Thank you, and good morning, everyone, and thanks for making time to attend today's call on HDN. Joining me today is HMC Capital CFO, William 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 respect to elders past, present, and emerging, and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. We'll begin the presentation on slide five. FY 2025 was another disciplined year for HDN, where we continue to grow our earnings, we continue to create new developments, we continue to recycle assets, and we continue to work within our existing balance sheet. We've delivered on our guidance of $0.088 per unit FFO, and we've delivered our guidance of $0.085 DPU.
In FY 2026, we're guiding to $0.09 per unit of FFO per unit, and our distributions are growing to $0.086, albeit our payout ratio is reducing as we right-size our distributions to FFO over time. Our gearing remains at the midpoint of our target range, and we are positioned well for the year coming up. Proudly, since our IPO, we have delivered 6.7% compound annual growth rate in FFO per unit. This is despite a challenging interest rate environment, which has seen a material increase in interest costs for HDN over the last three years. On page six, we outline the strong operational performance at HDN. This result is driven by an exceptional group of over 100 people that work on HDN assets day in, day out.
The key team we have assembled has been with us since day one and continues to deliver market-leading metrics of comp NOI growth of 4%, leasing spreads of 6%, while sustaining high occupancy and rent collection rates that continue to be market-leading for retail real estate in Australia. The property income growth at the top line is a pleasing result, despite being a net seller for the last three years, and what it demonstrates is the strong embedded income growth in the portfolio, driven by this operational focus and asset management intensity. As we approach our five-year anniversary as a listed entity, we thought it would be good to reflect for a moment on the journey since IPO, which commenced during the so-called COVID year of 2020.
On page seven, we've highlighted some of the key achievements the Board and management of HDN are proud of, which also then provide a foundation for us for our future growth. Our cash collection of 99% since IPO is outstanding and demonstrative of the quality of our tenancy mix and tenant counterparty performance. Our FFO per unit CAGR of 6.7% shows our discipline in growing earnings while preserving value, and notably, we have paid out over $0.376 in dividends since IPO. Our development CapEx program, which accelerated three years ago, has delivered $327 million of projects since inception. These have been delivered with a yield on cost of over 8.5% at completion. That's been well over our 7% stated target. Notably, what sometimes gets forgotten is the value creation in these developments.
The $327 million invested over the course of the last five years is now valued at approximately $500 million, effectively $170 million development profit over that period. The gross value uplift in the portfolio and the income growth is a function of how HDN has grown approximately $4.1 billion of assets since creation. This has provided benefits of scale that cannot be underestimated. We proudly manage today what I genuinely believe is one of the best convenience retail portfolios in Australia. Our investment strategy on page eight sums up who we are and what we do. HomeCo Daily Needs REIT creates daily needs community hubs, supporting the growth strategies of Australia's leading retailers. On that note, I will hand over to Paul to talk through the portfolio update and key growth opportunities.
Thanks, Sid. Turning now to slide eight. On this slide, we summarize our investment strategy. Our target model portfolio is 50% neighbourhood, 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, which are at the bottom end of the landlord cost curve. As a result, HDN continues to achieve sector-leading leasing spreads and low incentives. We have always said we would have sustained and continued leasing spreads to ensure long-term sustainable rental growth for our tenants, and we're pleased to have delivered those yet again throughout the year. We have started 2026 just as strong. HDN owns 2.4 million sq m of high-quality and strategically located property, with 36% site coverage providing inbuilt growth through our $650 million development pipeline.
This gives us a substantial opportunity to leverage the rapidly emerging essential last-mile infrastructure trends to unlock additional embedded value. Our portfolio is differentiated with approximately 86% exposure to metro locations and a high skew to the large growth centers of Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, to the Gold Coast. We serve 12 million Australians who live within a 10-km radius of our centers, and they visit us 93 million times throughout the year. The population in and around our centers is forecast to grow by 21% over the next 10 years. As a result, HDN's portfolio is perfectly placed to play a critical role in our tenants' omnichannel retailing strategies. In summary, HDN has continued to deliver on all key strategic and operating metrics this year.
