Standing by, welcome to the Shopping Centres Australasia Property Group SCP FY 2020 session.
Presenting these results with me today is Mark Fleming, our Chief Financial Officer. Results that we've been able to achieve in the last 12 months, particularly the last six months, consistent with what has happened during FY 2021. We have remained true to our core strategy, been as important as at present. Firstly, let me take you to slide four, which set in an increase of in excess of 400% on the same period last year. Our NTA. Maturity. Moving to slide five, which sets out some of the key achievements and the impact of the current restrictions in a number of states on the FY 2022 financial year is uncertain. Had a valuation uplift of AUD 409 million or 13, financial results.
Thanks, Anthony, good morning, everyone. I'll start. On the top right-hand side of this slide, you can see the moving annual turnover performance of our tenants, which overall has been very strong over the last 12 months. Many of our specialty tenants suffered sales declines during the various lockdowns, as you would expect, particularly in Victoria during the first half of the financial year. What we've consistently seen is that specialty tenant sales rebound strongly once restrictions are lifted, and that's what happened in the second half of the financial year, because for most of that period, there were only limited restrictions in most parts of Australia. In terms of cash collection, it's a similar story.
You can see that over the second half of the financial year, our cash collection rates returned to historical levels, with around 90% of rents collected within 30 days and 96% of rent due in the period was collected by June 30th. Moving on to slide 8, which shows the impact of COVID-19, as the top right-hand chart shows, we've assessed the direct and quantifiable earnings impact of COVID-19 in FY 2021 at around AUD 7.3 million, made up of three components. Firstly, we waived AUD 6.9 million of rent during the year. Secondly, other direct impacts of the pandemic amounted to approximately AUD 4.4 million.
Finally, partially offsetting these impacts was a reduction in the expected credit loss allowance of AUD 4 million because increased allowances for deferred and unpaid rent during the year were offset by greater than expected collections of FY 2020 unpaid rent. Other indirect impacts, such as increased vacancy and reduced leasing spreads, are difficult to attribute and quantify and are excluded from this analysis. The bottom right chart shows our distribution per unit trend in half years. As we've previously indicated, we would expect to return to the pre-COVID level for AFFO per unit and distributions of at least AUD 0.075 per unit per half year once the impact of the pandemic has ended. Turning now to slide 9, profit and loss.
Our statutory net profit after tax was AUD 462.9 million, which was up by 441% compared to the same period last year. The primary reason for that increase was an increase in the fair value of investment properties during the year. Stepping down the P&L, net property income increased by AUD 10.1 million or 5.6% due to acquisitions and reduced COVID impacts compared to the prior year. Funds' management income increased due to performance fees realized in relation to the SURF 1 and SURF II retail funds. Corporate costs increased due to an increase in directors' and officers' insurance premiums, and because no KMP STIP was paid in respect of the FY 2020 financial year.
Fair value of investment properties increased due to a combination of cap rate tightening, improved NOI outlook, and removal of allowances for future lost rents due to the pandemic. Fair value of derivatives has decreased by AUD 65.9 million due to the cross-currency interest rate swaps associated with our U.S. private placements, due to the appreciation of the Australian dollar and a steeper yield curve. Finally, interest expense includes AUD 9.1 million of swap termination costs. Our weighted average cost of debt reduced from around 3.5% in FY 2020 to around 3.1% in FY 2021, and the spot cost of debt as at June 30th, 2021 was around 2.4%. Moving to slide 10, funds from operations.
To get to funds from operations or FFO, we reverse out the non-cash and one-off components of our net profit after tax, including fair value adjustments. FFO of AUD 159 million is up by 12.9% on the prior year, primarily due to acquisitions, reduced COVID impacts, and lower cost of debt. AFFO of AUD 135.8 million was up by 9.3% on the prior year, slightly less than the FFO because of an increase in maintenance CapEx and leasing incentives. AFFO per unit of AUD 0.126 per unit was slightly lower than the prior year due to the dilutive impact of the capital raisings late in FY 2020, which weren't fully redeployed until the second half of the FY 2021 financial year. Distributions were AUD 0.124 per unit, representing a payout ratio of 98% of AFFO. Turning now to slide 11, which shows our summary balance sheet.
