuing. What we were trying to do with this slide in particular is give you a sense we are looking broadly, but the fundamental characteristics that we're looking for in any investment are very clear and aligned with our investment objective. We think the Bendigo Health acquisition from December gives you a really good sense about where we are focused in terms of sort of lease and property characteristics.
Okay, that's clear. Last one, just on slide 19, the reforms to enhance safety. What kind of impact, if any, do you anticipate to have, or this will have across the portfolio? For example, higher operating costs for operators, what might that mean for rents, for example?
Yeah, thanks, Cody. I guess first principles, you know, the government introducing and more focus on quality is right. The couple of incidents that we've seen reportedly sort of share that community of stress with that, but it is unlikely that we'll see anything that's going to bend the ultimate objective of the childcare sector. That is, you know, a well-performing, easily accessible, affordable, and quality. The types of things that are coming out of state and federal governments at the moment are focused on things like CCTV, things like repeated offenses against community expectations may be being penalized, but that will ultimately be a good thing. Higher quality will be better for the communities. You know, as Justin pointed out, the rental revenues at its lowest point at the moment, there's room in there for any additional operational costs that might be associated with it.
It's probably going to be a bit around labor.
Okay, that's great. Thanks, guys, and congrats again, Rob and Justin.
Thanks, Cody. Cheers.
The next question will come from Simon Chan with Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.
Hey, good morning, guys. I've managed to go through a development pipeline that you've reported over the last five to ten years, and never have you had 29 projects in the pipeline. Never has it been that massive. Is this just a pure fluke, as in a point in time, or is this a sign of things to come where, you know, as funding costs come down, you guys are going to look to ramp up on development projects in a more, you know, big fashion?
I think there's two parts, Simon, to answer that question. The first part is I think Arena REIT has been positioning for growth over the last couple of years by bringing on some additional resources. That has allowed us to pursue and execute more opportunities. We've got the team to do it. The way that we're doing that is the same way that the business has done it over a long period of time. We're trying to make that really clear. The way that we structure on fund-throughs isn't changing the risk profile, and we're doing this all on the basis of our traditional 20-year standard form lease. We're really comfortable with the product.
I think you're right in saying, as we enter this part of the cycle, that we are seeing opportunities to secure more of a development pipeline when funding costs are coming off, and that is going to make those leases more attractive ultimately in the long term. We're comfortable that it's part of what we're doing as a strategy going forwards, and we've certainly got the team to be able to execute it.
Sounds good. Just one thing to clarify, your WALE extended by 0.4 years despite the passage of time. Can I assume that's just simply because you've got new assets going in with 20-year WALE, and therefore that's increased the WALE, or has there been some negotiation that's taken place over the last six months?
There's a mix of both there, Simon. As I was trying to draw out in my piece, we're really focused on taking opportunities to extend that WALE, knowing that over time that it obviously erodes. In answering your question, yes, we've got some new assets dropping in there, but we've also been actively looking for opportunities to negotiate lease extensions. Part of that, you know, we look for opportunities that might be to rentalize a bit of CapEx or things like that. It's always on our minds to effectively push WALE where we can.
Great. Just one last one, and Rob de Vos touched on this in answering the previous guy's question. Net rent gross revenue is now less than 10%, I think, at historic lows. Do you think that means you guys are actually under-rented across the whole portfolio, or do you think because, you know, other costs have gone up such that there's probably less propensity for rent to revenue to get back to the 11 to 12% range going forward?
Perhaps I can answer that question. You know, our average rent for place at the moment is $3,240. When we look at new rent struck for our and other development pipelines, we see rents that are sort of well into the $4,000s. In fact, in some parts of the country, we see rents above that. You might deduce from that that we've seen a period of rent growth that is sort of highlighting the fact that over time we would expect to capture some rent growth through our portfolio.
That's terrific. Thanks, Justin. Cheers.
The next question will come from Ben Brayshaw with Barrenjoey. Please go ahead.
Hi, Rob. Thanks for the presentation. My question is in relation to the market rent reviews completed for the period. Could you clarify, were there any that were uncapped, and what were the outcomes for those uncapped reviews?
