Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by, and welcome to the Charter Hall Retail REIT 2024 full year results briefing. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. There will be a presentation followed by a question-and-answer session, at which time, if you wish to queue for a question, you will need to press star one one on your telephone keypad and wait for your name to be announced. Please note that this conference is being recorded today, Friday the 16th, August 2024. I would now like to hand the conference over to your host today, Mr. Ben Ellis, Retail CEO. Thank you, sir. Please go ahead.
Good morning, and welcome to the Charter Hall Retail REIT FY 2024 full year results. My name is Ben Ellis. I am the Retail CEO for Charter Hall and an Executive Director of CQR. Joining me this morning is Joanne Donovan, Head of Retail Finance at Charter Hall. I'd like to commence today's presentation with an acknowledgment of country. Charter Hall acknowledges the traditional custodians of the lands on which we work and gather. We pay our respects to elders, past and present, and recognize their continued care and contribution to country. Now turn to slide 4 and our highlights for the period. CQR continues to deliver a resilient and growing income stream for our investors. For FY 2024, operating earnings per security is AUD 0.274, in line with our full-year guidance.
Underlying same property NPI growth was 3.6%, up from 3.3% at the same time last year. This growth is being driven by our unique blend of inflation-linked rental growth from our convenience net lease retail assets, turnover rent from our strong-performing supermarkets within our convenience shopping center portfolio, and complemented by fixed rental increases from our specialty tenants. Underpinned by our ongoing focus on the resilient nature of non-discretionary retail, MAT growth remains strong at 3.7%. For the year, we completed 313 leasing transactions, once again achieving positive leasing spreads of 2.7%. Pleasingly, this resulted in our convenience shopping center portfolio occupancy increasing to a portfolio record high of 98.8%, up from 98.6% at June.
When combined with our net lease retail assets, our total portfolio occupancy is well above 99%. During the period, we also took advantage of significant off-market, unsolicited interest in our assets and sold five non-core shopping centers. This resulted in reduced balance sheet gearing of 26.7%, and CQR now has over AUD 400 million of balance sheet capacity. This balance sheet capacity provided CQR with the opportunity to invest alongside one of our existing wholesale capital partners in Mercer to acquire Eastgate Shopping Center in Bondi Junction, an outstanding addition to the CQR portfolio. This acquisition demonstrates CQR's continued commitment to asset recycling into high-quality metro centers with strong investment returns and our wholesale equity partners' ongoing commitment to invest alongside CQR in acquiring premium investment-grade assets.
Eastgate Shopping Center was secured by the Charter Hall transaction team, again demonstrating the value of Charter Hall's management of CQR. Looking forward, we will continue to curate CQR's portfolio to deliver ongoing and resilient income growth and valuation growth for our investors, and we are well-positioned to take advantage of attractive acquisition opportunities that may arise. Turn to slide five in the REIT strategy. CQR's strategy remains focused on being the leading owner of convenience retail property. We achieve this by investing in dominant convenience retail shopping centers and convenience net lease retail, anchored by leading major tenants including Woolworths, Coles, BP, and Ampol. Our convenience-based shopping center portfolio are dominant in their catchments and have high barriers to entry for any potential competition. They offer very high effective yields and a focus on non-discretionary goods and services that are resilient throughout the economic cycle.
They also generally benefit from low site coverage, and when coupled with high underlying land value, they offer both potential upside through selective redevelopment as well as long-term valuation growth. Complementing our convenience shopping center portfolio is our net lease retail portfolio. These properties are also focused on everyday needs, goods, and services. They offer CapEx-efficient triple net leases, strong tenant covenants, and income security from long leases coupled with inflation-linked rental reviews. We remain focused on enhancing the portfolio quality through curation of assets we own, active asset management to drive strong rental growth, utilization of low site coverage, allowing for expansion and redevelopment potential, and prudent capital management. This strategy continues to deliver a high-quality, resilient, and growing income stream for our investors and demonstrates the value of Charter Hall's retail platform, Australia's largest in-house convenience retail platform, to the investors of CQR.
