I would now like to hand the conference over to Mr. Sid Sharma, HMC Capital Managing Director, Real Estate and HDN CEO. Please go ahead.
Good morning and thank you, everyone, for attending today's conference call. Joining me on the call is HMC Capital CFO, Will McMicking, and HDN Fund Manager, Paul Doherty. Before we commence today's presentation, we want to acknowledge the traditional custodians of country throughout Australia. We celebrate their diverse culture and connections to land, sea, and community. We pay our respects to elders past, present, and emerging, and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.
Let's begin on slide five. For those new to our story, the HomeCo Daily Needs REIT is approaching its fifth anniversary as a listed entity later this calendar year. Our strategy has remained unchanged for the period, and we focus on retail real estate assets that provide convenient essentials for local communities, along with last-mile solutions for our retailers.
The first half of FY25 has been another period of continued operational excellence and discipline for HDN, coupled with proactive asset recycling to rebalance the portfolio. I'm pleased to say our operational focus has continued with strong top-line revenue performance and comp NOI improving to 4%. The drivers of the operational results in front of you today are simple. Firstly, HDN is weighted to Australia's largest and fastest-growing cities.
With 86% of the portfolio located in metropolitan areas, our assets are in the best-growth suburbs of our leading capital cities and remain in high demand. HDN's foot traffic is testament to the net migration our country is enjoying. As a result, our foot traffic continues to increase up 2.2%. This generates ongoing tenant demand, which ensures our leasing spreads are 6.1% and continue to be market-leading.
Number two, our cash collection is 99% every month, and our occupancy is over 99%. Those two metrics have been stable since IPO. And thirdly, our development pipeline has increased. Last half, we announced a AUD 700 million pipeline. Of the AUD 700 million, we are on track to commence over AUD 100 million of that this year, which is now in our delivery book. Beyond the commencements, we now have a AUD 650 million future pipeline now embedded in the business.
This will continue to deliver in excess of a 7% yield on cost. HDN has an experienced management team that's been running it since IPO and continues to extract embedded value from our existing assets. In terms of asset recycling, during the half, we disposed of AUD 250 million of traditional large-format retail assets and acquired AUD 200 million of high-quality metropolitan daily needs assets.
As Paul will highlight later in the presentations, this acquisition presents opportunities for our management team to improve returns through proactive tenant remixing, development, and active cost management. More broadly, convenience retail continues to outperform globally with our retail peers. As a result, HDN's assets are in increasing demand, not only from tenants, but also the investor market.
The balance sheet's in a strong position, with pro forma gearing of 34.6% being at the midpoint of our target range. For this financial year, interest rate risk has been mitigated some time ago, with currently 80% of drawn debt hedged until FY26. All in all, HDN is very strongly positioned to deliver the top-line growth that it's delivered since IPO. I'll now hand over to Paul to take us through the H1 results in more detail.
Thanks, Sid. Turning to slide six. On this slide, we summarize our investment strategy. Our target model portfolio is 50% neighborhood, 30% LFR, and 20% health and services. This mix balances the best characteristics of defensive, reliable income streams with sustainable growth. HDN's strong investment fundamentals are underpinned by competitive rents at the bottom end of the landlord cost curve.
As a result, HDN is achieving sector-leading re-leasing spreads, and we have high exposure to national retailers, all of which is translating to continued 99% rent collection. HDN owns 2.4 million square meters of high-quality and strategically located property, with 36% site coverage providing inbuilt growth through our AUD 650 million development pipeline. This gives us a substantial opportunity to leverage the rapidly emerging and essential last-mile infrastructure trends to unlock additional embedded value.
HDN's portfolio is differentiated with approximately 86% exposure to metro locations and a high skew to the large growth centres of Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, to the Gold Coast. We serve 13 million Australians who live within a 10 Km radius of a HDN center, and they visit us 93 million times throughout the year. As a result, our portfolio is perfectly placed to play a critical role in our tenants' omnichannel strategies.
