Good morning. My name is Ross Lees, Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director of Growthpoint Properties Australia. I welcome you to the presentation of our half year 26 results. I would like to begin today by acknowledging the traditional owners of country throughout Australia and their enduring connections to land, sea, and community. Today, we join you from the traditional land of the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin Nation. We pay our respects to elders, past and present, and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people joining us today. Presenting alongside me today is Nick Koustas, our Head of Property, who has recently joined the executive team after leading the Growthpoint property team for the last five years. I'm also joined in the room by Jacqueline Jovanovski, our COO. Alix Holston, our Head of Investor Relations.
Before we move to the results, I would like to provide a short overview of Growthpoint today. Our purpose, creating value beyond real estate, anchors everything we do. We combine active management of high-quality Australian real estate with long-standing tenant and investor partnerships and disciplined capital management. Today, we manage AUD 4.1 billion of directly held assets, which underpin our income-driven returns, and AUD 1.4 billion managed on behalf of wholesale and institutional investors. Our key strength is the capability and commitment of our team of sector and discipline specialists, who are committed to delivering exceptional service through a partnership-led approach. Despite a challenging operating backdrop, underscored by continued geopolitical tensions, ongoing volatility, and persistent uncertainty in the domestic interest rate environment, our team has remained disciplined and focused on executing our strategic priorities. Our leasing performance has been a standout.
Strong leasing activity across the portfolio has supported occupancy at 95%. Pleasingly, our office portfolio is on track to deliver a record year of leasing volume. During the half, we strategically leveraged our balance sheet, with gearing moving to 41.2% to support the creation of $125 million in new AUM and position the business for future growth. For 1H 2026, Growthpoint delivered funds from operations of 12.2 cents per security. In reflecting our confidence in the outlook, we are updating our FY 2026 FFO guidance to 23-23.6 cents per security, from the previous range of 22.8-23.6 cents per security. In August last year, we identified our priorities mapped against our strategic pillars, and we've delivered measurable progress against each.
During the half, we executed substantial leasing across our direct portfolio. In office, over 30,000 sq m of leasing delivered increased occupancy of 94%, up from 92%. This leasing activity has significantly de-risked near-term expiries. In our direct industrial portfolio, we've also delivered substantial leasing to maintain high occupancy of 98%. In funds management, we expanded the Growthpoint Australia Logistics Partnership and established the Growthpoint Macquarie Park Trust. We continued to progress sustainability initiatives, maintained high NABERS and GRESB ratings, and investing in our people. Sustainable future-proofing is a key pillar in our strategy, incorporating climate, stakeholder satisfaction, and governance. It is a defining feature of the Growthpoint business. As we know, this directly translates into higher tenant inquiry, occupancy, and customer satisfaction. This will drive returns over the long term.
Having achieved our net zero target on 1 July, our NABERS energy and environment ratings increased during the half to 5.3 and 5.2 stars, respectively, and we maintained our high NABERS water rating of 4.9 stars and GRESB score of 85. We also achieved three out of four of our sustainability-linked loan targets, resulting in a margin discount. With our new CFO, Melinda Chin, commencing in March, I will cover the financials today. Over the half, we delivered funds from operations or FFO of AUD 91.9 million, equating to AUD 0.122 per security, an increase of 3.4% over the same period last year. This was driven by strong like-for-like property FFO of 5.9%, with growth in office of 7% and industrial of 3%.
This solid first half result is expected to normalize over the full year as lease expiries at 75 Dorcas Street and 100 Skyring Terrace flow through. Funds management revenue was AUD 4.3 million for the half, with a decrease relative to the first half of 2025 due to fewer acquisition fees received compared to the prior period. Net finance costs reduced relative to last year due to the impact of debt repaid from asset sales undertaken in FY 2025. We paid a distribution of AUD 0.092 per security, in line with guidance and reflecting a 36% payout ratio. During the half, we negotiated AUD 100 million in new bank facilities that are effective in January, providing liquidity for our 1H 2027 maturities.