Slide 6 outlines how we've executed against that strategy and details the increased income growth it has delivered. CQR continues to actively curate our convenience shopping center portfolio and grow our major tenant customer composition. Today, the REIT's portfolio consists of high-quality, predominantly metropolitan-located convenience shopping centers, complemented by our convenience net lease retail portfolio, benefiting from CapEx-free lease structures and CPI-linked rental reviews. CQR's continued diversification of major tenant customers significantly enhances tenant covenant quality and income resilience for the REIT. CQR's eight major tenant customers now include Woolworths, Coles, Wesfarmers, Aldi, Ampol, BP, Gull, and Endeavour Group, collectively delivering 57% of total portfolio income, and importantly, 22% of this income now comes from our CapEx-efficient net lease retail portfolio that delivers true and consistent inflation-linked rental growth. CQR's eight major tenants delivered a combined 2.7% income growth for the year.
This represents a significant improvement when compared to the portfolio prior to curation, and is a major reason why CQR is set to deliver higher quality income growth looking forward. The REIT's continued exposure to a more diversified pool of major convenience retailers and superior long-term income growth characteristics sets CQR apart from its peers. Charter Hall's market-leading capability to access off-market opportunities and the ability to partner with other Charter Hall funds to diversify exposure to leading major tenants is a clear competitive advantage for CQR. As we look to the future, the REIT's portfolio is structured to continue to deliver strong underlying inflation-linked rental growth and the reduced drag of capital expenditure due to our increasing exposure to triple net leases. Slide seven details how we delivered against our strategy through active asset management.
Following unsolicited off-market offers, we divested five non-core retail assets in line with book values. These assets were centers that were either regionally located, competition impacted, or where we had felt we had maximized the total return potential of the asset. The proceeds from these sales provide the REIT with significant balance sheet optionality. During the period, we also secured two excellent portfolio-enhancing assets for CQR. In addition to the previously mentioned acquisition of Eastgate Bondi Junction, we also acquired the Rye Hotel on the Mornington Peninsula in Victoria, leased to the market-leading Endeavour Group on a new 15-year triple net lease and benefiting from inflation-linked rental growth alongside our wholesale capital partner, Hostplus. Importantly, both assets have stronger forecast rental growth and higher prospective IBLRs than the assets divested, and therefore provide a more sustainable and growing income stream for our investors.
During the year, we were also able to secure a strategic 7.5% stake in HPI alongside Charter Hall Group. All these acquisitions were transacted by the Charter Hall transaction team, again, demonstrating the value of Charter Hall's management of CQR and equally demonstrates CQR's ongoing focus on strategic portfolio curation and our continued commitment to asset recycling into high-quality assets and investments with strong return profiles. Additionally, we continue to look for opportunities to unlock further value within our existing portfolio. During the year, we completed the Dan Murphy's pad site development at Carnes Hill and are nearing completion of a new Nido childcare facility in Swan View in Western Australia and the Aquatic Achievers Swim School at Arana Hills in Queensland.
Moving forward, we will continue to actively manage our portfolio and unlock the low site coverage of our assets to create further value and grow income. Slide 8 looks at the impact of cap rate expansion on CQR's portfolio and contrasts it with valuation growth. Strong and high-quality income growth remains a major focus for CQR. This has been demonstrated by our active portfolio curation to higher quality assets, our market-leading number of supermarkets paying turnover rental, and our increasing exposure to CapEx-efficient net lease retail benefiting from inflation-linked rental growth. Following 2 years of cap rate expansion, CQR's convenience shopping center cap rates are on a like-for-like basis, sitting where they were in June 2020, 4 years ago. It's a similar story for our net leased assets.
Notwithstanding this, our like-for-like asset values are, on average, 16.6% higher today than they were at the same time four years ago. This does not happen without the strong and resilient income growth that has been generated by the CQR portfolio over this period. The blend of high quality, predominantly metropolitan shopping center assets and our net lease convenience retail portfolio will continue to drive resilient and increasingly CapEx-efficient income growth, differentiating us from our peers. Slide 9 looks at the results of our annual tenant engagement survey. Annually, we continue to partner with Monash University's Business School to survey our center-based tenant customers to deeply understand their satisfaction levels within the CQR portfolio and in their dealings with the Charter Hall team.