Cash is reduced to more normal levels due to utilizing AUD 180 million of term deposits to repay the medium-term note in October last year. The book value of our investment properties has increased to AUD 4 billion due to AUD 452.4 million of acquisitions and AUD 409.4 million increase in the like-for-like valuation of investment properties. Other assets has decreased due to the reduction in the mark-to-mark valuation of our cross-currency interest rate swaps, as discussed earlier. Net debt has increased primarily due to acquisitions during the period. Net tangible assets per unit increased to AUD 2.52 per unit due to the investment property fair value increase, partially offset by the decrease in the fair value of derivatives.
Finally, our management expense ratio has increased slightly to 41 basis points due to the AUD 1.8 million increase in our D&O insurance premiums and because no KMP STIP was paid for FY 2020.
Moving to slide 12, which deals with debt and capital management. Our gearing sits at 31.3%, which is toward the lower end of our target range. During the year, we repaid the AUD 225 million expiring medium-term note. We issued AUD 50 million of new 10 and 15-year notes, and we increased some of our bank facilities to fund acquisitions. As at June 30th, our weighted average cost of debt has reduced to 2.4%. Our weighted average debt maturity has increased to 5.3 years. We have AUD 290 million of cash and undrawn facilities, and we have no debt expiring until FY 2023. Finally, as you can see, we are well within our banking covenants. Thank you, and I'll now hand back to Anthony for the operational performance overview.
Excellent. Thank you very much, Mark. Looking at slide 14 and the overview of our convenience portfolio, we now have 80 neighborhood, 1 freestanding Woolworths and Big W, and 11 convenience sub-regional assets comprising 744,000 sq m with approximately 2,000 specialty tenants and 122 anchor tenants. Our weighted average cap rate is 5.9%, and as you can see, our geographic diversification is well-balanced across all states in Australia. 48% of our gross rent continues to come from our anchor tenants, including Woolworths, Coles, Wesfarmers and Aldi. Of the other 52%, there is a heavy weighting towards our core non-discretionary categories being food, retail services, and pharmacy and medical. Slide 15 describes our portfolio occupancy. Specialty vacancy is stable despite the COVID-19 challenges.
Our occupancy level decreased to 97.4%, primarily as a result of Target Country at the Gateway Langwarrin exiting in April 2021, and a replacement tenant is close to being secured. The total special vacancy remained at 5.1%, which is slightly above our targeted range of 3%-5%, and the long-term stability of our portfolio occupancy illustrates the resilience of this portfolio. Specialty tenant monthly holdover has been a particular focus for the team, and that has remained stable at just over 1.3%. We have three anchor tenant expiries in FY 2022, and all terms are agreed on these three. Turning to slide 16, the sales growth and turnover rent. Strong sales growth has been continuing, and our supermarket MAT has increased by 3.2%. The panic buying experienced in FY 2020 was not repeated. However, the living local and shopping local continues.
Our discount department stores have strong sales growth of 9.2%. Big W's performance continued to be positive throughout the year. Our mini major sales growth has strengthened to 6.4%, primarily from discounters and pharmacies in our portfolio. Our specialty sales increased strongly by 9.7%. The lockdown in the last quarter of FY 2020 were not repeated. Our turnover rent continues to increase. We now have 42 anchors or 34% over, with a further 15 anchors within 10% of the turnover threshold. There were nine anchor tenant turnover rents were captured in a base rent review during the year. Turning to slide 17, our specialty key metrics for our existing centers are outlined, and we saw a strong rebound in the second half of FY 2021. Strong second half leasing performance with positive renewal spreads.
The second half was 1.6% versus the first half of -4.6. Improved new lease spreads in the second half was 3% versus 0.8% in the first half. In addition to the above, we also executed 75 COVID lease extensions for an average extension period of 13 and a half months. The strong sales growth and reducing occupancy costs positions us well for future rental growth. Our sales productivity increased to just under AUD 10,000 per square meter, and our average rent per square meter has increased by 1.9% to AUD 793 per square meter. Our occupancy cost decreased to 8.6%. Our strategy is focused on taking a considered position on tenants holding over, while targeting positive renewal spreads and maintaining a high retention rate on the renewals at 73%.
Reducing specialty vacancy with a focus on reducing our longer term vacancies, 127 new deals were done with positive rental uplifts and lower incentives in the second half. We continue to remix towards those non-discretionary categories. We also continue to achieve our 3% to 5% annual fixed rent increases for 88% of our specialty tenants. Slide 18 outlines our sustainability strategy. FY 2021 was a very significant year for Region Group carbon. We've set a target of achieving net zero in our operations by 2030 on our scope, our water use by 25% across our largest consumption sites by 2025. Waste, we're looking to divert 60% of our operational waste from landfill by 2030. Leading local, we are continually working with The Smith Family of all of our employees. Sixth, diversity inclusion, we have achieved and will look to maintain going forward into FY 2022 and onwards.
