Thank you, operator, and good morning, everybody. Thank you for joining Centuria Office REIT's 2025 Financial Year Results Presentation. My name is Jesse Curtis, Head of Funds Management for Centuria Capital . Presenting today with me is Belinda Cheung, Fund Manager of the Centuria Office REIT, and Cameron Mullen, Senior Fund Analyst. Also in the room with us is Grant Nichols, Head of Listed Funds, Tim Mitchell, Head of Investor Relations, and Jason Huljich, Joint CEO of Centuria Capital . Starting on slide three, I would like to commence today's presentation with an acknowledgement of country. We are joining you from the lands of the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation. Centuria manages properties throughout Australia and New Zealand and pays its respects to the traditional owners in each country, to their unique culture, and to their elders, past and present.
The outlook for the office sector is showing stronger indicators of market improvement. Diminishing new office supply and a reduction in existing office stock is providing a backdrop to normalized vacancy and signs of improved tenant demand. This is particularly the case for Metropolitan Office, where supply is becoming extremely constrained as office development feasibilities remain challenging, which we anticipate will drive market rents in the medium term. Office supply is further reduced, with the rising trend of secondary assets being withdrawn for conversion to alternative uses, creating additional demand for displaced tenants. These trends bode well for existing A-grade office landlords and reaffirm our optimism for the future of Metropolitan office markets. In today's presentation, Belinda and Cameron will cover an overview of COF's full-year performance, COF's financial results, COF's portfolio, and conclude with a market overview and guidance.
Moving to slide four, Centuria Office REIT is managed by Centuria Capital Group, which has over $20 billion of assets under management. COF unit holders benefit from Centuria's deep real estate expertise, including a fully integrated property, facilities, and asset management platform. Synergies across the group's wider office portfolio and strong alignment, as Centuria is COF's largest unit holder, and the manager's interests are strongly aligned with yours as unit holders. Moving now to slide six, COF's long-standing strategy and vision remain unchanged. We aspire to be Australia's leading pure-play office REIT, with a focus on generating sustainable and quality income streams and executing initiatives to create value across our portfolio of quality office assets within metropolitan and near-city markets that are differentiated by sustainability, amenity, and connectivity.
The results that Belinda and Cameron present today reflect the execution of this strategy, supported by the deep real estate capability of the broader Centuria team to drive value for unit holders. I will now pass over to Belinda.
Thank you, Jesse, and good morning, everyone. Starting on slide seven, COF had a solid performance during the 2025 financial year and delivered funds from operations of $0.118 per unit and distributions of $0.101 per unit, in line with guidance. Key highlights for the year include an $18 million property valuation gain in the second half, supported by market rental growth across most office markets, which marks the first period of portfolio growth since peak valuations were recorded in June 2022. Leasing terms were agreed for more than 24,000 square meters, or 9% of the portfolio net lettable area across 44 separate deals, bringing occupancy to 91.2%, well above the National Metropolitan Office occupancy level of 82%.
All debt facilities were refinanced with renegotiated covenants, allowing greater headroom to LVR and ICR covenant requirements and extending expiry to FY 2028, and completion of a 1.1 MW edge data centre, which has contributed to a 19% uplift in asset valuation and further diversifies the rental income streams in the REIT. COF continues to execute its strategy through active leasing, as well as asset and capital management initiatives. Despite this, leasing across Australian metropolitan markets remains challenging and continues to weigh on earnings in FY 2026, which is detailed on slide eight. We provide FY 2026 FFO guidance of $0.111 - $0.115 per unit and distribution guidance of $0.101 per unit. Key drivers of this outlook on earnings include forecast downtime associated with current vacancy and FY 2026 expiry. We have applied conservative downtime assumptions, including no income for full-floor vacancies and expiry in FY 2026.
Should we complete any incremental leasing, there will be potential upside to earnings. Interest rate cuts are another factor to the range. We anticipate COF 's all-in cost of debt will be about 5.2%, which remains relatively consistent with a marginal cost of debt. There may be potential earnings upside should interest rate cuts be made beyond what is forecasted today. As always, leasing is a major focus, and we are well progressed on multiple leasing negotiations for the upcoming expiry and will provide further updates in the first quarter update. Let's look more broadly at the Australian metropolitan office markets on slide nine. High replacement costs continue to impact office development feasibilities, and we are seeing the strain on supply play out in the current market, including a growing number of mooted or delayed projects.