For our 2024 annual CentreSAT survey, we again achieved a market-leading 99% participation rate, with over 1,210 customers providing us with their feedback. Notably, over the past 4 consecutive years, we've continued to positively grow our NPS rating, and importantly, this rating, provided by our tenant customers, is significantly higher than that of our combined peer sets. Additionally, we maintained a highly satisfied rating on all key metrics, and once again, our tenant customers told us that it's our people and the way they communicate that are our greatest strengths. Throughout the past 12 months, it's the Charter Hall team and their commitment to maintaining strong tenant customer relationships that has been critical in the ongoing delivery of CQR strategy. It's this ongoing focus on tenant customers that leads to our high tenant retention and strong center occupancy.
I would like to again acknowledge and thank the Charter Hall team for their continued efforts and the important work they do each day in our centers and the communities in which we operate. I'll now hand over to Joanne to talk through the financial results for the period before moving to the operational performance in more detail.
Thank you, Ben, and good morning. Our operating earnings and distributions can be found on slide 11. Total net property income grew by 3.2% to AUD 245.3 million for the year. This increase has been driven by same property NPI growth of 3.6%, highlighting our portfolio curation towards assets with income growth. Like-for-like shopping center NPI growth was 3.2%, and like-for-like net lease retail growth was 5.5%, driven by strong CPI-linked rental reviews. Finance costs have increased, reflecting the significant rise in interest rates. CQR's weighted average cost of debt increased from 3.4% in FY 2023 to 4.4% in FY 2024. The decrease in other expenses reflects net divestments.
We delivered operating earnings of AUD 159.0 million, or AUD 0.274 per unit, in line with guidance provided to the market. Distribution is AUD 0.247 per unit for the period, which reflects a payout ratio of 90.3%. The difference between statutory and operating earnings is primarily due to valuation and derivative movements. Turning now to slide 12 and the balance sheet. Investment property has decreased during the year to AUD 4.05 billion, driven by net divestments of AUD 196 million and a net valuation decrease of AUD 40 million. Divestments included the disposal of 5 non-core shopping centers for AUD 315 million, which were all sold in line with book value.
The valuation decrease has been the driver of the movement in NTA, which has decreased by 4.7% to 4.51 cents per unit. It is worth noting that most of this decrease occurred in the first half of FY 2024. With cap rates stabilizing in the second half, NTA only declined by 0.7% since December. Our tenants continue to be in a positive position to pay their rent, with debt collection at over 99.3% at 30 June 2024. Our key valuation metrics are shown on Slide 13. 100% of the portfolio was externally revalued over the course of FY 2024, with 74% of the portfolio externally revalued as at 30 June 2024. The shopping center portfolio value declined by AUD 61 million, or 1.9%.
This includes capital investment of AUD 65 million over the year. The convenience net lease retail portfolio increased in value by 2.0%, or AUD 21 million, driven by CPI-linked rental growth offsetting cap rate expansion. Cap rate movements have stabilized in the second half of FY 2024. From December to June 2024, shopping centers experienced cap rate expansion of 6 basis points to 6.13%, and net lease retail expanded by 1 basis point to 4.94%. Given the transaction evidence in the market, with sales occurring at or above book value, including our own divestments, we believe the continued income growth the portfolio delivers will translate into valuation uplift going forward. Slide 14 highlights our capital management. CQR enjoys diversified funding sources with no debt maturing until March 2026.
CQR is in a strong capital position with available investment capacity of AUD 408 million. Balance sheet gearing is 26.7%, and look-through gearing is in the lower end of the 30%-40% range at 32.9%. We are comfortably within our gearing and ICR covenants, and during the period, Moody's reaffirmed our Baa1 issuer rating with a stable outlook. In July, CQR completed a zero-cost hedge restructure, which provides additional interest rate protection in FY 2026. FY 2025 is now 62% hedged, and FY 2026 is 78% hedged. Looking forward, our capital structure, together with CQR's strong underlying property metrics, helps position the REIT for future growth. I'll now hand back to Ben to provide an operational update.
Thanks, Jo. Turning now to slide 16 and the portfolio summary. During the year, our convenience retail shopping center portfolio occupancy increased to an all-time high, 98.8%. As noted earlier in the presentation, CQR's portfolio MAT growth remains strong at 3.7%. This growth demonstrates the resilience of the non-discretionary nature of the portfolio and the strength of the REIT strategy, including our ongoing commitment to enhancing portfolio quality through the curation of assets we own. Portfolio WALE remains stable at 7.2 years, following continued strong leasing renewal activity. Importantly, the CQR portfolio benefits from having 60% of total income growth directly or indirectly linked to inflation, with 27% of income growth linked to CPI and a further 33% of total income growth indirectly linked to inflation through turnover rent mechanisms.