During the period, we leveraged our balance sheet capacity to support fund establishment and closed the half with gearing at 41.2%. Our weighted average cost of debt has remained at 5%, and our debt was 78% hedged at 31 December. We anticipate a strong hedging position near 75% towards the end of FY 2026 and above 50% through FY 2027. We maintain significant buffers to our key banking covenants, with our ICR currently at 3 times relative to a covenant of 1.6, and an OR of 44% relative to a covenant of 60. We'll also continue to explore opportunities for strategic capital recycling, and we've recently exchanged contracts on a AUD 17 million divestment. I would now like to introduce Nick Koustas to cover off on our portfolio of directly held high-quality assets.
Good morning, everyone. It's a pleasure to be joining you today. Our portfolio of office and industrial assets continue to underpin stable, income-driven returns, supported by proactive leasing and targeted CapEx. The portfolio is defined by a resilient and high-quality tenant base, which is weighted 46% towards listed businesses and 31% towards government entities. The portfolio has maintained high occupancy of 95%, and with leasing completed to date, future lease expiries are well staggered. During the half, valuations stabilized or increased for over 68% of the portfolio. Capitalization rates were largely steady, and market face rents increased by 1.6% for office and 2.1% for industrial. After CapEx and incentives, the value of the directly held office portfolio declined by 0.9%, and the industrial portfolio increased marginally by 0.2%.
Moving to slide 13, we can see that the team's expertise in active management has translated to over 30,000 sq m of leasing completed across the office portfolio. This represents 7.7% of direct office income across 30 leasing transactions, with an average term of 5.6 years. Of the leases completed, over half were with existing customers, and almost 90% took the same amount of space or more. As a result, occupancy has lifted by 2% to 94% over the period, well above the market benchmark of 85%. Pleasingly, our strategy of targeted capital investment is delivering results, as can be seen at One Hundred Melbourne Street, which is now fully let, and Five Murray Rose Avenue, which is 66% leased.
With a further 30,000 square meters of executed leases or signed heads since 31 December, performer FY 2026 expiries have reduced to 3% as at 31 January 2026, and we are on track for record full-year leasing across the office portfolio. The quality of our directly held industrial portfolio and proactive management has maintained high occupancy of 98%. In the first half of FY 2026, we have leased in excess of 62,000 square meters of industrial space, equivalent to over 12% of direct industrial income across six leases, with an average term of 4.9 years, and have continued to deliver positive leasing spreads. With over 26,000 square meters of leases signed or under head since 31 December, vacancy and forward expiries are now 4% or less through to FY 2029. As a result, the industrial port...
portfolio is positioned well to deliver income-driven returns into the medium term. On slide 15, we're pleased to highlight our customer-centric approach, which has allowed us to support our customers as they grow, expand, and change locations across both our office and industrial portfolios. During the half, we welcomed PandaMart into the portfolio at Raglan Street, Preston, on a five-year lease term. We renewed Linfox at Lenore Drive, Erskine Park, and Jaguar Land Rover at Melbourne Airport. We facilitated our existing customer, Hive Group, taking warehouse space in Perth and enabled EPEC Group to expand their office accommodation in South Brisbane. We will continue to proactively partner with our tenants to support their businesses and drive occupancy across the portfolio. I'll now hand back to Ross.
Thank you, Nick. Growing through funds management is a key pillar of our strategy. Through our funds management platform, we manage AUD 1.4 billion in assets across 11 unlisted funds in our chosen sectors of office, industrial, and retail, and with an investor base of institutional partners and wholesale syndicates. Our in-house capabilities in origination, asset management, and operations position us to scale in this part of the business. In the first half of 2026, our focus was on delivering both new assets under management and facilitating fund exits as funds reach the end of their investment terms. During the period, we created AUD 125 million in new AUM, adding to the AUD 328 million created in FY 2025.
This included the expansion of the Growthpoint Australia Logistics Partnership with an AUD 24 million acquisition in Bundamba and establishing an AUD 101 million Growthpoint Macquarie Park Trust to acquire an A-grade office asset in Sydney's largest metro market. We're committed to returning investor capital to our syndicate investors and capital partners, and we facilitated liquidity for investors with AUD 140 million of AUM divested in the half, and a further AUD 173 million settled in January 2026, in line for the investment terms of these funds. As we look forward in the funds management business, our focus is on leveraging our key points of difference. These include customer engagement, whereby leveraging our existing high-quality customer base across our directly held and managed portfolios, we have access to tenants to drive occupancy and market insights.