Slide In 2015, 2016, and 2021 and 2022 has and will be significant. We have a realistic plan, and as a group, we've committed to reaching the 2030 growth opportunities, which starts on Slide 21. SCP has a strong track record in AUD 38 million each financial year since our inception in December 2012. Slide 22. FY 2021 was a particularly active year for acquisitions. We contracted nine centers for in excess of AUD 550 million, and we completed seven of those centers for AUD 452 million during FY 2021. Raymond Terrace in New South Wales and Drayton Central in Toowoomba, Queensland were settled in July 2021. We also acquired the adjoining land at Greenbank in Brisbane, and also the adjoining petrol station in Warnbro, W.A. FY 2021 was our most active year after FY 2019, when we acquired a significant portfolio from Vicinity.
Slide 23 continues to highlight the fragmented ownership within our sector, which provides SCP with further acquisition opportunities. We are the largest owner by number, continue to consolidate by utilizing our funding and management capability to execute acquisition opportunities. Since listing, we have now acquired 57 convenience centers for over AUD 2.1 billion in aggregate, and the majority of these acquisitions have been off-market, and we expect this to continue. There has been a continued demand from investors for the neighborhood centers during the year. SCP will continue to be disciplined with respect to acquisitions, and we could debt fund approximately AUD 190 million of acquisitions while still keeping our gearing below 35%. The demand for quality neighborhood assets remains strong with recent transaction cap rates less than 6%. Views.
In summary, we've identified and are working on 30 potential developments totaling Significant focus on sustainability for FY 2022, in line with our sustainability plan. Slide 25 outlines our retail funds management business. In FY 2021, we successfully concluded both the SURF I and SURF II funds, achieving 11% and 12% IRRs respectively for those unit holders. This generated AUD 1.2 million of performance fees for SCP. SURF III, which was launched in July 2018, now has three assets as Swansea was sold in July 2020. The proceeds were used to repay debt and strengthen the balance sheet of that fund. We will explore additional funds management opportunities going forward in FY 2022. I'd now like to talk about our key priorities and outlook. Turning to slide 27. Despite the impacts of COVID-19, our core strategy remains unchanged.
In fact, as a result of COVID-19, we believe that our strategy is even more resilient to the current impacts facing the industry. We'll continue to seek and deliver defensive, resilient cash flows to support growing distributions. We'll continue to focus on the convenience-based retail centers with a strong weighting to the non-discretionary retail segment. We will be seeking long-term leases to quality anchor tenants such as Woolworths, Wesfarmers and Coles, which was again demonstrated by our latest acquisitions. We will continue to explore both the core business growth opportunities as per our development pipeline and acquisition opportunities within our sector and also some future fund management opportunities. I'd now like to hand over to Mark to discuss some online retail implications for our sector, the future impact of COVID-19, and our longer-term AFFO growth targets.
Thanks, Anthony. Moving to slide 28, online retail implications. One of the questions we get a lot is what impact online retail is having or is likely to have on our centers. Our view is that our centers are likely to benefit from the trend toward online retail. The reason for this view is that our centers are located closer to the end consumer than any other commercial property, and as such, are well-suited for last-mile logistics. We believe that the store-based fulfillment model will remain the predominant model for online grocery fulfillment in Australia due to low population densities, large distances, and established existing supply chains, including cold chain. Over the last 12 months, we've seen this play out with both Woolworths and Coles increasingly using our centers for last-mile fulfillment, both pickup and home delivery.
75% of the supermarkets in our portfolio have dedicated click and collect parking bays, and we're ramping up plans for drive-throughs at several of our centers. We're happy to work with the supermarket chains on these initiatives because online sales generated in our stores are included in our turnover rent calculations. We're seeing similar trends with our specialty tenants who are also using their stores for pickup or delivery to the local area. Again, we expect this trend to continue to grow in coming years. Moving on to slide 29. We've included this slide to help people think about the potential impact of the ongoing pandemic on our FY 2022 results. As we saw in both FY 2020 and FY 2021, the primary impact of the pandemic this financial year is expected to be reduced rental income from specialty tenants whose sales are impacted by government-imposed lockdowns.