Moving now to Slide 17, outlining our tenant customer composition in some more detail. As mentioned earlier, CQR's total portfolio income from major tenant customers is now 57%. Across the major supermarket providers, we remain well-balanced between Coles and Woolworths and continue to partner with Aldi. Importantly, when we look at our exposure to any one specialty retailer, it remains limited, with Specsavers, our largest specialty tenant, at 1% of total portfolio income. We retain a clear bias towards everyday needs and convenience-based food, retail, and services. Turning now to Slide 18 and our convenience net lease retail portfolio. Our convenience net lease retail assets now represent 28% of CQR's total portfolio by value and 22% of total portfolio income. These assets are all triple net leased, meaning they are free of any capital expenditure and provide a true AFFO yield for CQR investors.
Their rent review mechanisms are all CPI-linked, delivering meaningful income growth to the portfolio, with a convenience net lease retail major tenant delivering 4.4% like-for-like rental growth over the year. These convenience net lease retail assets continue to complement CQR's existing convenience-based shopping center portfolio and provide valuable diversification benefits, enhanced tenant covenant quality, and security of income, with a strong major tenant income growth profile. As previously stated, this major tenant income growth profile is unique to CQR and not available in other less mature or lower quality retail portfolios. Turning now to Slide 19 and discussing our supermarkets in more detail. Strong trading supermarkets remain the foundation of CQR's convenience-based shopping center portfolio. During the period, supermarkets delivered strong MAT growth of 4.3%.
Supermarkets in turnover are at an all-time record high of 73%, up from 67% in June and 70% in December 2023. The record number of supermarkets in turnover or within 10% of the turnover and threshold demonstrates the quality of the CQR portfolio and the ongoing ability to grow our supermarket net rental income. Notwithstanding our record high percentage of supermarkets paying turnover or within 10% of their turnover and threshold, we were still able to complete 22 supermarket base rental reviews in FY 2024. This was achieved through both regular rental reviews, where we crystallize percentage rent into our base rent, as well as via active negotiations with our anchor tenants to both extend tenor and increase our anchor tenant rental income.
In an ongoing and elevated inflationary environment, CQR's high percentage of stores paying turnover rent within 10% of turnover rent thresholds provides valuable rental growth exposure to inflation. Once again, this is unique to CQR and not as readily available in less mature or lower quality portfolios. Turning now to Slide 20 and our specialty tenants. CQR's specialty portfolio continues to deliver strong trading metrics. This is a direct result of the quality of our convenience retail shopping centers, their dominant position within their catchments, and our exposure to resilient, non-discretionary retail tenants. As a result, over the period, our specialty tenant sales productivity reached a portfolio record high of AUD 11,077 per square meter, and our tenants' occupancy costs remained stable at 11.4%, providing room for future rental growth.
For the period, we completed 313 leasing transactions, made up of 108 new leases and 205 renewals, achieving positive leasing spreads of 2.7% across our specialty tenant portfolio. Once again, another year of positive leasing spreads, demonstrating the attractive and resilient nature of our convenience-based shopping center portfolio. Pleasingly, our retention rate also remains high at 82%, as tenant customers continue to see the value of long-term partnerships with Charter Hall and the quality of our portfolio. The portfolio's strong sales productivity, sustainable occupancy costs, continued positive leasing spreads, and high tenant retention demonstrates the quality of our assets and the defensive nature of CQR's rental income.
I'd like to recognize that these results are a direct reflection of not only the quality of our portfolio, but most importantly, the quality and the skill of the Charter Hall management team. I want to thank them for their ongoing efforts, commitment, and expertise. Slide 21 looks at our ESG highlights for the period. CQR continues to deliver on its sustainability commitments and remains on track to achieve net zero carbon emissions in 2025. Our power purchase agreement with Engie commenced earlier this year. We have 17.5 MW of solar installed on our rooftops and now have 9 MWh of installed battery capacity, with feasibility studies in progress for an additional 5 sites. Pleasingly, our performance has also been recognized, with CQR achieving a ranking of first in Australia and New Zealand for listed retail entities in the 2023 GRESB report.