The future pipeline in metropolitan markets is meager compared to what was delivered during the past five years, and COF's portfolio will have minimal exposure to these buildings, with less than 8% of the new stock built in directly competing markets. High replacement costs are escalating economic rents, widening the gap to current market rents, and are especially pronounced in metro and fringe markets compared to CBDs. This discourages tenants from pre-committing to new builds and instead shifts that demand to existing office buildings, like COF 's assets, which will re-offer high-quality office spaces accessible to amenity and transport, and by comparison can offer more compelling value. Onto slide ten. Replacement costs have increased by at least 40% since 2020, driven by escalations in material pricing and financing costs, labor, as well as leasing-related incentives.
The hypothetical cost to build an A-grade office in Metro Sydney has grown by our estimate from $11,000 a square meter to over $15,000 a square meter since 2020. At $15,000 a square meter, replacement costs are more than 2x COF 's current average valuation at $6,900 per square meter, and this is 2.5x its implied value based on the recent trading price. Moving to slide 11. Further adding to the supply strain is the significant shift in office withdrawal strategies of landlords from office redevelopment to conversion to alternate use. Looking back at the last five years, three quarters of all withdrawn office stock was refurbished and reintroduced to the market as office stock. Looking forward to the next five years, we expect this to change significantly to over 90% of forecast future withdrawals converted to other uses.
The driver for these drastic changes includes population growth outpacing housing supply and the introduction of government housing policies such as transport-oriented developments or the Housing Development Authority, which are focused on metro markets due to its proximity to public transport, entertainment, and civic precincts. Metropolitan markets have experienced higher levels of vacancy to date due to it having a higher concentration of low-grade, underutilized office, which now presents an attractive case for conversion as the higher and better use shifts to other sectors like living, data centre, and life sciences and underpins the land value of metro office. In more detail on slide 12, it's estimated that by 2030, 10% of total office stock in Metro Sydney will be withdrawn and converted to non-office uses, displacing existing tenants of those buildings. Colliers expects over 100,000 square meters of office demand from these displaced tenants.
Adding this to the forecast absorption numbers meaningfully improves the forecast vacancy in Metro Sydney to 8.7% by the end of 2030. I will now hand over to Cameron to take you through the financial results and portfolio overview.
Thank you, Belinda. Moving to our financial results on slide 14, COF delivered funds from operations of $70.4 million or $0.118 per unit. Gross property income decreased primarily due to asset divestments executed during FY 2024 and a higher portfolio vacancy. The average all-in cost of debt incurred for FY 2025 was 5.4%. COF declared and paid distributions of $0.101 per unit across the period in quarterly installments, representing a payout ratio of 85.7%. Slide 15 details COF 's capital management. At the beginning of the year, COF completed an $862 million loan refinance with existing lenders, resulting in beneficial outcomes such as renegotiated debt covenants, extended debt duration, and no change to margin. COF maintains sufficient liquidity and debt covenant headroom with no debt expiring until FY 2028.
Now turning our attention to COF 's portfolio, starting on slide 17. The COF portfolio provides quality, highly connected, and affordable office space that is consistent with the style of workspace that both occupiers and investors increasingly seek. That is, new generation buildings that provide higher quality accommodation with healthy lifestyle-oriented work environments, efficient floor plates, and improved amenity while being competitively priced. Furthermore, there is increased demand to be located in areas that provide efficient commutes to improve employee satisfaction and attract the best talent.
When looking specifically at the COF portfolio, it has been positioned to deliver on many of these qualities by offering a young portfolio with an average of 18 years, high-quality assets with 93% meeting an A-grade specification, highly efficient buildings with five-star average NABERS energy rating, significant geographic diversification providing exposure to Australia's high-performing office markets, and locations that are easily accessible by both public and private transport with generous car parking availability. Moving to the portfolio overview on slide 18, COF 's portfolio comprises young, quality assets positioned in Australian metropolitan and near-city office markets. COF 's portfolio of 19 assets is truly diversified with no single state exposure greater than 26%. Importantly, the portfolio is underpinned by quality tenants, boasting over 75% of portfolio income being derived from government, multinational corporations, and listed entities.
The ability to attract quality tenants is reinforced by a large proportion, with 62% of our tenant base being larger corporates occupying space exceeding 2,000 square meters. I will now hand back to Belinda to take you through the leasing summary for the period.