In prior periods, the bulk of that impact has been in three specialty tenant categories, being apparel, services, and cafes and restaurants. Both New South Wales and Victoria are currently in lockdown, with both states announcing that the code of conduct will be reinstated until January 2022. As you can see from this table, the three most impacted categories in New South Wales and Victoria represent around 7% of our gross rental income or around AUD 2 million per month. As the duration and extent of the lockdowns is changing on a daily basis, accurately forecast what the impact will be on our FY 2022 earnings. Hopefully, this slide is useful for those who want to run some different scenarios.
Finally, as you can see from the sales growth numbers in this table, every time lockdowns have ended, we've seen very strong rebounds in tenant sales, particularly in those three most impacted categories. We'd expect the same thing to happen again this time around. I'll move now to slide 30, longer-term AFFO growth target. While the pandemic is expected to negatively impact earnings in FY 2022, we still believe the longer-term earnings growth supported by supermarket turnover rent and fixed specialty rental increases.
Thanks again, Mark. Turning to slide 31, which outlines our key priorities and outlook for FY 2022. We'll continue to deliver on our strategy to love local, shop local and act local. Our core business focus will continue to be serving our local communities for their everyday needs, partnering with our supermarket anchors to improve their online offer, our centers to ensure that we have successful specialty tenants paying appropriate rents, and also executing on our sustainability strategies. This will support our strategy of generating defensive, resilient cash flows to support those secure, growing, and long-term distributions to our unit holders. With our growth opportunities, we do have excess capacity to fund some acquisitions. However, we will be remaining disciplined and true to our strategy.
We will continue to explore value-accretive acquisition and divestment opportunities that are consistent with our strategy.
We will progress our identified development opportunities, including our sustainability investments. Finally, we will consider further funds management opportunities in the future. With respect to capital management, we will continue to actively manage our balance sheet to maintain diverse weighted average debt expiries and a low cost of capital consistent with our risk profile, 35% at this point in the cycle. Due to the uncertainty related to the current COVID-19 lockdowns, we will not provide FY 2022 guidance at this time, and it is our intention to target a distribution payout ratio of approximately 100% of AFFO.
Our target is to return AFFO per unit to our pre-COVID levels of AUD 0.075 per half or AUD 0.15 per unit per annum once the impacts of the COVID pandemic have ended. In conclusion, I'd like to say that during these difficult times, we will continue to deliver on our clearly stated strategy and objectives. We'll continue to focus on and optimize our core business, taking into account the impacts of COVID-19 on our tenants, with a particular focus on rent collection and continued deal flow on renewals and reducing vacancy. We've built strong foundations to enable us to continue to seek out and execute on our growth opportunities that are consistent with our strategy and risk profile. FY 2021 was a particularly challenging year for the team.
However, the strong rebound experienced in the second half of FY 2021 reinforces our strategy, and we see no reason to deviate from it. Remember, love local, shop local, act local. I'd now like to invite any questions.
Your first question comes from Lou Pirenc from Jarden Australia. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Good morning, guys. Two questions, if I may. The first one on your slide 29 with the impact on COVID-19. Appreciate that additional color. Can you confirm kind of what % by income or by specialty stores is currently just not operating? Is it in line with that 7% of those three higher-risk categories, or is it more, or is it less?
Yeah, thanks. I'll answer that one. It is pretty much in line with what we've put on slide 29 there. A couple of them happened just over the weekend, we're just still getting all the exact numbers, but it's very close to what is in those percentages there.
Great. What's the % of SMEs or under the Code of Conduct? Are the majority of those SMEs?
It's about 50/50. It's about 50/50, approximately.
Great. Secondly, just on the longer-term acquisition outlook, what are you seeing at the moment? It feels like it's getting more competitive. How comfortable are you that you can kind of maintain that average of looking at up to AUD 38 million a year in this kind of competitive environment?
Yeah, it's a very good question. It's certainly, over the last 18 months, really strongly the last 12 months, we've had some increased competition from institutions, the likes of HomeCo and Primewest on behalf of GIC, and some others. We have had a strong year in the last 12 months. I wouldn't like to predict that we'll have another strong year like that, I think we should be able to do our average quite well. It's very rare we actually win a auction, a straight public auction. The large majority of our assets come from off-market opportunities, I think that's going to continue. Prices have compressed and continue to compress. It is getting harder, I think we still will be able to eke out appropriate accretive acquisitions. We'll do it in a disciplined way.