CQR and the Charter Hall team also recognize the important role our centers play in supporting the communities in which we operate. Annually, we deliver a number of national and local initiatives within our convenience-based shopping centers, and we are deeply committed to our partnerships and our responsibility to create shared social value in our communities and across our supply chain. Finally, turn to Slide 23 for outlook and guidance. CQR's strategy remains consistent and is focused on convenience retail property that provides a resilient and growing income stream. We'll continue to actively manage the portfolio to improve both the portfolio quality and the quality of income growth that it delivers. Our expectation is that positive leasing spreads, high occupancy levels, and MAT growth will continue to drive like-for-like NPI growth.
We also expect to benefit from direct and indirect inflation-linked rental growth and our increasing exposure to CapEx-efficient net lease convenience retail. Guidance for FY 2025 reflects the zero cost head restructure we undertook post-balance date, which provides additional rate protection in FY 2026. Looking forward, the quality of CQR's portfolio, coupled with a strong capital structure, means that CQR is now positioned for growth. Based on information currently available and barring any unforeseen events, CQR expects FY 2025 operating earnings to be approximately AUD 0.254 per unit. Distributions per unit are expected to be in line with FY 2024's distribution of AUD 0.247 per unit. That ends the formal presentation, and with that, I now invite questions.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, as a reminder to ask the question, please press star one one on your telephone and then wait to hear your name announced. To withdraw your question, please press star one one again. Please stand by while we compile the Q&A roster. Our first question comes from the line of Simon Chan with Morgan Stanley. Your line is open.
Oh, hi. Good morning, guys. Hey, just wondering if you could give us some color on CapEx, like cash outflow CapEx that you're looking to spend in FY 2025. 'Cause if I look through the slide deck, it looks like you spend about AUD 60 in FY 2024, and you also mentioned that 2025, you need to complete the swim school up in Arana Hills. But yeah, how do we think about CapEx next year?
Yeah, you can expect about a similar number for FY 2025. And that's across, you know, the pad site developments that we're continuing to do, center upgrades, leasing and operational CapEx, just to keep our centers open.
Is that a run rate that you guys are probably targeting, like, on an annual basis going forward?
Well, it depends on what pad site opportunities we see.
Yeah, exactly, Simon. Like, if we can unlock further opportunities, we have low site coverage across our properties. We're seeing great leasing activity from strong pad site operators, and, and that will be opportunistic as we go forward.
Great. And the yield on cost of these projects, like the childcare and swim school, et cetera, what are we thinking?
Yeah, it all varies depending on whether we've acquired land or we're utilizing underlying land value on our existing assets, but typically anywhere between 8 and double digits, Simon.
Great, and just one more, if I may. Hey, sort of incentives across the 300 lease deals or so that you did, where do they come in at?
Yeah, it's pretty flat year-over-year, typically around about 12 months, mate.
12 months or 5 years?
Well, at least, lease terms-
Extended out a little bit.
It's about sort of a bit over 6 now, but, you know, on average, about 12 months for leasing transactions.
Great. Hey, sorry, just one more just came to mind. With your balance sheet in such a decent position, did you guys give any thought to launching a buyback of some description?
Yeah, look, we discuss it at every board meeting, Simon. It's obviously a capital management structure and an initiative that the board's undertaken previously. As we currently sit, like, we've been through a pretty decent period of curation to get our balance sheet capital structures in order, to sort of really facilitate earnings growth going forward. Equally, mate, you know, we're currently seeing some pretty attractive opportunities in the market, in both the net lease and the shopping center area, which, you know, if they came to fruition, could offer some really good opportunity for accretive growth for CQR. But notwithstanding that, if those don't come to fruition and we continue to trade at a significant discount, then yes, the board would look at it, going forward.
That's very clear. Thanks very much, guys.
Thanks, Simon.
Please stand by for our next question. Our next question comes from the line of Stephen Tjer with Barrenjoey. Your line is open.
Morning, Ben and Joe. Thanks for your time this morning. Just a couple of questions, just following on from Simon's about, I guess, capital recycling. So if you're seeing kind of exciting opportunities at the moment, what's your, you know, your target hit rate for, for potential acquisitions and, how should we be thinking about, you know, just net, net transaction activity?