Yeah, there were. I can take that question on.
Justin, thanks, Ben.
There were 25 of the 32 for the period that were capped. We hit the cap on 21. There were seven that were uncapped, and there was a range of outcomes on those. The highest market rent review number in that was over 20%, but there was a range effectively.
Okay, terrific. As you look across the forward profile, as you've set out in slide 15, typically what % of the market reviews would be subject to a cap?
It's generally somewhere in the order of 70% to 80% year by year.
Yeah, terrific. Thanks for your time and congratulations on your tenure, Rob.
Great, thanks, Ben.
The next question will come from Mary Conlin with Mullis, Australia. Please go ahead.
Hi, good morning. Rob, congratulations on an excellent tenure and a well-earned retirement, and Justin, congratulations on your new role. I was wondering whether you could make a quick comment just on the direct market and how you're seeing things there. Obviously, the scale of the development pipeline in the business has increased quite a bit, but it looks like with regards to some of your acquisitions and sales, you've become more of a seller than a net buyer over the last six months, and obviously some really good outcomes there in terms of premiums to book value on the direct market. Is it, just given what seems to be a bit of an uptick in demand there, is it easier to remain a net seller there, or is it just a function of continuing to be selective?
Yeah, look, in terms of transaction volumes, it's the second highest in the last five years, so the market is very, very active. The market continues to be dominated by high net worth buyers, and that is really driving pricing in that market to some very attractive levels. One of the assets that we divested during the period was sold on a yield of 3.96%, even though it was an asset we didn't necessarily see as a long-term fit for our portfolio. We look at that and say that's a wonderful position to be in, to be able to sell into when we're looking for opportunities to sell assets, and we'll look for further opportunities in FY2026, really as part of a review of the quality of our portfolio. That's the lens that we're taking.
In terms of acquisition opportunities, I think our FY2025 results give you a pretty good insight into how we're thinking about it. We're able to buy the portfolio of six centres in July last year, largely because the transaction was bundled and effectively took a number of assets. Had they been traded independently, probably would have traded much tighter. We were able to secure that because there was a lack of buyers at that institutional scale. We are still very much watching that thematic and looking for opportunities for portfolios. The other transactions we did were really in that secondary space, really a sell and lease back with an own party that was done off market, so we're able to agree that commercially.
We weren't necessarily in the market trying to buy individual centres competing against high net worth because we see that being the pricing that they will pay for assets, and often the quality of the leases don't suit our requirements.
Got it. That's clear. Thank you. I was wondering whether you could just make a quick comment on the operating environments for your tenant partners at the moment and, you know, some of the conversations that you're having there. Obviously, the competition for labor has always been a bit of an issue for the industry. I guess how has that environment changed over the last year?
I think the competition for labor as an issue will always be there, but it's abated from where it was over the last two to three years. Certainly, the government's effort to put the wage subsidy in place has seemed to improve the landscape for operators, although I think our view was job ads were declining sort of coming into government's announcements. There was already some green shoot that the sort of ability to attract and retain staff was manageable. I think operators over the last 12 months have certainly been talking about growth, which is positive, and that's what's given us confidence to expand our network as well. I think the current focus for operators clearly is the regulatory changes, which are really focused around quality. Operators are working through that.
I think what we'd say is a lot of what is proposed has already been adopted by operators who are operating in a best practice sort of way. Some of the proposals around now, things like even no vaping, use of digital phones, and the likes in centers have already been dealt with. They will have to work through the suite of regulatory changes around quality and safety that are coming from the federal and state government. That will be a focus for them. As Rob de Vos said before, good operators are well prepared to adapt, and certainly from affordability and the sort of metrics that we're seeing in our portfolio, operators are able to price that in if they need to.
Got it. Thank you very much.
The next question will come from Callum Bramah with Macquarie. Please go ahead.
Good morning. I just wanted to add my congratulations to both Rob and Justin, but just wanted to go back to the piece around market rent reviews. I just wanted to understand when you think that curve ticks up, as in the rate of rent in the portfolio going down to 9.9%. When do you think it starts to trend up?