On slide 10, we provide our portfolio summary, and the key takeouts for the year on the page are, firstly, our portfolio valuation, which has improved to $4.92 billion, despite being a net seller of assets. This valuation growth reflects income upside and moderate cap rate compression. Our assets are always in demand and have always traded well throughout up and down cycles. The market pricing of convenience retail and investor demand is now increasing at pace, which should provide future valuation growth if current conditions continue. Secondly, our wealth has improved through our proactive leasing, and we've smoothed our lease expiry profile. Our portfolio mix continues to trend towards the model portfolio. A unique characteristic of our rent composition compared to our peers is that 87% of income increases every year by a weighted average of 3.5%.
Because of the unique tenancy composition, our fixed escalations and outgoing recoveries provide better organic growth compared to our peers. Now, we also get asked frequently about tenant sales, and as we say every half, retailer sales movements are not always directly correlated with rental spreads or cash collection. That given, HDN's retailers continue to perform strongly. Total MAT growth is 1.6%, and what's curious for the half, however, is a tick up in the non-supermarket sales categories, which are now performing at 2.6% MAT. Supermarkets for the year have been impacted with goods deflation, industrial actions, and increased competition. On slide 10, we provide further detail about our top tenants and the quality and diversity that underpins the portfolio and HDN's performance for investors. 35% of gross income is derived from our top 10 tenants, and seven of those are ASX listed.
Some of our major retailers have reported to the market and outlined strong growth outlooks, which is encouraging. On slide 12, we highlight the location of our assets. This details HDN's key metropolitan markets. The majority of centers are located in the key Eastern Seaboard capital cities, and these include 40% of the portfolio being in Sydney, 19% of the portfolio in Melbourne, and 17% of the portfolio in Greater Brisbane to the Gold Coast. These three cities are the fastest growing in Australia, giving our portfolio exposure to the increasing population, as demonstrated by the 10-year population projections we have included. Our sustainability commitments, which we outline on slide 13, are designed around our objectives to create healthy communities. I'm pleased to report on the following initiatives delivered.
On environmental, we've delivered solar to 70% of feasible sites against a target of 65% and achieved a 32% reduction in Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions versus an FY 2022 baseline. This has been through a combination of our energy management system and Solarest installations. On social, HDN has targeted our social needs program to support youth under 18, as demonstrated by the support of national partnerships with organizations such as Eat Up. On governance, HDN was awarded ESG Regional Top Rated Company with Morningstar Sustainalytics for the third straight year, and HDN has lodged its third Modern Slavery Statement and continues its GRESB submissions. Moving now to our growth opportunities that commence on slide 15. Since IPO, HDN has differentiated itself from other REITs through its ability to actively develop assets.
Since IPO, we have invested more than $327 million across 25 projects, delivering an average yield on cost of 8.5%. The development of the portfolio continues. Today, we have $170 million projects under construction, and we're aiming to commence a further $ 80 million -$ 100 million projects in FY 2026. All of the projects are targeting at least a 7% return on cost. The value creation in our growth through our asset management and development teams is a key point of difference, and I'd now like to take the opportunity to update you on our active development projects. On slide 16, we outline our progress at Tuggerah, where we have an 11,200 sq m leisure and lifestyle expansion under construction. The development is 96% leased to ASX and leading national retailers, including Officeworks, Nick Scali, and Anaconda, and we have multiple offers to choose from on the remaining space.
The development is targeting a more than 7% return on cost and a 10% net valuation gain. On completion of the development, 10,000 sq m of land remains available for future development. We have a development consent in place for an additional 7,000 sq m of GLA, on which we have interest from ASX listed retailers. On slide 17, we provide an update on our Castle Hill development. Castle Hill is one of the leading Large Format Retail centers in the Sydney metropolitan area, and it's the largest asset in the HDN portfolio. The prime center is in high demand from retailers who are attracted to its strong population growth, high quality of the center, and the tenancy mix. The strong demand has allowed us to develop additional GLA in underutilized car parks.