So, in summary, HDN has continued to deliver on all key strategic and operating metrics this half. On slide eight, we provide our portfolio summary. HDN owns AUD 4.8 billion of high-quality real estate occupied by 1,300 tenants. The portfolio has maintained outstanding occupancy and cash collections of greater than 99%, and, as Sid highlighted earlier, a metric we are pleased to have consistently reported since IPO in November 2020.
The ongoing performance underscores the portfolio's weighting towards high-quality assets and robust tenant covenants, and our tenants continue to demonstrate their resilience regardless of the economic conditions. Our sustainable rents of 417 per sq m, combined with the high level of convenience and predominantly metro locations, provide a reliable platform for growth for our tenants and our unit holders.
89% of our income increases every year by a weighted average of 3.6%, and at December, less than 3% of projected FY25 income remains to be committed, and we have reduced that further since then. Our comparable NOI growth is 4% in the period and was driven by leasing spreads of 6.1% across 69,000 sq m of leasing deals. Importantly, our leasing activity continues to maintain low incentives of less than 5%.
On slide nine, we provide further detail about our top tenants and the quality and diversity that underpins the portfolio and HDN's performance for investors. 33% of gross income is derived from our top 10 tenants, and seven of those are listed on the ASX. On slides 10 and 11, we highlight two key elements that contribute to the strong portfolio performance. Firstly, the location of our assets on slide 10.
This details HDN's key metropolitan markets. The majority of centers are located in the key eastern seaboard capital cities that have the highest population growth. This includes 41% in the Sydney metro area, 19% in the Melbourne metro area, and 18% in the Greater Brisbane and Gold Coast area. These cities are the fastest growing in Australia, giving our portfolio exposure to the increasing population.
The second key element is our model portfolio, which is summarized on slide 11. The model portfolio is aligned with the Australian consumer spending pie. This alignment delivers a unique defensive exposure built on enhanced diversification and low correlation to traditional property sectors. As a result, the portfolio's performance has been industry-leading. Our reweighting of the portfolio following the merger with Aventus in March 2022 has continued.
This program has seen us sell AUD 730 million of assets that were predominantly LFR-focused and located in regional areas. We have successfully redeployed this capital through the acquisition of a further AUD 500 million metropolitan neighborhood assets in the fastest-growing areas of the country. This has increased our weighting to the neighborhood sector from 34% post-merger to 40%. The yield on these acquisitions exceeded the yield on the disposals, and the quality of the portfolio has improved.
We will continue to move the portfolio back towards the model through our developments and tenancy remixing. I'd now like to discuss our progress on sustainability, which we've set out on slide 12. Our HMC Group level sustainability commitments are designed around our objectives to create healthy communities. I'm pleased to report on the following initiatives delivered.
On environmental, we are on track to exceed our FY25 target of 65% of feasible sites having solar installed, and our energy management system rollout continues. This system results in energy savings in excess of 20%. On social, HMC's Reflect Reconciliation Action Plan has been endorsed by Reconciliation Australia. RAP initiatives are underway across the group, and Community Co's national partnership with Eat Up continues, and on governance, HDN was awarded ESG regional top-rated company with Morningstar Sustainalytics.
HDN has also lodged its third modern slavery statement, and we maintain responsible investment standards in all of our acquisitions. I'd now like to move to HDN's growth opportunities that commence on slide 14. HDN has continued to achieve sector-leading leasing spreads of 6.1%. Our focus on metropolitan growth corridors ensures our locations have consistent and strong tenant demand.
Due to the growth in population, this is enhanced by limited supply of new retail space in the market. As I pointed out earlier, HDN's average portfolio rent is AUD 417 a sq m. It's well below the Australian total leased space for supermarket-based and sub-regional centres. As we've demonstrated with our performance, this provides good scope for sustainable ongoing income growth. We believe we can continue to deliver leasing spreads of between 5% to 6% in the short to medium term.
Moving now to slide 15, where I'd like to provide an update on our development projects. Construction is on track at our Tuggerah and Castle Hill developments. Both of these developments will provide daily needs and leisure and lifestyle expansions to the existing strong-performing centers. The developments are due to be delivered at Castle Hill in the second half of FY25 and Tuggerah in the first half of FY26.