Thanks, Ken. Turning to slide 19. During the period, lease terms were agreed for over 24,000 square meters across 44 deals, representing 8.9% of COF's total portfolio in Australia. Average rents increased by 4.5%, and we have reached full occupancy in Western Australia. We continue to focus on leasing existing vacancies and upcoming expiry across the portfolio, particularly in Docklands and St. Leonards. Despite having faced a challenging leasing environment with higher market vacancy rates during the period, terms are agreed for over 6,000 square meters in these markets. Achieving high portfolio occupancy is a key management focus, and we are actively seeking outcomes to further improve COF's lease expiry profile, focusing on improving tenant amenity, aligning asset strategies with market conditions, and finding cost-effective solutions for tenants. Moving to valuations on slide 20.
Pleasingly, COF's portfolio reported an $18 million valuation gain in the second half, marking the first period of valuation growth for the COF portfolio since FY 2022. Further to that, 66% of the portfolio increased in value or had stable valuations, indicating that metro market valuations are stabilizing and potentially are at an inflection point. The portfolio's weighted average capitalization rate further expanded to 6.89%. However, this softening has been offset in some valuations by market rent growth at an average of 4% across the portfolio. Now turning to sustainability on slide 21. COF continued to demonstrate its commitment to environmental, social, and governance initiatives. COF achieved a five-star NABERS Sustainability Portfolio Index rating and is targeting zero scope 2 emissions by 2028. More than half of COF's portfolio is now electrified, including 100% of our Queensland assets. Continuing on slide 23.
Looking ahead to the medium term, there are a growing number of drivers supporting the Australian office markets. We touched on some of these earlier in the presentation, including high replacement cost supply and office withdrawals significantly restricting future supply and improving vacancy levels in metro markets, transport infrastructure being at the center of conversion feasibilities, and rental growth potential resulting from these supply and demand dynamics. We also believe Australia will benefit from high population growth forecast, driving a larger contingent of white-collar workers and the shift in occupier sentiment towards office-centric workforces increasing demand for office space. This has also contributed to increased levels of interest in the office sector from investors looking beyond the short-term volatility.
We saw improvement in transaction volumes resulting from the narrowing price gap between buyer and seller expectations, which demonstrated the growing positive sentiment to the sector and returning investor appetite both domestically and globally. COF's FY 2025 priorities are outlined on slide 24. From here, we continue to focus on maintaining high portfolio occupancy, improve portfolio quality, and preserve a solid balance sheet, maintaining sufficient liquidity and debt covenant headroom. I draw this presentation to a close on slide 25 with the FY 2026 FFO and distribution guidance. Thank you for your continued interest in Centuria Office REIT. I will now hand back to the operator and welcome any questions you may have.
Thank you. If you wish to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. If you wish to cancel your request, please press star two. If you're on a speakerphone, please pick up the handset to ask your question. We ask today that you please keep to three questions per person. Your first question comes from Daniel Lees of Jarden. Please go ahead.
Thanks, James. Thanks for your time. I was just wondering if you can provide some color on the lease terms agreed over the period. Maybe if you can comment on incentive levels, contractual rent increases, and releasing spreads, that would be great. Cheers.
Yes, no problem, Daniel. The average incentives for the year we noted for new leases, it was 34%, and incentives for renewals on average were 25%. In terms of leasing spreads for the year, we noticed that the average leasing spread was 3.9% positive. We have excluded the ResetData deal from these statistics, given that the ResetData is a data centre rent and would significantly skew these numbers. In terms of across the portfolio, yeah, it's pretty in line with market at the moment.
Okay, thanks a lot. I appreciate it's tough in some of the markets like Docklands, but what do you think needs to happen to get this space away? What are you saying there?
Sorry, can you repeat the question?
I was just saying I appreciate it's tough in some of the markets you're exposed to, such as Docklands. What do you think needs to happen to get that space away?
Docklands is a pretty tough market, but in recent times we've actually seen that absorption increase in that Docklands market with COFs moving into that market. I think what it takes is a bit of time. We need to see further demand in that Melbourne market. Outside of Melbourne, net absorption is actually increasing across most Australian markets, and I think this has been spurred on by population growth and some of the other trends that we were talking about in the presentation earlier.
Just one more from me, if I could. If you could make a comment on what you're seeing liquidity like in the metro transaction markets, just noting recent media commentary around ISPT at 100 Peck Highway, the Mapletree portfolio, and 475 Victoria Avenue in Castlewood, just wondering what you're seeing in transaction markets.