Stage one of the development completed, 100% leased to leading retailers, including BCF, Total Tools, and Petstock, and has delivered a valuation gain of $14.5 million. Stage two of the development is 100% leased to retailers such as Bing Lee, Plus Fitness, and Beacon Lighting, and we're targeting an on-completion value for the asset of $450 million. On slide 18, we provide an update on Lutwyche. In August 2024, we acquired Lutwyche, which is located just five kilometers from the Brisbane CBD and contains all three major supermarkets: Coles, Woolworths, and Aldi. We're well advanced with the implementation of an accretive remixing strategy we identified on acquisition. The strategy proposes to replace the existing underperforming food court with a 700 sq meter mini-major we've leased to a leading national retailer.
The remix has also allowed us to lease up other long-term vacancies in the center, including the introduction of new food operators. On completion, we're targeting a 21% valuation gain. On slide 19, we provide some information on our other active developments. These include a new Woolworths anchor daily needs asset at Armstrong Creek, a childcare center at Upper Coomera, and an urgent care medical center and childcare center at Caringbah. All of the developments are tenant-led and target a minimum 7% return on cost. Turning now to slide 20, over the last two years, HMC Real Estate Platform has established three unlisted retail property funds, which we have articulated on this slide. HDN has invested in aggregate $94 million.
This is a relatively small investment in the context of the balance sheet, but a strategically important investment that allows us to, one, invest in complementary strategies in adaptive reuse and greenfield developments that HDN would not normally invest, but have outsized IRR returns that we should benefit from. Number two, access to high-quality assets once complete that are of a type and quality that HDN would be proud to own and which we will have a right of first offer. Three, this is the benefit from cost and income synergies that come with the scale of the HMC Real Estate Platform, which now has approximately $10 billion of real estate under management. I'll now hand over to Will to take us through the FY 2025 results in more detail.
Thanks, Paul. Turning now to slide 22 to go through the earnings summary.
Strong underlying revenue growth saw property net income grow 6% to $288 million in FY 2025. FY 2025 FFO increased to $182.5 million or $0.088 per unit, despite offsetting a 17% increase in net interest expense. Turning now to slide 23 to go through the balance sheet. June 2025 net tangible assets was $1.47 per unit, recording a 1% gain versus December. The portfolio cap rate as at June remains steady at 5.6%. Asset recycling continued within the balance sheet, with proceeds being reinvested into neighbourhood centres and developments. Turning now to slide 24. June gearing of 35.2% remains at the midpoint of the target gearing range of 30% - 40%. Liquidity as at June was $108 million, with no debt expiry until FY 2027. During the second half of FY 2025, HDN increased its hedge book to 50% of current drawn debt for the three years to June 2028.
I'll now hand it back to Paul to discuss outlook and guidance.
Thanks, Will. Turning now to page 26. We're really proud of the team and the results. We continue to grow our earnings per unit and remain focused on long-term value creation for our unit holders. In the last three years, we were able to navigate through a rising interest rate environment without dropping earnings, distributions, or undertaking capital raises. We recycled assets, we reinvested back into our assets, and focused very simply on operational excellence at our assets. We're pleased to provide our FFO guidance of $0.09 per unit and distributions of $0.086 for FY 2026. We have a balance sheet, gearing, and hedging profile that positions us for growth should market conditions improve and the interest rate environment become more benign. I'll now hand back to the operator for questions.
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 are on speakerphone, please pick up the handset to ask your question. Your first question comes from Cody Shield from UBS. Please go ahead.
Morning, Senator Team. Just firstly, on that Whirl of Grove asset, are you able to provide some details on yield settlement and what you're seeing there in terms of opportunities to add value?
Yeah, thanks, Cody. I think firstly, just a quick little bit of information around the asset. It's a great asset, really strong supermarket sales, just under $100 million of sales. Buying the asset from an owner that probably just, where there's an opportunity there for us to really, I think, make some changes, as we've demonstrated both in our pack through developments and asset management on the asset. We're looking at getting that asset at initial 5.5% and growing it to 7% + in a pretty short period of time. I think we're planning to get some more information at our next press for you once we've got our hands on it. We'll settle it now in the next couple of weeks, is the plan there, Cody?