The developments are pre-committed and delivering a blended yield and cost in excess of 7%. On slide 16, we provide an update on Southlands Boulevarde. In early 2023, we acquired Southlands Boulevarde, and 12 months ago, we set out our strategy for the center. We're pleased to advise we are well advanced with the implementation of the strategy.
We have delivered a new specialty supermarket operator, which underpins a revitalized fresh food precinct with completed 27 leasing deals at a leasing spread in excess of 10%. As a result, the asset has now been independently valued at AUD 120 million, which is AUD 10 million above our target valuation of 12 months ago. We also have development approval for a further 1,580 square meters of retail space and have received an offer from a national retailer for this. We forecast a development yield of above 7% and anticipate further value growth in the center to AUD 130 million in the next 12 months. There are similar opportunities at our other recent acquisitions. On slide 17, we set out our proposed development at Armstrong Creek.
The daily needs-focused development located at our existing Coles-anchored Town Centre includes a new Woolworths supermarket plus new generation automated e-store, together with complementary daily needs-focused retailers. The development is led by strong tenant demand and driven by its location in the fastest-growing regional LGA in Victoria. The development will complement the existing strong-performing Coles and Dan Murphy's-anchored Town Centre.
On slide 18, we provide some information on our other FY25 development commencements. These include childcare, medical, and leisure and lifestyle opportunities at Caringbah, Upper Coomera, Lutwyche, Williams Landing, and Belrose. All of these developments are tenant-led and target a minimum 7% return on investment. I'll now hand over to Will to take us through the half-year '25 financial results.
Thanks, Paul. Turning now to slide 20 to go through the earnings summary. Strong underlying revenue growth, or property net income for the first half, grew 4% to AUD 142 million. FFO was AUD 89.9 million or AUD 0.043 per unit, with the latter unchanged versus first half FY24, having offset a 14% increase in net interest expense. Turning now to slide 21 to go through the balance sheet.
December 2024 net tangible assets was AUD 1.45 per unit, recording a 1% gain versus June. This was driven by valuation growth of HDN's investment properties, with the growth attributable to higher net income. The capitalization rate remained stable at 5.6%. Asset recycling continued with the divestments of LFR assets Ballarat, Coffs Harbour, and Warners Bay in the first half of FY25, followed by the acquisitions of Lutwyche and Leppington. An additional divestment of the Logan LFR Centre has been announced today, which is expected to complete in the second half of FY25.
Turning now to slide 22. December 2024 gearing of 36% will reduce to 34.6%, adjusted for the contracted sale of Logan, which will then be at the midpoint of our target gearing range of 30%-40%. Liquidity as at December was AUD 75 million, which will increase post the sale of Logan, and hedge debt remains high into June 2025. I'll now hand it back to Sid to provide guidance and closing remarks.
Thanks, William. We're really proud of the team and the results that we've presented here today. We're one of the few REITs that have had the strong top-line growth that we've demonstrated. As I've said earlier, our focus remains on operational excellence, developments in very selective asset recycling, and having a robust balance sheet with the appropriate levels of gearing and hedging.
Really pleased to also reaffirm our FFO guidance of AUD 0.088 per unit and distributions of AUD 0.085 per unit. Our management team and board remain disciplined and focused, as we have always been. I will now hand over back to the operator for Q&A.
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. Your first question comes from Lou Pirenc with Jarden. Please go ahead.
Yes, good morning, Sid and team. Just a few questions. First of all, can you just give a little bit more color on the acquisitions and disposals in terms of yields, particularly on the acquisitions? I think Lutwyche, and you talked about at the full year 2024 results for Lutwyche and the land at Williams Landing.
Certainly, Lutwyche is a good yield at above 7%. As we highlighted with our Leppington acquisition, we have land coming through with that that will provide us some further growth into the future on that one.