We're definitely noticing a lot more activity in the metro markets compared to the last few years, which is pretty good. It means that landlords are demonstrating a bit more conviction in selling in this current market. I think it's a really positive sign that there's more liquidity and just a higher level of transaction volume. This has really been spurred on by increased interest from the global market. We've seen some global capital looking around, not just in the CBD markets, but metro markets also.
Great, thanks very much.
No problem, Daniel.
Your next question comes from Tom Bodor with UBS. Please go ahead.
Morning, Belinda and Jesse. Just looking at your FFO per unit since 2021, or FY 2021, it's gone $0.199, $0.182, $0.156, $0.138, $0.118, and next year it's going lower again. I appreciate that the conditions have been challenging, but I'm just interested in when do you think you can return to FFO growth?
Tom, great question. We actually think FY 2026 is at the bottom in terms of FFO. We've got pretty good conviction going into the future that there'll be improvements in leasing as well as debt costs. If you're looking back over the last few years, debt costs have been a significant contributor to the decrease in FFO. In the past, we've also been affected by sales, or we chose to sell a number of assets that were non-core to the portfolio, which would have also contributed to the decrease in FFO.
Okay, and then I guess if I look at the other side of the equation, your gearing's consistently going up. I think, you know, a year ago it was 41%, it's now 44.4%, and you're paying out more of your FFO in your distribution, so your distribution isn't covered by free cash flow or AFFO. You know, do you see that as an issue, or are you comfortable with leveraging the mid-40%?
We're pretty comfortable with the level of debt that we have at the moment and where gearing sits, given the level of debt covenant headroom we currently have. We also believe VALs have a big impact to gearing, and given that we think the VAL market is stabilizing and potentially an inflection point from here on, we'll see a natural recovery through that too.
Is the payout ratio sustainable though, over free cash flow?
We remain pretty cognisant of our long-term payout ratio aspirations. It's likely that going forward FFO growth will exceed the distribution growth into the future until we reach our long-term payout ratio target of 80%. Based on our strong conviction that FY 2026 will be the low point, and that's driven by better leasing inquiries seen into the future, but also debt costs coming down, we're pretty comfortable with where that sits.
Okay, sure, thanks. Just a final one from me. I think you've talked in the past a lot about replacement costs, and I can see that slide is still there, but there's also, I guess, some new thoughts around change of use or conversions as a concept. The thing to think about there is that would imply that the asset value needs to be written down to land value less demolition costs. How many of your assets would be, you know, close to that level that they could be repurposed?
Tom, to make it very clear, we're not saying that any of the COF assets are in that class. We reference secondary assets, low-grade stock that have seen valuations go down to that point where alternate uses are becoming attractive. For us, how this would impact us would be the tenants that are displaced from these secondary assets, they need to go somewhere. It's really likely that tenants move within the same market, and the COF assets sitting in that market will benefit from these displaced tenants needing office space.
Okay, that's clear. Thanks for your time.
Thank you.
Your next question comes from Mari Connolly with Moelis Australia. Please go ahead.
Morning, Belinda and team. I was wondering whether you could just talk through a couple of your assumptions that went into your guidance. Just in terms of the expiry that's coming through this year, would you be able to speak to, I guess, just an average vacancy number and whether you would expect vacancy to be ticking up over the course of the year off the back of the expiry that come through and whether that's in guidance?
We've been fairly conservative in our guidance assumptions. I'm going to hear you speak, some people, vacancies, and expiry will have no income associated with it in FY 2026 and in FY 2026 guidance. In terms of other downtime assumptions, it's actually pretty similar to what we've assumed over the last year.
Got it. Maybe just touching on some of the more material expiry, I assume that the precincts of Docklands and St. Leonards still remain relatively challenging given the amount of vacancy and competition in those markets. Maybe just touching on some of the others for a second, like Everleigh, there's a big expiry coming through there and some of the Docklands and Brisbane, sorry, some of the South Melbourne and Brisbane ones as well.
Yes, definitely. Just to touch on Docklands and St. Leonards, to be very clear, those vacancies at the moment actually make up more than half of the total current vacancy in the COF portfolio. Those are quite challenging, as you mentioned. In terms of the expiry, we're a lot more positive about 8 Central Avenue being in that Sydney Fringe market, also South Melbourne, 101 Murray Street, that's in a very active precinct, as well as 825 Anne Street. These are really vibrant markets at the moment, and these are the buildings where we are well progressed on leasing discussions. I hope to have more to report as part of our first quarter update.