Cody, if you recall what we did at Southlands, recently at Marsden Park, what we've outlined in Lutwich, Will is going to be another one of those opportunities where it's got a few too many vacancies at the moment. We see immense upside because the bones of the asset are fantastic. It's in a growing catchment with wonderful fundamentals, and we think we'll make some outsized returns on that, both from a yield and a value uplift perspective. We're really excited about it.
Okay, that's clear. Just second one on maybe the run rate of disposals. I mean, you know, you probably expect valuation gains into FY 2026. So, you know, how should we think about the run rate there? Is it, you know, maybe $40 million or so in second half 2025, or are you going to marry it up with CapEx? How should we be thinking about it?
We're going to marry it up with CapEx.
Okay, great. Maybe just lastly, could you give us a read on how your tenants have been trading into July and August?
Yeah, certainly. I think as we tried to articulate in the press, we've seen some strong growth. June was probably one of our strongest months on months in the mid-single-digit growth throughout the portfolio. Anecdotal evidence from the retailers is that's continued into July and August as well. I think, as I articulated in the presentation, we're actually seeing that coming through from some of those categories that have been under pressure in the last couple of years. The furniture, homewares, the leisure and lifestyle guys are really seeing some good momentum there. First time for a long time, consumer sentiment, certainly at our assets, is really positive off the back of anticipated interest rate cuts. There's a buoyancy amongst the retailers, which is really encouraging. Probably to add to Paul's remarks, because I know we'll get asked the question, we've started the year really strongly on leasing spreads.
We will probably end up the year similar to this year, around 6%, but we've started with leasing spreads at a double digit on the deals done today during July and the first little part of August.
Okay, that's great. Thanks, guys.
Your next question comes from Lou Pirenc at Jarden. Please go ahead.
Yeah, thank you. Good morning, Sid, Paul, Will. Quick question on your guidance. It seems a little conservative with 4% NOI growth targeted to the upside from asset recycling. Are you expecting another jump in interest expense? Or maybe another way of saying it is, what do you expect your WECD to be in 2026?
Yeah, Lou, I'll touch on the interest disruption. We're assuming 3.4% for the unhedged portion of the debt. On the property NOI, I'll probably pass to Sid on that one.
Yeah, so the comp NOI growth will be pretty similar to last year. We look, again, the outlook from where we sit today is optimistic. Retailers are performing well. Our leasing activity is really strong. The downtime between our remixing is reducing. OpEx management, you know, we've been incredible at our OpEx management for the last three, four years while inflation's been running. You know, one of the great things we have in our book is property expenses are capped at 3% of gross rent. The guidance is what it is, but I think there's some tailwinds now that are emerging that used to be headwinds in previous years. To your point, Lou, I think cost of debt, as we sit here today, is a marginal headwind, which is affecting the guidance today.
The market is turning, interest rates potentially are coming down, and it could turn into a tailwind really fast.
All right, thank you. Maybe an apology for asking too many questions about debt and stuff, but the interest expense in 2025 went up by 17%. The cost of debt only went up by 10 basis points, and your average debt balance hasn't really changed that much either. How should we think about that? Is that just fluctuations in debt balance throughout the year that is higher than the period end?
Yeah, Lou, it was just a function of the hedge book rolling off and stepping up.
Is that captured in your average cost of debt?
Yes, as Sid said, this is the last year where we've got that sort of step up and roll off of the hedge book. Our current hedge rates are pretty in line with the unhedged market, so it's setting us up for good future growth.
Great, thank you.
Your next question comes from David Pobucky at Macquarie Group. Please go ahead.