We haven't guided to any net transaction activity this year, Steven, but, you know, we'll always look at opportunities. We're opportunistic as it comes up and looks about, but ultimately, anything we do has got to be, quality or, you know, earnings accretive to the CQR portfolio, and we'll continue to be active. We're not prepared to sit on assets that are competition impacted or have a lower growth potential than what we desire. And obviously, you've seen from our results, our strong NPI growth has been a result of our curation, and we'll continue to be active and opportunistic in that regard.
Thanks. Just secondly, just talk about your increased expectations for long-term income growth. Just can see on one of your slides that you're up about 20 basis points, from the first half.
Yeah, so obviously, you know, we've as a result of curation of our assets, we're just continually improving the quality of our portfolio. And what's important for that is it drives better leasing outcomes, better rental growth potential. We've got the highest number of supermarkets in turn we've ever had, our highest ever occupancy we've ever had, and I think all of this comes together of being active manager of a portfolio. And as we go forward, we expect to be able to see that quality shine through. And the debt restructure we did, for us, is really important in the context that we're gonna start to see a linkage between our strong underlying NPI growth and EPU growth, going forward.
And sorry, I think it's just important to add, we're not seeing on our net expenses, we're forecasting them to be flat, relatively flat for next year. So we are seeing some higher pressure on insurance and security and cleaning, but that's all been offset by savings through electricity, and that's as a result of the PPA that Charter Hall Group was brought on with Engie. So we get the full 12 months benefit of that over next year.
All right, fantastic. Thank you, gentlemen.
Thank you. Please stand by for our next question.... Our next question comes from the line of Howard Penny with Citi. Your line is open. Check to see if you're on mute. Howard Penny, your line is open.
Thank you very much. Just some read-through from the retail results that have been coming out recently. We've heard a few comments that on store growth, some of the retailers are struggling to grow store growth because of lack of availability of stores, and that together with your high occupancy seems to be a trend in the sector. Are you hearing similar frustrations from your tenants and and opportunities in some of the areas to try to drive up that store growth percent?
Yeah, absolutely, no doubt, Howard. That's a good question. We are seeing continued strong demand from our you know, predominantly non-discretionary retailers. And as you said, our occupancy cost is meaning that availability of sites, coupled with our higher retention rate, is lessened. But that's, that's an opportunity for us and a positive, because we're getting continued sales growth, highest ever, you know, specialty sales densities we've ever recorded, which is obviously a positive for CQR as we drive better outcomes across the center. And our tenants are able to partner with us to build long-term sustainable businesses, and that's a really unique thing that we're going to foster over a long period of time.
Great. Thank you. On the pad site development, that seems to be a good use of creating incremental yield on an existing sunken asset base. Are you able to quantify the potential for doing more of that?
Yeah.
Is there a huge opportunity to do more of that in your portfolio?
Yeah, look, we've articulated previously that we've sort of look across our book, and we can see at least 20 opportunities across that. Now, some of those are long term, some of those are more immediate, but I think, you know, 2-3, even up to 5 per year is very achievable, and it's gonna be driven around demand, planning, and ability to get those things done. But you're absolutely right, we do have low site coverage, and we do have really great bits of real estate, particularly with our predominantly metropolitan focus, to really drive good outcomes on that sort of underlying land.
A last question from me, just on HPI. What's the current strategy on that holding, and how do you see that playing out at this stage?
Yeah, look, it was opportunistic. We'd obviously gone through a lot of asset divestments. It was a great way to offset some of the dilution of asset sales. And ultimately, it's a very liquid holding. We understand the sector deeply, as you'd be well aware, and we'll just continue to monitor that. And obviously, it's an opportunity for us to continue to hold and take the distribution and/or recycle if the time came up.
Thank you very much, and well done on a great operational result.
Thank you very much, Howard.
Please stand by for our next question. Our next question comes from the line of Cody Sheil with UBS. Your line is open.
Good morning, Ben and Joanne. Just on the acquisition front, are there any other, you know, Charter Hall entities you'd look to, to buy from, use some of that balance sheet capacity?