Got it. Thanks very much.
No problem, Mari.
Your next question comes from Simon Chan with Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.
Hey, good morning, guys. Payments for investment properties in your cash flow statement, I see that's coming in at $41 million this year. The bulk of the outflows are in the second half. Can you just tell me what you spent the $30 million on in the second half, please?
The majority of that spend is actually relating to the data centre build for 818 Bourke Street, as well as improvement projects across the rest of the portfolio.
Right. That 818 Bourke Street lease deal, can you confirm that the ResetData deal, can you confirm that's actually a four-year contribution in FY 20 26 as per, I guess, previous guidance of about $5,000 a square meter?
For 818 Bourke Street, that data centre lease, we don't calculate rent per square metre because by nature it's a data centre lease. If you think about it in dollar terms per year, it's still, as we disclosed, at half-year face rents are $3.9 million a year. Yes, in FY 2026, we are reporting a full year of face rent through ResetData.
You made comments earlier about whole floor vacancies expected to remain vacant, whole floor vacancies and expiry expected to remain vacant in your FY 2026 guidance. If I look at slide 19, current vacancy plus expiry, it works out to be about 50, like over 50,000, close to 60,000 square meters. How many square meters of that are whole floor vacancies that you're not assuming income from?
It'll be a few of these buildings. These numbers include both full floor vacancies and part floor vacancies. Most of these will sit in 818 Bourke Street, 201 Pacific Highway, 203 Pacific Highway, and 825 Ann Street.
Yeah, I guess. Would that be, like I say, 30% of the 56,000 meters? Is that fair that we're assuming zero income but potential upside?
That would be a fair assumption.
Right. Okay. Just one last one. You mentioned your comfort that FY 2026 is going to be the trough, et cetera. I just feel like you've gone a little bit, you know, one step forward, two steps back. Your payout ratio was trending down to about 85% of FFO in FY 2025, yet based on your guidance, it's actually gone back up to close to 90% for FY 2026. Did you and/or the board consider, you know, not doing that? You know, you've gone down to 85% and you've jacked it back up to 90% again. What's the reason for that?
Yes, Simon, this is definitely a major consideration with our board, and we remain really cognisant of what the long-term payout ratios are. Going forward, the FFO growth will exceed the distribution per unit growth until we achieve that long-term target of 80%.
You say you just didn't want to cut your dividend.
We've got a pretty high conviction that FY 2026 is going to be the low point on it for FFO, just judging by where debt costs are going to be going. In the past, debt cost is what has affected us the most. It's affected the DPU the most. We're pretty confident with FY 2026 FFO and DPU guidance.
Right. Just to reiterate, 2026, you were guiding to 5.2% weighted average cost of debt, right, down from 5.4%?
That's correct.
Great. Thanks very much, Belinda. Cheers.
Thanks, Simon.
Your next question comes from Liam Scofield with Morgan's Financial. Please go ahead.
Afternoon, guys. Just on slide 19, those FY 2025 leasing transactions, do they contribute significantly to 2025?
Hi Liam, no, a lot of these are forward leases, so they wouldn't have made much contribution to FY 2025, more to FY 2026.
Are they a full year for 2026?
Some of them will be full year, some of them won't be.
Fair enough. I know that this has been discussed already, but I'll just sort of cross it off again. Obviously, that FFO at $70 million, distributions at $60 million, and CapEx at $18 million, is it safe to say that distributions are going to trend fairly flatly until such time as that sort of distributions plus CapEx is in line with FFO?
Yes, it's likely that DPU will trail behind FFO growth.
Right. I'll leave it there. Thanks, guys.
Thanks, Liam.
Once again, if you wish to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. Your next question comes from Connor Eldridge with Bell Potter Securities. Please go ahead.
Hey, Belinda and team, thanks for your time this morning. Just one from me today, following on from Mari's question around the guidance. Just given where gearing is, I'm conscious you are starting to see some valuation growth, but are you assuming any divestments in terms of FY 2026 guidance?
In FY 2026 guidance, we haven't factored in any divestments.
Okay, cool. Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you. There are no further phone questions at this time. I'll hand back to Belinda Cheung for closing remarks.
Thank you for your continued interest in Centuria Office REIT. If you have any follow-up questions, please contact Tim Mitchell or me. Thank you and have a lovely day.