Yeah, good morning, Sid, Paul, and Will, thanks for taking my questions. I just wanted to follow up on Lou's question around the weighted average cost of debt and interest expense into next year. With that hedge debt reducing to 50% at July, would you say you've got relatively less visibility on interest expense than usual? Is that hedge debt lower than prior years? Sid, I think you mentioned, it sounds like interest rates or interest expenses are a marginal headwind, but could turn into a tailwind through the year, potentially, depending on where interest rates come in. You know, potentially some conservatism in guidance. Is that the way to read it?
Yeah, I think what we're saying is, I mean, the assumption for unhedged debt is 3.4%. I think if we went and locked it in today, we'd get around 3.2%, 3.3%. There is a bit of upside there today, but maybe that comes back down. I think the key point to sort of take away is, you know, HDN's absorbed sustained increases in cost of debt over the last three financial years. Right here, right now, we're not going to be seeing that for future periods.
Thanks, Will. The second question is on development commencements. $100 million - $120 million last year. This year, you're going to $80 million - $120 million, a slightly wider range than last year. Could you talk to that, please?
Look, there's a various number of projects around the portfolio, David, some of different size and scale. I think it's probably just more a matter of the mix of projects that are there. We don't want to be, I suppose, overshooting what we think is achievable and be presenting in that $80 million - $100 million target of what we see in FY 2025. The pipeline at $650 million is there. There's a couple of larger projects that will probably come online in future years that we'll see it smooth out.
Thank you. Just the final question on the payout ratio. I think the opening remarks mentioned that the payout ratio is reducing as you right-size the distribution to AFFO over time. Will you start providing an AFFO per share number going forward, or what payout ratio are you targeting medium-term relative to AFFO, please?
Yeah, over time, I think we'll start as the portfolio matures and there is maintenance and leasing CapEx in a more stabilized environment. We will provide AFFO per unit, and then with an intention over time, whether it's next financial year or after, that our payout ratio will be at 100% of AFFO. Now, that's based on a lot of feedback we've had from our investors. The one thing I'd add, though, is unlike other REIT peers, our development book creates incremental income and value and earnings that otherwise aren't there. Just a data point for everyone on the call that might be helpful. Since our inception, interest expense has grown from $17 million to $81 million last year. Yet, we've grown our earnings every year. We've grown our distributions every year.
We've sized our distributions historically to where we think the earnings will get to, including the developments as they come online. I've been pretty comfortable with where we've been at historically, but I think that's probably our view is the right way to go moving forward is to just size the DPU to AFFO and then to keep reinvesting in this development pipeline, which is creating some outsized performance.
Thanks, sorry, just one follow-up. What was MC and TI in FY 2025, please?
Sorry, David, it was a bit muffled. Could I trouble you to describe that?
MC and TI in FY 2025, what was it, please?
Sorry, I'm missing the acronym. Are you asking for leasing incentives and tenancy incentives?
Yes, what was main tenant CapEx and tenant incentives in FY 2025?
Yeah, it was $20 million. We had $5 million in maintenance CapEx and $15 million in incentives.
Thank you very much, guys. I appreciate it.
Thanks, mate.
Your next question comes from Richard Jones at JP Morgan. Please go ahead.
Thank you. Good morning, Sid and Paul. Just in relation to, I just have a question, Sid, but just the IPO portfolio, where does that sit in terms of lease expiry, and can you give us some color at how much it's been re-let in the five years since IPO and how much may roll in the next 12 to 24 months?
Thanks for the question. Probably as the portfolio has grown, we probably don't really look at it in the individual buckets, so I just probably don't have the numbers to my head. What we have to hand, it does have an expiry profile in there that's probably starting from this year and will run for the next three to four years from that initial C portfolio of masters. The initial leases in that portfolio were typically for seven to twelve years, and we're now at that point from when those centers were generally repositioned. We're only about 10% - 15% in on those expiry so far, Richard. We're yet to work through that entire book.
To your point, when we developed those masters assets back in the day, they were at very low rents at a different point in the cycle, and they are a great contributor to the leasing spreads that we've achieved to date, and they will be moving forward. What I'd probably add to that, though, is if I have a look at our IPO asset base, and I have a look at, you know, the large transformative deal we did with Aventus, the leasing spreads we're getting out of both of those books are pretty commensurate now. The reason being that they're skewed to Sydney and Melbourne Metro, and Brisbane for that matter, where there's very minimal supply coming on stream in retail. That's what's really driving the rental growth now across the whole book.