I'll maybe take that. Thanks for the comment, Carl. Look, as a result of how the current childcare subsidy works, there's a lot of price elasticity there for operators. That is that, you know, across the average of the industry, about two-thirds of the revenue is coming from government. Like you put up your fees a dollar, only $0.30 of that's going to the consumer. That gives the likelihood of the ability to absorb higher costs, including higher rent costs. I think as most people on the call understand, that higher rent cost is coming from a couple of things. One is in itself the higher profitability that's coming from operators. The second bit is higher costs of development and new network expansion. That environment hasn't changed. It continues to escalate. In fact, this idea of development costs coming off hasn't been the case to date.
It's still higher construction costs, higher development costs across the country. That may come off a little bit with, hopefully, some reduced government work into the next couple of years. As it stands, new network expansion is costing more. Economic rents, as Justin mentioned, are sort of at the now high $4,000. I think we'll see quite an extended period of time of the likelihood of rent growth, market rent growth across the sector. The question then becomes when do you access it? I think we made the disclosures there on page 15. We've sort of got 40% that sits in market rent reviews, 40% of income over the next four years. As Justin also mentioned, a lot of that is capped. I think that we've seen a lot of that sort of hitting the caps.
We continue to sort of curate the portfolio such that rent growth on a predictable basis is what we love to see and sort of pushing out those terminal risks too, Carl. I think we're in for a good market rent growth for some time is our view.
I have just a couple on the development. I think I might have this wrong, but I was expecting, I guess, a year-on cost slightly higher than the $5.8 million in fiscal 2025, I thought around $6 million as well. I might have been just off in memory of that. What is that gap, and any color you could give us on the staging of the spend over 2026, 2027, the $176 million, I think it was, that's outstanding.
I think on the second question, which is the staging of the spend, I think we're sort of forecasting that over the balance of FY2026 and FY2027 in even increments. That's the $175 million spread over those four half years. In terms of the actual yield on the completed deals, it really comes down to which developments effectively completed during that period. The 5.8% reflects the deals that were completed. When you look across the rest of the portfolio, obviously we're now with that pipeline at around 6%. We've seen some uptick in the overall portfolio over time. We'd like to see our development, our pricing on fund-through deals, widened even further if we can try and negotiate that. We are focused on trying to write deals that are obviously in the sort of 6% plus territory.
Obviously we've got to have an economic solution for developers and tenants to make that work.
Does guidance include any acquisition or divestment assumption other than what's currently in train?
Only those that are already in train and disclosed.
Maybe my last one then, just to Justin about capital allocation and the diversification. Perhaps I'm oversimplifying it, but if we look at Arena REIT versus CQE and the performance, Arena REIT's materially outperformed underlying total return of the business. In part, it could be put down to CQE's diversification away from childcare. I just wanted to, when you're thinking about that diversification strategy and return profiles, etc., how compelling it is.
Yeah, look, I definitely recognize your comments there. I mean, the reality is that the investment in the childcare sector has had very strong regulatory tailwinds and obviously has had the benefit of rent growth coming through those leases over time and attractive valuations. I think what I'd say on diversification is we're not setting ourselves up to diversify at all for diversification's sake. Everything that we're looking at is in a relative opportunity sense, and that opportunity is not just short-term yield. It's very much on balance. Does it make sense to deploy our capital into something other than childcare? Clearly, you've seen us very focused on WALE, but another part is really around sustainability of rents and the ability to capture long-term rent growth.
We don't want to invest in properties that might have a short WALE and a sort of a sugar hit of enhanced yield if we can't capture long-term rent growth that's commensurate with what we've been able to achieve out of childcare.
Thank you so much.
There are no further questions at this time. I would like to hand the call back over to Mr. Rob de Vos for any closing remarks. Please go ahead, sir.
Thank you very much for everyone's attendance and engagement in the call today. That obviously concludes the investor briefing. Please don't hesitate to contact Susie, Gareth, Justin, or me directly with any questions, and we look forward to seeing a number of you over the coming days and weeks. Thanks very much.
This concludes our conference call for today. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.