We're not going to pay over and above what we think an asset is worth. I'm confident that we will still be able to deliver on what we think families, individuals, that sell for lots of different reasons. There is certain those assets.
Great. Thank you.
Thank you. Your next question comes from Simon Chan from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.
Hi, good morning, Anthony and Mark. Elaborate on one of your comments about exploring further funds management opportunities. Throwaway comment, or are we close to something? If we are, can you give us some insights as to size, scale, quantum, and timing?
Good pick-up, Simon. It was a deliberate change of language, first of all, we had there before. This is really just flagging to the market so there are no surprises. There's nothing imminent, but we are strategically starting to explore some funds management opportunities using institutional capital rather than retail capital. The exact nature of those opportunities, whether it's in our core categories or in adjacent categories, who the partners might be, all of that is still being worked on. There's nothing imminent to announce, but we just wanted to, I guess, flag to the market that we are starting to consider moving into that institutional funds management space.
Sounds fantastic. The adjacent category, can you elaborate on that? What do you mean by adjacent?
Look, there's nothing specific at this time. It would be related to convenience-based retail in some shape or form. I don't want to really talk about specific categories because there's no specific proposals at the moment. Something that's similar to our current core business.
No probs. Sounds good. My second question is in relation to your maintenance CapEx and leasing costs, they seem to have gone up a bit this year. I think in total it was AUD 16 million in FY 2020, and it became AUD 23 million in FY 2021. Lease deals actually declined from 50,000 sq m to 39,000 sq m. Are you simply offsetting leasing spreads with higher incentives?
I'll deal with maintenance CapEx first and then go to leasing CapEx. Maintenance CapEx has been increasing, but so has our portfolio. It's AUD 1 billion. As a percent of our current asset value, it's about 25 basis points. It has been gradually increasing, and I think it will continue to gradually increase as our portfolio ages and grows. The leasing CapEx, there is a specific reason, which is that there was a whole lot of deals done in FY 2020 prior to the lockdowns in March, April, May. Because of those lockdowns, the actual opening date of those shops, those tenancies, wasn't until the FY 2021 financial year. The leasing statistics we give are for deals done within the period, whereas the leasing capital that goes into the AFFO is based on when the shop opens.
It was really just a timing issue in that a lot of the FY 2020 deals weren't actually opened until FY 2021.
That's very clear. Thanks. That's all I've got this morning.
Thank you. Your next question comes from Sholto Maconochie from Jefferies. Go ahead.
Hi, everyone. Following on from Simon's question. When you say adjacent asset classes, would that include convenience retail service stations, for example? Would you look at those?
Look, again, this is complete speculation, but yes, it could include petrol stations. We already have a number of petrol stations obviously in our portfolio. Yeah, that would be an example of what we could look at. Again, this is very hypothetical at this stage.
Yeah. I know you appreciate this pandemic seems to never end, but, if you look at the assistance provided in 2020, you gave AUD 20.5 million, but then you wrote back AUD 4 million of ECLs, so it would've been AUD 16.5 million, and you did AUD 7 million this period. Is it assuming somewhere between AUD 2 million-AUD 7.3 million and AUD 20.5 million is where it probably lands for 2022? Obviously more impacted in the first part.
There's a reason we haven't given guidance, because it was only on Friday night that New South Wales announced the Code of Conduct, for example. This is changing every day. What I would say, just to give you a little bit more color, is what we saw last year and the year before during lockdowns. In New South Wales, when New South Wales was locked down in FY 2020, we roughly gave about AUD 500,000 per month in waivers and deferrals. Likewise, during the height of the Victorian lockdowns in the first half of this financial year, we were giving approximately AUD 500,000 per month in waivers and deferrals.
If I had to stick a finger in the air and say, "Well, what's my gut feel?" I would stick to about that, which is half a million dollars a month in New South Wales, half a million dollars a month in Victoria, while the lockdowns are in place. Obviously that's a very indicative number based on what happened last time around.
We just don't know how long the lockdowns will be in place for. That's the issue. Also whether anything else will change. That's our uncertainty, and you have as good a view on that as what we do.
All right. I don't think anyone knows right now, do they? Hope we get out of it quicker than anything. Just on your gearing, you're happy to go to 35%, but to get your indicative target, the range, you'd probably go above that 35%. Would you bring in capital partners for some acquisitions in line with that funds management discussion before?