One of the, again, I think I said earlier, we've started the year really, really strong on leasing spreads so far. We've done 17 new leases and renewals over about 15,000 m of GLA, and we're getting well north of double-digit leasing spreads on those. If I look at the blend, it's blend through at the whole portfolio. Yes, the growth story on the masters' original rents is still there, and we're going to continue to achieve that, and they are big contributors to the leasing spreads, but so is the Aventus portfolio that we bought three years ago. It was kind of transformative for the group, and the value we're unlocking in that is significant.
Good call. Thanks, Sid.
Thanks, Richard.
Your next question comes from Ben Brayshaw at Barrenjoey . Please go ahead.
Good morning, Sid. Apologies if you mentioned this on the call. I was wondering if you could comment on the comp MAT growth for the last 12 months. You mentioned at the half that categories that were under pressure were in recovery mode. I was wondering over the last six months whether that trend has played out.
I think Paul mentioned MAT 1.6%. Non-supermarkets, though, are at 2.6%, and the supermarkets are a bit lower than that number, Ben. We're seeing an uptick in kind of the non-supermarket sales, and the supermarket story is really a function of a few things that I think Paul touched on, goods deflation being one of them. What's really interesting is that the sales periods are now becoming really pronounced, right? Whether it's Mother's Day, Black Friday, or Easter, those sales periods retailers have really capitalized upon in the last six months. If you look at the trend from the year before to this year, the last six months have been really strong. The only thing I'd probably add is, you know, the consumer is still, you know, watching their wallet pretty closely. They're overspending in those sales periods.
You're seeing all the listed retailers report, and everyone reporting so far has provided some pretty good outlooks. It's the sales period that's driving growth and upside for the retailers. The consumer pulls back if it's not a good bargain and not a good deal. What's interesting in June and July, though, is that as the consumer's kind of adjusted to the new interest rate environment and seems to believe that interest rates are coming down, they've already started spending more consistently. We hope that will be a trend that continues, but July's been really strong for retailer sales performance.
Terrific. Thanks, Sid.
Once again, if you wish to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. Your next question comes from Winky Tan at Morningstar. Please go ahead.
Thank you. Good morning, Sid, Paul, and Will. I just have a question on your development pipeline. Could you just provide us a timeline for Leppington and Williams Landing? For your $650 million pipeline, what sort of timeline do you have in mind?
In terms of Williams Landing and Leppington, they're on our projects to be commenced sometime during FY 2026. They're relatively near term. The $650 million pipeline, again, we're looking to roll out between $100 million and $120 million a year on average. We're probably looking at a five to six-year period on that pipeline. I want to articulate in terms of that pipeline, that is really just the projects that are there for us in the sites in their current format. As we highlight, the portfolio is highly skewed to metropolitan areas where land is scarce. This is retail only. A lot of these sites may well have other opportunities as the population densifies in those areas.
Great, thanks. Can you speak to the types of tenants that you're targeting for these new developments? Are they mostly your top 10 tenants, or are they going to be other tenants?
Look, we certainly target the tenants in our developments to be in line with the current tenant book. In terms of the categories in which they sit, it's dependent upon each of the tenants. I think if you're looking through what we've been delivering at Castle Hill, the tenant mix that's there with the likes of BCF, Petstock, Total Tools, and again at Tuggerah with Anaconda, Nick Scali, Repco, and others, they're the types of tenants that we've demonstrated through our development pipeline that are attracted to our developments because of the strong fundamentals. Just to add to that, there's a slide that's in front of you there on page 26. It references the constrained retail supply pipeline across the country.