Our capital position gives us the ability to meaningfully co-invest alongside our investors and generate returns for Growthpoint security holders. Most importantly, our capability with a dedicated team specializing in our chosen asset classes spread across three offices, we have the ability to take a hands-on, active approach to management. With a clear strategy and the ability to deliver tailored investment solutions, we're confident in the path ahead. Our strategy is consistent and clear. Growth through funds partnerships, underpinned by income-driven returns from our directly held, high-quality real estate assets. Execution is guided by our strategic pillars to deliver portfolio performance, grow with like-minded partners, maintain efficient capital allocation through cycles, and pursue sustainable future-proofing for our stakeholders. As we look ahead, we are optimistic about the structural imbalance between supply and cost across our markets.
The economic rents required to justify new development, particularly in the office sector, remain well above in-place rents, which is acting as a meaningful barrier to new supply. At the same time, we're seeing existing stock withdrawn for alternative uses, particularly living in data center conversions across a number of office markets. Together, these dynamics are expected to tighten vacancy rates over the medium term and create conditions that will support rental growth. In the near term, vacancy does remain elevated and our focus is clear, which is continuing to deliver a high-quality product offering, anchored by leading sustainability credentials and supported by our local team of sector specialists. This strategy has proven and has been central to maintaining high occupancy across our portfolio. From a capital markets perspective, rents are now driving growth and capitalization rates are largely stable.
We expect an improvement, continued improvement in office markets, while industrial, although normalizing from peak levels, continues to demonstrate resilient demand and strong income-driven returns. Our focus for the remainder of the FY26 financial year is consistent with what was presented in August. Following significant de-risking of upcoming expiries across the directly held portfolio, the team is focused on delivering record office leasing through active asset management and delivering for our customers. With 2 transactions completed in the half, we continue to pursue growth through additional funds management transactions, focused on our core sectors, and we'll continue to manage funds approaching the end of their investment term. We intend to allocate capital to support co-investment in new funds, ensuring alignment with our unlisted fund investors, and allowing Growthpoint security holders to benefit from the underlying fund performance.
Our sustainability focus continues post net zero, and we are on track for mandatory climate reporting in FY 2027. We are committed to our people who are key to our success, and we will continue investing in learning and development and supporting internal opportunity. Reflecting our first half leasing progress and visibility for the balance of the year, we've updated our FY 2026 FFO guidance to AUD 0.23-AUD 0.236 per security. First half 2026 FFO is expected to exceed the second half due to lease expiry and fund expires. I'd like to thank our team for their continued hard work, and I'd also like to thank our tenants and our investors for their ongoing support. Thank you for your participation today, and I'd like to open to questions either online or via the call.
In the first instance, please address any questions to myself. Thank you.
Thank you. If you wish to ask a question via the phone line, you will need to press the star key followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. If you wish to ask a question via webcast, please enter it into the Ask a Question box and click Submit. Your first question comes from Adam West with JPMorgan.
Oh, hi there. Thanks for taking my question. I guess my first question is just on the debt refinancing you did. Was there any margin impact of that AUD 100 million refinancing? I guess, just with the upcoming expiries, do you think there's any opportunity for potential margin compression there, just similar to a few of your peers?
Yeah, thanks for the question, Adam. On the AUD 100 mil that we refinanced, in the period, it was a shorter duration tenor of roughly three years. We did see some margin compression relative to prior facilities on that. What we have coming up over the next 12-18 months, I think we're likely to see the trade-off between some margin compression coming through from tightening credit spreads, and then there's obviously a higher swap curve coming through on the other side of that. I think it's pretty fair to say, you know, margin compression feels like between 10 and 20 basis points over the last 12 months.
Yeah, yeah. No, that's clear. I just one on the office portfolio, but it was a good result with the, I guess, like-like property growth. I'm just wondering, how's progress going, I guess, on leasing up the remainder of the properties that are offline at the moment?
I might pass to Nick to talk to our current vacancies and just provide some color on those lease-ups, if you want to grab that one.
Yeah, sure. Thanks, Adam. look, Adam, most of our office vacancies are really focused in a handful of assets in Victoria, Queensland, and New South Wales. obviously can't go into too much detail at the moment, but we are actively working on those at the moment. We have some good progress, some good interest, that hopefully we'll be able to share in the near term.