Lou, the way I think about it is, Paul did a great job in highlighting what we've done with Southlands in the last 18 months since acquisition. Every time we make one of these acquisitions, we don't just sit there, buy an asset, collect the current rent. At Lutwyche today, the passing rent is more than 7%. I'd be disappointed if we weren't generating north of 8% in the next 12 months. That's what our baseline is, and that's what we'll achieve. Our acquisition there is with that target.
Most of our disposals have been at the lower end of 6%, and Logan is around 6.7% as an exit. So over the last three to four years, as we've started this interest rate increase cycle, we've been over this period net sellers, and typically we've sold assets at a lower yield, and we've bought assets at a higher yield with development upside and long-term value potential as well.
Great, thank you. And then maybe just on the development CapEx with those commencements, I mean, it's AUD 100 million a year, so a run rate we should be assuming in terms of cash spend.
Yeah, that's right, Lou. So we aim to have AUD 100-AUD 120 million of activations per year. In this year, we remain on track to hit the higher end of that number. So I think that's a fair assumption.
What you would have noticed is last half, we said we had AUD 700 million of pipeline. We've obviously added that AUD 700 million. We're going to commence between AUD 100-120 million by June, but we've replenished that pipeline and upped it to AUD 650 million. So part of what we do as a team is as we start to execute on this pipeline, which we've done consistently, we also look for opportunities to replenish it within the group and find some more accretive opportunities along the way. So I think, as I said, last half, what's in front of us today is what we know we can deliver today, but there's a lot more embedded value given where our site coverage is, and the development team worked very hard to unlock that potential so we can then start building.
Great, thank you. That's it for me.
Thanks, Lou.
Your next question comes from Cody Shields with UBS. Please go ahead.
Good morning, Sid, Paul, and Will. Just a quick one on development completions. So can you outline what the contribution was to first half NOI from completions? Yeah, Cody, probably the way to think about it is, so we had the earnings growth of about 4.5%. So you've got your rent reviews of 3.6%, and there was about 1% that came through from developments. Okay, and maybe just a general question to round it out. Can you guys kind of give a view on your broader considerations when deciding which assets to divest and whether there is appetite to divest below book to fund the pipeline?
Yeah, so with the assets, if you look back on it over the last three years, we've divested generally, not specifically, but generally, they've been traditional large-format retail assets, predominantly in regional locations and where we see limited development upside. You won't see our sale assets with embedded development value because we look to unlock that value. So we're always looking selectively to improve what is already an excellent portfolio, but it's done very selectively and opportunistically as well.
We're really proud of our book, and what I'd say is this half coming up until June, you won't see too much in terms of asset recycling happening from where we are today. We've got plenty to do in the book, and you're just going to see us execute on our developments.
Okay, perfect. Cheers, guys.
Your next question comes from David Pobucky with Macquarie Group. Please go ahead.
Good morning, Sid, Will, and Paul. Thanks for taking my questions. First one, just on the acquisitions and disposals, would you mind running me through the settlement dates and particularly when Logan is expected to settle in the second half, please?
Yeah, no worries, David. It's late April to mid-May is when we expect Logan to settle. Leppington obviously settled at the outset of this year, and all the other trades, I think, are well documented and done.
Thank you. And just the initial plans for the land that you purchased, that Williams Landing?
Yeah, no, we're really excited about Williams Landing. It's on a train station not that far from Melbourne CBD. I think travel time is only about 25 minutes these days because of the new freeway.
We've got a plan to extend what is a very high-performing Woolworths anchored center by introducing some leisure and lifestyle, which is sorely lacking in a catchment that is densifying and growing really fast. We've already got inbound inquiries of about 6,000-8,000 m of space, which will more than fill us up. But no, it's a really exciting development opportunity on that block of land. And what we'll end up doing is really strengthening the retail offer in that precinct.
Thanks, Sid. And just following up on one of the previous questions around the AUD 100-120 million of target commencements per year, can you provide any color around how we should think about the completions profile over the next year or two?
What you can for modeling purposes, David, I think the easy way to think about it is in any given period, we'll start AUD 100-120 million. On average, these projects are about a 12-month build time. Then you can assume the 7% cash yield on cost as rent will flow at the completion of that 12-month build time period. I think that's the easiest. There's some nuances per asset, but that's a good way to model it.