I think they're two separate things. On balance sheet, we own, and our preference is to stay with that. On balance sheet, I can't see us not owning 100% of every asset unless there was some very specific deal. The strategy is to own 100% on balance sheet and that our gearing range is, as I said, 30%-40%, but a preference to stay below 35%. If we were to look at a fund, the gearing of that fund would be assessed at the time, depending on the assets, depending on the partner, depending on the characteristics of that fund. That's probably a bit hypothetical, too.
You'd just keep a co-investment stake in that fund.
Presumably, we would have a co-investment stake in that fund, correct?
All right, great. That's everything. Thanks so much for your time.
Thank you. Your next question comes from Richard Jones from JP Morgan. Please go ahead.
I have a few similar type questions. Just in terms of cash-
In New South Wales, it was 89%, in Victoria it was 91%. Limited obvious impact in July, but the caveat there is that rent is due in advance. A lot of the rent was obviously paid in the last week of June, before the lockdown happened. August, I think it is really too early to say, and I do not want to throw out numbers because we are only a couple of weeks into it. There is signs that those numbers are going to be weaker, obviously, in August, as you would expect with New South Wales and Victoria trailing at the moment and weaker than where we were in July at this point in time.
Okay. Can we reference it with some of the months in 2020?
Yeah, well, I think, at the worst point, and in fact, we have the numbers there on slide 8, I think.
We haven't had a complete month.
We haven't had a complete month.
Yeah.
The worst it got was around 69%. slide 7. Sorry, slide 7.
Yeah. Okay. Just in terms of the comment about potential institutional mandates, is this the internal thinking, or have you been approached by capital partners?
No, just internal.
Thanks, Josh.
Thank you. Your next question comes from Stuart McLean from Macquarie. Please go ahead.
Good morning, thanks for your time. First question is just on the slide 24, which is the development pipeline. Looking to spend AUD 52 million this year. How do we think about return on that spend?
We have Internal Rate of Return hurdles to these developments. Approximately we'd be looking for a 7% Internal Rate of Return, 10-year, unlevered cash flow basis.
Okay. Maybe more simply, year one benefit, are we talking a 4%-5% yield on cost?
Well, it'd be okay for you to put that in your model. I'm not saying that's our number. The sustainability initiatives have a good return, and a good year 1 return. It depends on what the actual project is.
Okay. Thank you. Then second question on the portfolio. Looks like occupancy has been broadly trending down over the last 4 years. I know it's not by much, it's by 1%, but just what's the outlook there for occupancy? If you can maybe tie it into what that means maybe for leasing spreads going forward, if you still find that you've got the supply-demand tension there. Can you get those spreads moving back positive?
Yeah. Thanks for that. Look, we had a big change of focus from 2020 to 2021, where 2020, I'm talking calendar year, we were really focused on securing income. 2021, we really changed a bit of our focus to maximizing income, and you can see that in those leasing spreads, it was really the first half versus the second half was a lot stronger. As our tenants on monthly holdover increased slightly from roughly 1% to 1.3%, which is still very low in the whole retail space. Our retention rates were still high, but we did our occupancy with a couple of the Target at, Target Country at Langwarrin, and there are a couple of other mini major discounters that were paying very low rent that we think we can get some better rents on those that we didn't renew with them.
And that's a bit of a remixing opportunity for us. Looking forward, subject to how this lockdown extends, but if there is a similar rebound to last year, we are again thinking that our rents can increase. Our occupancy cost is very low. The specialty sales are very strong and really come back very strong when you come out of lockdown. We're really quite positive about where we can be in the future. It's really focusing on those non-discretionary areas.
Do you think occupancy can improve from these levels? Has that occupancy been negatively impacted by the portfolio acquired by VCX, from VCX?
No, wasn't impacted from VCX at all. Neighborhood shopping centers will always have a specialty vacancy of about 3%-5%, and in a great year it's 3%, and if you're sitting around 5%, that's sort of where it sits. It's pretty marginal what it moves. Yeah, I think you'll see a bounce back in occupancy next year as we fill up some of those holes that we had with those couple of mini majors and Target at the gateway. Great. Thank you for your time. Cheers.
Thank you. Your next question comes from Adrian Dark from Citi. Please go ahead.
Good morning, Anthony and Mark. I had three topics I was hoping to hit, if possible, please. First question might be for Mark. In terms of total COVID support provided to tenants to date, would you know how much of that has been mandated versus more discretionary, please?