Look, our most recent acquisitions have all been on market. And, you know, we've got a very big transaction team here in Charter Hall, as you're well aware, and we are seeing things on market that look interesting. Obviously, our most recent acquisitions being the Rye Hotel and Eastgate Bondi Junction, were things we've been able to execute, through either off-market participation or successfully negotiating through a process. At this stage, I'd be expecting anything we'd do, and once again, we're not guiding to it, would be looking at current vintage buying on market.
Right. So that wouldn't be, you know, net lease retail, kind of assets across the portfolio you'd look at, or platform rather, you'd look at?
No.
Okay, maybe just on some of the New Zealand exposures, can you, you kind of see how, you know, step through how you trade, seeing trading and, you know, some of those assets, and how you're thinking about, you know, that interplay of a softer New Zealand economy and, you know, rate cuts coming through that?
Yeah. So obviously, inflation's come off a bit more there. But look, the beauty of our portfolio, Cody, in New Zealand, it's absolute triple net to the highest quality covenants in Z and BP predominantly, which Z obviously owned by Ampol, and we just expect to be able to continue to true up to clip through AFFO yield. These are effective leases, no incentives, no downtime, they're long-term land holdings. They've got great locations, predominantly metropolitan areas, and, you know, CPI goes up and down, but it remains consistent. And once again, there's no leakage for CapEx in that, so it provides a great return for us.
Great. Maybe just one more on the, you know, 25 guidance. Can you just step through some of the moving parts there, just around, you know, cost of debt, CPI, what you guys are assuming?
Yes, if you refer to in extra one, so we're continuing to see strong NPI growth from both our shopping centers and our net lease portfolios. There obviously is an impact of the 12 months of the net divestments of kind of circa AUD 200 million that we've done, and also, an impact from higher finance costs as we're going to more normalized cost of debt, but also a slightly higher debt balance driven by some CapEx spend that we mentioned earlier on the call.
Okay. So, you know, CPI of, like, 3.5% or something like that, cost of debt?
Yeah, we're just consensus on that, to be frank, Cody.
Yeah. Okay, sure. All right. Thanks, guys. That's all from me.
Thank you very much, Cody.
Please stand by for our next... Our next question comes from the line of David Pobucky with Macquarie Group. Your line is open.
... Oh, thank you. Good morning. Hope you're all well. Thanks for taking my questions. Maybe just on the zero cost hedge restructure, please, just your thinking around that. So lower hedging this year, but higher next year to smooth interest expense. So a headwind in 2025, but a tailwind in 2026.
We just had some really low hedges rolling off in June of next year. They're at 1.1%, and we simply took that in-the-money position and extended it into FY 2026. And you are right, as a result, the hedge rate in FY 2025 increased from 1.8% to 2.3%. But more importantly, well, we're now 80% hedged for FY 2026, and that gives us a lot of confidence about what our finance costs are gonna be. And that, coupled with the strong property metrics that we're seeing coming through the portfolio, gives us a lot of confidence in growth going forward.
Thank you. Just on the expectations for valuations, I think the president mentioned, I mean, cap rate stabilized in the second half of 2024, so perhaps your expectation over the next 6-12 months?
Yeah, look, cap rates are a funny thing. Obviously, it's a supply and demand-driven equation, and can, you know, you see, more and more activity, which gives greater support to our valuation book. I'd probably point out two things. One is cap rates are only one component of valuation movement. We've articulated in the deck this year, it's actually the strong income growth we've generated via the curation of our portfolio, the inclusion of those triple net leases with CapEx efficiency and that CPI rental growth, that's really helping drive value. So from our perspective, we expect to see a strong continued market, strong demand for retail, the high effective yields. It's obviously performing well regardless of economic conditions in the convenience space. And then when coupled with the quality of our portfolio, we think we're in a really good place from a valuation perspective.
We expect to see values continue to grow in line with income growth as a minimum.
Thank you. And just one final one from me. And you've spoken about, you know, acquisitions and acquisition capacity to a degree, but obviously, you've got that target range for gearing. But, I mean, is there a preferred look-through gearing number that you'd be, you know, targeting over the medium term? Just trying to get a gauge around, you know, your acquisition capacity with reference to that.