That's really clear, Sid. Thank you. And maybe just my last one, if I could, before I turn it over. Just in terms of gearing at the midpoint of the target range, just give views on additional capital recycling. I mean, how are you seeing transaction markets at the moment?
The transaction market for convenience retail globally is really, really, really active. So you've got, from a global perspective, a lot of investors that have been short on retail investments for about a decade now, wanting to get redeployed into retail assets. Then the question they're asking themselves is which sector to deploy in: convenience retail, given its performance over the last decade and given its potential growth outlook and given its low site coverage, is the sector in terms of the broader retail sector that they want to get deployed in. So our gross valuation uplifts for the half were really strong. Net valuation uplifts of more than 3%. So the valuation landscape has more than stabilized. And the demand for our types of assets, we believe, will continue to grow from here.
Thank you very much. Appreciate it.
Your next question comes from Richard Jones with JP Morgan. Please go ahead.
Good morning, Sid and Paul. Just wondering if you can work through some of the tenant remixing that you've been doing within the large-format retail assets? What kind of change in tenant use have you been integrating?
Yeah, so Richard, I'll give you a few little anecdotes to give you some color on it. As you know, the portfolio composition we've been targeting since the day we IPO'd is that 50-30-20. That target, in our minds, represents what the Australian consumer play is and how the consumer behaves. So what we've done in our large-format retail centers and the case studies of the likes of Belrose, Castle Hill, Penrith, where we've exited traditional furniture retailers, where some of those assets were overweighting, and then we've introduced things like Officeworks and medical centres and leisure and lifestyle tenants like BCF or Anaconda or Petstock with vets.
That's where the team's been really disciplined around downweighting some of that homewares mix. Not that we're uncomfortable with that sector, but we want it to be an appropriate proportion of our book, which represents consumer behavior. We've replaced that with more non-discretionary core everyday needs type of tenants.
Okay, and I think you called out 129 new leases and renewals. Do you know the rough mix of those? And then can you call out if there's any difference in spreads between large-format retail and neighborhood assets?
Predominantly renewals there, Richard. About an 80-20 split of renewals and new stores. No real difference between new lease and renewal spreads, and no discernible difference between neighborhoods and LFR in terms of the spreads. It's a pretty even blend across the book.
Okay, thank you.
Thanks, Richard.
Your next question comes from Lauren Berry with Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.
Hi, morning, guys. Just a question on Logan, please. Is the settlement of that sale dependent on finance or an equity raise on behalf of the buyer?
Our contract is unconditional.
Okay, great. And yeah, just looking at your liquidity profile, I understand that you're selling Logan in the second half, but I guess when you're ramping up your development spend to AUD 120 million per year, your current facility doesn't have a lot of headroom. Can you talk about just how you're thinking about funding on the debt side and whether you're looking at any new facilities, Will?
Yeah, so the message we want to give today, Lauren, is, I mean, we remain absolutely disciplined on keeping that gearing at the midpoint of our target gearing range. And so we'll continue to asset recycle to maintain that. I mean, there's certainly absolutely no shortage of bank liquidity.
I mean, in fact, the last process we did, we were bank process like last year, we were two-time subscribed. So yeah, it's more a function of just remaining disciplined and sticking to our target.
Okay, so your funding for the development pipeline will be more highly weighted to asset recycling versus upsizing your existing debt facilities.
Exactly. On the balance sheet, using the balance sheet as we've been saying the last two years. Absolutely. Ever since we've done the Aventus merger, Lauren, we've been very disciplined around the balance sheet and the management and the gearing, and we've proven now over the last three to four years that we can still execute on our development pipeline within the constraints of the balance sheet, and I think I said it last half.
I think we're one of the few REITs that, through this interest rate cycle increase period, our earnings didn't drop. We've continued to maintain and grow our earnings. So we'll keep doing it in a disciplined way, and asset recycling will give us enough liquidity to fund developments. We're pretty relaxed about it.