I think the key thing we're seeing as well, Adam, is, you know, where we're being focused on, and this was the same in the last half, delivering some capital into those vacancies and providing a turnkey solution. It is materializing into a much better leasing demand.
Yeah. No, that's clear. I guess just a final one for me on the capital management front. I guess just given the industrial portfolio, it's quite high occupancy and you guys achieving good spreads, is there an opportunity to sell down that portfolio third-party capital, similar to what you did for GALP, potentially decreasing gearing? If so, at what level would you potentially consider a buyback at?
Yeah, a few questions in that one. You know, the GALP portfolio was a successful transaction for us last year. It really allowed us to, you know, maintain an exposure to those particular assets. We're undertaking a level of deleveraging and helping with our growth alternatives in funds. Whether it's the office or industrial portfolio, we're continually looking at our capital allocation there and on, you know, how we want to think about leverage in our overall balance sheet. We don't have any immediate plans for a second tranche sell-down, if you like. We do balance off the overall sector weightings between logistics and office across the portfolio. Yeah, currently, we sit at roughly a one-third, two-thirds, split between those two sectors.
We're mindful of, we do believe that the Growthpoint investors do enjoy that industrial exposure. Bringing that down further is something that we do balance off. As it goes to then, you know, doing something, de-leveraging to undertake a buyback, that's, again, always evaluated, but not an immediate priority.
Yeah. No, that's clear. That's everything from me. Thanks.
Once again, if you wish to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone or wait for your name to be announced. If you wish to ask a question via the webcast, please enter it into the ask a question box and click submit. Your next question comes from Elizabeth Miliatis with Macquarie.
Morning. Thanks for taking my questions. My first question is around guidance. The second half is implied at around between AUD 0.108-AUD 0.114 per share, which is around a 5% range. I was hoping you would call out the key swing factors into the second half.
Yeah, sure. Thanks for the question, Elizabeth. I think probably a couple of pieces. Looking at the first half to second half skew, we had some leased up come through from the leasing done in FY 2025 that contributed in the first half. As we come to the second half, we've got 2 key lease expiries. One was 100 Skyring Terrace for roughly 6,000 meters at the end of January, and then we've got a 11,000-meter expiry coming up in March in 75 Dorcas Street down here in Melbourne. You know, that's really the key driver of that first half, second half skew.
Insofar as the variability to the range in the second half, we do have some vacancy in the portfolio, you know, 1.7% in industrial, 5%-ish in office, that there's still the potential for some leasing to go either way on, you know, those particular vacancies as we come through the second half, and then also variability around possible acquisition fees or otherwise in the funds management business.
Perfect. Thank you. I guess looking into FY 2027, what % of expiry is known to be leaving or what % is expected to be renewed?
As we come into FY 2027, I think our lease expiry chart shows about a 14% lease expiry to FY 2027 in the material. We've tried to provide some extra color through the pack in each, the office segment and the industrial segment as to where we've, you know, received terms on those particular vacancies. I think primarily, the key vacancy that we know will be coming is in the second half of FY 2027 in Queensland, with about 8,000-9,000 sq m coming out of 100 Skyring Terrace in the second half. And then also at 100 Melbourne Street, we've got about another 5,000 coming out there also in the second half.
They're probably the two key ones that we know to be coming back to us, and then the others we're in active negotiations on.
Great, thanks. Maybe just a final one for me. Are you able to disclose what the incentives were for office and industrial in the period and your expectation around NCNTI into the second half, maybe also into FY 2027?
Sorry, I missed the second part of your question there, Elizabeth. It was asking what incentives were in the first half. What was the second part of your question?
Just around NCNTI in the second half and also 2027.
Yeah, for incentives for the first half, they were pretty comparable to where we finished up for FY 25. In the office sector, our average incentive was 32%, and that compared with 31% for full year 25. In the industrial sector, at Lifted, it was approximately 20% in industrial for the first half. We see those numbers being fairly consistent into the second half, and that's, as I said, clear with the expectations with where we were last year as well.
Perfect. Thank you so much.
There are no further questions at this time. I'll hand the conference back to Mr. Lees for closing remarks.
Thank you, everyone, for your participation today. We look forward to coming to see you all over the next couple of weeks. Thank you.