Sure. Our target gearing range remains at 30%-40%. That doesn't change. Obviously, as valuations start to grow, that gives us further capacity. And I think, you know, the ability for us and the capacity we have gives us a lot of optionality and flexibility to be able to play in accretive opportunities that may or may not arise. And, you know, as I said previously in these Q&A, we've seen some pretty interesting things. Now, it's early days, but, you know, I, I'm pretty confident that the market's in a good place and that the skill and the, the depth that Charter Hall transactions team will be able to help us unlock some pretty interesting things to look at during the course of the year.
Okay, thank you, and best of luck.
Thank you very much.
Please stand by for our next question. Our next question comes from the line of Richard Jones with JP Morgan. Your line is open.
Hi, Ben and Joe. Just to follow up just on the zero hedge restructure-
Yeah.
How did you work out the actual amount that you wanted to move from 25 to 26? Was there-
Yeah.
Specific thinking about it?
It's predominantly one single, hedge we had in place, Jonesy, whereby it was an amount of money that was expiring. It was a hedge rate that was expiring in the course of the financial year, and we utilized that one to blend over the two years.
Okay. Can we just discuss the payout ratio?
Sure.
I mean, historically, it's been sort of 90%-95% of operating earnings this year. Based on guide, it's at 97%.
Correct.
Do we see this as a one-off or, and then work back to that ratio, as we think about that going forward?
We felt it prudent this year to maintain distributions in line with FY 24, given the strong underlying metrics of our portfolio and our increasing exposure to net lease convenience retail. Over time, as EPU grows, we'd expect to see our distribution payout ratios probably normalize. But once again, we're very comfortable with our position this year, and it's definitely less than earnings.
Okay. Okay, and just in terms of the balance sheet capacity of AUD 400 million, I mean, that seems a lot. Do you look to reduce this to kind of lower your line fees that you're paying?
Yeah, look, we'll look at it. Obviously, if opportunities to deploy it into accretive opportunities don't, you know, eventuate, then yeah, sure, we'll have to look at that as a capital management initiative.
Okay, that's all for me. Thanks, Ben.
Thank you. Please stand by for our next question. Our next question comes from the line of Ben Brayshaw with Barrenjoey. Your line is open.
Thanks. Hi, guys. Ben, I was wondering if you could just talk about the market for convenience net lease assets.
Yep.
And just the, I guess, the independent valuation assumptions.
Sure
... whether they're informed by transaction activity or I guess, you know, whether the independent valuers are just taking a view at this point.
No, they're always informed by transactional activity, Ben, and, you know, we're very comfortable with them. These are the highest quality leases in the sector. They're absolute triple net. They're absolute effective yields. You've had strong rental growth coming through, predominantly metropolitan locations with high underlying land value. So, you know, from our perspective, the value as a backing this of transactional activity, they're also able to look at the quality of these sites and leases to back that up.
... Yeah, so are you saying that, I mean, you're holding them in a cap rate of 4.9 on average, that, that there's been, in your opinion, sufficient transaction evidence to, to validate that benchmark?
Correct. I mean, look, you've got to remember that, like, just because something trades at a 5.5 cap doesn't mean it's the same quality as our portfolio. I mean, we do have the highest quality portfolio in this regard in the country, and everything is comparable based upon relative qualities. Now, I think it's important to note that these are independently revalued, and this is the result of those independent revaluations, and they do base it on transactional evidence.
Mm-hmm. So, just to clarify, you, you're comfortable that cap rate is sustainable going forward?
Yeah, and look, we've seen them expand out. We've talked in the slide over the period of the last couple of years, but it's that underlying income growth that absolutely drives valuation as well. So the fact of the matter is, whilst the cap rates have wound out over time, our valuations for net lease convenience retail have actually increased as a result of that. So we're in a good position, and they'll be independently revalued again, and we'll see what the outcome is at that point in time. But the characteristics of this portfolio remain strong, and I'm always staggered when I see results come through for things like McDonald's and KFC's trading at three caps, which is well inside this, and a number of those tenants sit inside our net lease convenience retail portfolio. Now, we don't get value for that.
Okay, thanks for your time, Ben.
No worries. Thanks, Ben.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, I'm showing no further questions in the queue. I would now like to turn the call back over to Ben for closing remarks.
Thank you very much for your time today. Looking forward to discussing with all of you in the coming couple of hours and days, and wish you the best of luck for the rest of the reporting season.