There's a fundamental shortage of good retail space. HDN is one of the few entities and certainly the only listed entity that's proven over the last three to four years to take advantage of the demand and create the supply for our customers. As I said, our role is really simple in HDN , creating community hubs for Australia's leading retailers. All our projects are tenant demand-led. We will always target working with our retailers that are in our top 10 and top 20 to make sure we fulfill their objectives of growth. The interesting part of this retail supply pipeline, which is constrained, is that the demand for space is the type of space we're building. What does that mean? It's a lot less specialty tenancies than historic shopping centers.
It's a combination of supermarkets, large format retail, health and services tenants with a lot less independent mum and dad tenants and specialty tenants than other books. It's all about the model portfolio. That's what we guide to, and that's what we build around.
Great, thank you. Just one last question from me. In regards to your investments in HMC’s unlisted funds, I saw that some are value-add, which is not a strategy that HomeCo traditionally plays in. How should we think about these investments, and are we going to see more of these to come?
That's a really good question. HDN, you know, today is just under $5 billion of assets under management. It's always had a very discrete, specific investment philosophy and mandate, which is targeting 50%, 30%, 20%, 50% neighbourhood centres, 30% large format tenants, 20% health and services tenants that are in our precinct. What we aim to deliver every year for our investors in HDN is stable and growing distributions and a reliability of dividend flow each year and every year. What we've done with what are very small investments in these two unlisted strategies is to provide ourselves with optionality in the future by having a right of first offer to acquire these properties once reconfigured and once developed into cash-generating HDN-style assets that HDN will be proud to own. Now, just to be clear, these are rights of first offer.
HDN is under no compulsion or obligation to ever buy these types of assets in the future. What it does do is it allows us to play in a space that the HDN business wouldn't play in today because it would affect the cash flows and the dividends day in, day out. The last mile retail strategy we've talked about a lot before, this is an adaptive reuse strategy, buying sub-regional centres. HDN does not want to own Myer stores or department stores or fashion tenants in our assets. The play in Last Mile is a small investment as Last Mile repurposes those assets into HDN-style assets. There will be a type and quality of assets that HDN may want to own in the future. In the meantime, it'll have a solid yield but a really outsized IRR with very minimal risk.
The Greenfield Strategy investment is alongside two large institutional investors. What it does is it works with one of our major tenant partner groups to unlock their rollout strategy. There is a supply shortage of new retail space. Greenfield strategies are longer duration assets. However, that product that will be created out of that fund will be supermarket-anchored neighbourhood shopping centres with 15 shops that HDN, once complete, would be proud to own. These are small commitments on what is now over $2 billion of unlisted retail that HMC now manages. HDN gets the scale benefits of those investments along with the cost benefits and, frankly, supporting some of our retailers in their ambitions. We're really proud of these investments, and we look forward to talking about them over the next few days with everyone.
I just want to confirm, are all your equity commitments done in FY 2025 for these two funds?
Sorry, just missed that question.
Are all your equity commitments into these funds completed in FY 2025 already?
Yeah, the last mile investment of $54 million is done, completed, and the commitment for the Greenfield Strategy has been made, but not all of that $40 million has been deployed.
Excellent. That's all from me. Thank you.
Thank you.
Your next question comes from Lauren Berry at Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.
Good morning, guys. Just another one on your investments to those funds. I'm just interested in how you came to the $4 million investment in the HART fund. Because as you were talking before, Sid, you know, this one is one that you will get some, I guess, initial yield and then upside from developments whereas Greenfield you're putting more into, but it's going to be a much longer harvesting period for your capital back on that one. Just interested on your thoughts there.
Yeah, thanks for the question, Lauren. The seed asset in HART is Plumpton Marketplace, which I think has been fairly well documented. Plumpton Marketplace is an outstanding asset in Western Sydney. It has a strong performing Woolworths that does over $70 million of turnover. It's well established in its catchment. It also has a Big W. That asset was acquired and settled in February. HDN's investment in that asset is a very small investment of 5% of the equity, which is $5.1 million. The value of that asset has already improved by approximately 10% since acquisition off the back of a renegotiation of the anchor tenant leases. That asset, we believe, over time will go through repositioning to enhance the mix as we move away from department stores and apparel style retailers.