Yeah. Great. And then just final one on your guidance. The second half does imply a little bit of a step up versus first half, but you're probably selling more than you're buying at the moment. Yeah, can you just talk about what kind of growth is going into the second half assumptions? It doesn't look like there's too many developments completing in the half either.
There's no heroic assumptions there. It's just timing, Lauren, around shop closures, shop openings. There's nothing I can call out that's a material trend there.
Okay, great. Thanks, guys.
Thanks, Lauren.
Your next question comes from Ben Brayshaw with Barrenjoey. Please go ahead.
Good morning, Sid. Could you comment on trading conditions over the last six months and whether there are any categories that you could call out in the large-format space, household goods, electronics, etc., how they have trended?
Yeah, good question, Ben, and thanks for that one. As you know, we tend not to comment too much on tenant sales. A couple of things I'll call out for you out of interest that you might find curious is 12 months ago, our MAT across the group was around 0.7%. Today, it's 1.8%. Some of those sectors that 12 months ago and before that, that kind of troughed in terms of earnings, being homewares and electrical, are absolutely on recovery mode. And you would have seen a bit of that with JB Hi-Fi's disclosure a couple of days ago.
So we feel like those large-format categories are actually, now they've gone through a period of goods deflation in terms of pricing, and now they're recovering and trending up. Supermarkets have enjoyed increased volumes across the board as cost of living starts to really bite the consumer. People tend to go back into supermarkets. Over the 12-month period, no discernible trends there, but certainly heading into Christmas, there was some volatility between the supermarkets in terms of performance, but nothing that really affects our book at all.
Thanks, Sid. And what are you seeing in relation to split fall? Again, just over the last six months, if you have a read on that across the portfolio.
Black Friday has become a pretty important shopping day now, shopping week, I should say, and month in the year.
So what you saw was some very elevated levels of foot traffic and changed consumer behavior heading into Black Friday. And then that sustained itself through to a very steady Christmas trading period. Our assets, which we can speak to, are all located in Sydney, Melbourne, and Brisbane, and predominantly. And as you know, the population growth that has come into our catchments has been fairly significant as Australia has migrated over the last two years, somewhere in the order of one million people. A lot of them live around where our assets are. So we've had certainly some benefit of that increased population growth around where our assets are located, which has just provided natural foot traffic growth coming through.
Great. Thanks for your time, Sid.
Thanks, Ben.
Your next question comes from Edward Day with MA Financial. Please go ahead.
Good morning, Sid. Just on your hedge profile, the duration on that has continued to decline or decrease. Can you give a bit of color around how you're thinking about that over the next couple of years?
Yeah, thanks, Sid. It's Will here. I guess the message that we want to get across today is, I mean, HDN is continuing to prove it's got very strong growth at the NOI level. And what we're very conscious of is moving too early in our hedging in a lowering environment and flattening that growth curve. So, I mean, we watch it very closely, but I mean, that's kind of our decision at the moment.
Okay, thanks. There's been a couple of comments just on the development board, but can you give a number for, I guess, development WIP at 31 December?
Sorry, Edward, it just got a bit muffled, but your question?
Just your development WIP as of December. Oh, as of December?
So we've approximately AUD 75 million.
Okay, thanks. And then just on capitalized interest, I think it was about AUD 2.5 million in the first half. Is that a reasonable run rate going forward to assume, just given that kind of maximum, if it's AUD 100 - 120 million a year?
Pretty fair assumption made, yeah.
Okay. Thank you.
Thanks, Sid.
There are no further questions at this time. I'll now hand back to Mr. Sharma for closing remarks.
Thank you all, and thanks for making time on what is a pretty busy reporting day. Before we close the call, I just wanted to acknowledge Greg Hayes, a Foundation Director of the HomeCo Daily Needs REIT, who announced his retirement from the board after almost half a decade serving this REIT.
We really want to thank him for his contribution, and we also look forward to welcoming Zac Fried to the board, whose extensive real estate and retail credentials speak for themselves. Have a good day, everyone. Again, thanks for making time, and we look forward to catching up with all of you in our one-on-ones over the next week. Thank you.
That does conclude our conference for today. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.