I don't have that explicit breakout on me. The vast majority is to SMEs. It was AUD 10.5 million in the year, and the heavy majority of that was to SMEs, but I'll have to get back to you on the exact split, Adrian.
Okay. Thank you. Could you clarify for us, it looks like there have been some interest rate swaps. Could you remind us of the driver of that, please, and the impact on the weighted average cost of debt in 2022?
Yeah. Obviously, with the yield curve flattening, we felt that there was value in terminating the swaps. The cost of that, as I said, was AUD 9.1 million. In terms of the benefit to the cost of debt, it's a saving in FY 2022 of approximately AUD 4 million. That would equate to around about a 0.3% or 0.4% decrease in our weighted average cost of debt.
Thank you. Just finally, on the long-term growth slide, which I see has made a comeback. It looks like the components of that slide are fairly similar to what they were pre-pandemic. Was interested in, I suppose, whether you think the drivers of inorganic growth going forward might be a little bit different. We've already touched on the funds management opportunities. I guess I was trying to understand, is that potentially driven by a difference in cost of capital or acquisition appetite between SCP and some other players in the market? Do you see any other shift in inorganic growth opportunities?
I think it's, as we've already discussed, acquisitions obviously have been, will continue to be our largest source of growth, in our view. There is potential in funds management, which we're exploring. Part of that would be potentially accessing lower cost of capital for certain segments of the market that are difficult for us to invest in with our current return hurdles. Probably, if that was to come through, then that would become a bigger part of that. I still think acquisitions is the main driver.
Thank you.
Thank you. This question comes from Adrian from Morningstar. Please go ahead.
Hello. Thanks for the presentation. I found the information quite interesting on the way the rent is shared and the opportunities from online. I was wondering, is that share of turnover and sort of, supermarket sales that are done through click and collect or perhaps online, but fulfilled through goods in your centers, is that a topic of conversation that's coming up in your rental negotiations with supermarkets at the moment?
Yeah, okay. Look, Woolworths and Coles are very focused on increasing their online business, whether that's home delivery, click and collect, just store pickup, whatever it is, they're very focused on it. We're very big believers in it as well, and we are working with them to do drive-throughs, dedicated click and collect bays. We think it's a real benefit and adds to the convenience of our shopping centers. Are the sales for all of those included in the leases or the definition of turnover? Yes. We do buy and have bought a shopping center once where it wasn't included. We have bought shopping centers where we do try and negotiate, but the leases are very long-term leases. They're 20-year leases. The initial and the option just rolls on.
The definition of sales and everything included it, where it may have been a very, very old lease that didn't really contemplate online. The rent as a % of their income. I think it will continue. We are very supportive of it, and we'll work with Woolworths and Coles because it's just a great, convenient offer, and we want to be a great, convenient shopping center. Yeah, it's going to continue, and we will continue to negotiate with them, but I don't think they're going to walk away from turnover-based rent deals for their stores.
Okay, thank you.
Thank you. Your next question comes from Murray Connellan from Moelis Australia. Please go ahead.
Hi. Good morning, Anthony and Mark. I was just wondering, over the last, I appreciate it's all fairly early days in terms of current lockdowns, but in the last 2 months, how have you found leasing discussions? Has it gone fairly quiet or are most tenants happy to continue to engage you despite near-term lockdowns?
No, it's a good question. Look, the first half was very good, and July was also good. We have seen in August, as the lockdown sort of lingered in Sydney, we didn't have a lot of exposure in Sydney per se. Certainly from a leasing perspective, it has had an effect and because when lockdowns do come, people are just focused on getting through the lockdown and aren't focused about the future as much. When it bounces back, it really comes back pretty quickly. It is a bit quieter on the leasing front at the moment, particularly in New South Wales, and I expect Victoria, if they stay in a prolonged lockdown. That's what happened last year as well. The other states aren't as affected except with sort of national retailers where they are focused in sort of Sydney and Melbourne as well.
Great. Thanks very much.
Thank you. There are no further questions at this time. I'll now hand back to Mr. Mellowes for closing remarks.
All right. Well, thank you all very much for dialing in today and look forward to speaking to you all over the next couple of weeks. Any questions, please come back to Mark or myself. Look forward to seeing you over the next couple of weeks, and thanks very much for your time this morning. I know it's been very busy for everybody with a couple of us all being out at the same time. Thank you, and look forward to seeing you. Goodbye.