That's an asset that long term we would love to have in the HDN umbrella at a higher stake. In the meantime, the way to look at the very small investment is that it gives us a right of first offer. That's the real benefit and upside for HDN. It gives us a right of first offer into one of Australia's highest productivity per meter assets in the space that's out there.
Is there any intention to put additional equity into HART’s unlisted funds if it goes out of purchasing?
No, no more, no more than what we've done now. We're happy with that. We're happy that if HART goes out and acquires more assets, that HDN will get the benefit of the ROFA extending over those future assets without having to put any more equity down.
Great. On the payout again, you said earlier that your maintenance CapEx and incentives are now $20 million. Looking at guidance, it implies about an $11 million gap between FFO and your distribution. Can we expect a multi-year transition into a 100% payout ratio based on your guidance?
Yeah, that's right, Lauren. Exactly right. We have a very loyal retail unit holder base. We also want to make sure we look after them, and we want to just gradually step it down to 100% of AFFO over the next couple of years.
Is there any concern that your CapEx and incentives are going to be increasing materially over that period? Is that what's driven the lower payout?
No, it's certainly not. It's simply feedback from investors. It's just something that comes up. We thought we'd just take the issue off the table.
Okay, great. Just final one from me. Your guidance for comp NOI growth of 4%. Just wondering how you get to that number. You know, if your fixed months are 3.5%, CPI is definitely on the way down closer to 2% now. You've only got like 9% expiry with the positive leasing spreads. Is there anything else going into that calculation?
No, I think that's all of the three things that are driving that, Lauren. Leasing spreads and expenses, you can see we've been managing those pretty tightly as well. OpEx is, if you have a look this year, I think, Lauren, our OpEx is lower than last year. I think we're incredibly disciplined in the management of our OpEx lines. There are some tailwinds coming through on line items that, you know, two to three years ago were higher and trending up higher. What I mean by that is things like insurance, et cetera. That's the real delta there between the weighted average rent review and their comp NOI.
Great, thanks guys.
Your next question comes from Andy MacFarlane at Bell Potter. Please go ahead.
Hi guys, just this one quick one for me. Previously mentioned that in terms of urban benchmarks, your portfolio was over 30% below those benchmarks for supermarkets and sub-regional. Just wondering if you have a sense of where the portfolio sits today.
Andy, I don't think I've ever mentioned urban benchmarks. I kind of look at things a bit differently, but you are right. That was the right statistic regardless. I think what's more interesting actually is this supply constraint is kind of leading to more opportunities and rental upside ahead of us in supermarkets, in Large Format Retail than we probably anticipated. I think that benchmark delta is understated because I think the market's trending up higher because of just the lack of retail supply coming online. Retailers are performing well. Australia's population growth is strong. We've provided, and I'd like to call out page 12 on our property portfolio summary, where we've added in the 10-year population projection numbers. Now that's been calculated on a 10-kilometer radius to our primary catchment of our assets, which we tap into.
If you kind of look at population growth plus a lack of supply, I think, frankly, rents are going to trend higher in our categories. I don't think there's an appropriate benchmark that's available nationally that, other than supermarket average rents, that captures Large Format Retail and Health & Services tenants as strongly as our book does. I think we've got a way to go yet. As long as retailers continue to trade, the population continues to grow, we provide great last-mile fulfillment solutions to our retailers in our assets. I think we'll keep growing our rents over time.
Thanks, Sid.
Thanks, Andy.
There are no further phone questions at this time. I'll now hand back to Sid Sharma for closing remarks.
Thanks everyone for making time early on a busy reporting day. We look forward to catching up with all of you over the next few days. A big thank you to the board and management of HomeCo Daily Needs REIT. We're heading to our five-year anniversary. We set out to create Australia's leading convenience retail REIT. From an operations fundamentals perspective, I'd like to think we've created that. We look forward to what the next few years have in store. As the cycle turns, the interest rate environment becomes more benign. I'm looking forward to seeing what this management team can deliver for investors over the next five years. Thank you again and look forward to catching up with you.
That does conclude our conference for today. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.