Thank you, good morning, thanks for joining us for the Region Group FY 2026 full year results. My name is Greg Chubb, it is a privilege to welcome you to my first results presentation as Chief Executive Officer. David Salmon, our Chief Financial Officer, is presenting these results with me today, Erica Rees, our Chief Operating Officer, is also in the room with us. This morning, I will start with an overview of our strategy before looking at the operating performance of the portfolio and the opportunities we see to drive both organic and inorganic growth. David will then take you through the financial results before I return to discuss the guidance and outlook for FY 2027. We will start with our strategy on slide four.
Since joining Region earlier this year, I have met with our major retail tenant partners, a number of our investors, and visited many of our centers around Australia, where I have spent time reviewing priorities with our people. This has reinforced two things for me. Firstly, we have a resilient scale, supermarket-led portfolio of essential retail centers, strong tenant partnerships, talented people, and an internally managed operating model that provides a solid foundation for growth. Secondly, we have a significant opportunity to unlock more growth and value from the portfolio we already own. The results we are announcing today demonstrate the strength and resilience of our portfolio. The opportunity now is to build on that performance by accelerating the next phase of growth. Our fundamental strategy is to maximize the performance from Australia's leading internally managed essential retail portfolio. A key enabler is our integrated operating platform.
By bringing our people, capabilities, and decision-making together around each asset, we can execute consistently across the portfolio. Better execution improves the experience for our retail tenant partners and shoppers. It helps facilitate growth in retailer sales and ultimately supports stronger rental growth and improved operating margins. What has and will evolve is how we unlock that growth. We are accelerating our focus on proactive organic growth through active asset management, including majors and specialty leasing optimization, operating consistency, and targeted investment that improves the productivity of our centers. While unlocking organic growth is our primary focus, we will continue to pursue selective inorganic growth opportunities through portfolio optimization and growing the existing metro fund partnership with a global institutional investor, which strengthens our portfolio and creates value for security holders. Across both growth pathways, our approach to capital management and allocation remains disciplined and enables maximizing long-term returns.
Now we will move to slide five. The quality and purpose of our essential retail portfolio remains the foundation of everything we do. We are strongly positioned as Australia's leading internally managed essential retail REIT with a high-quality scaled portfolio underpinned by supermarkets and a non-discretionary specialty retail and services. Across the portfolio, our supermarket operators generate over AUD 5 billion in annual sales, and we have relationships with more than 2,200 specialty tenant partners. Our scale gives us broad and defensive income base, while our exposure to essential retail supports resilience through economic cycles. Importantly, our portfolio comprises local centers that sit at the heart of more than 100 communities, providing convenient access to groceries, services, and other essential retail categories. Let us move to slide six and FY 2026 highlights. FY 2026 was a strong year for Region with continued momentum across the portfolio.
Comparable supermarket MAT growth of 4.1%, increased portfolio occupancy to 98.1%, and positive average specialty leasing spreads of 4% together contributed to comparable NOI growth of 3.3%. We recorded statutory net profit of AUD 268.8 million, and NTA increased by 4% to AUD 2.57 per security. We also delivered growth in FFO and AFFO to AUD 0.16 per security and AUD 0.141 per security, respectively. Our approach to capital management remained disciplined with 100% of debt hedged at below-market rates. We have refinanced more than AUD 1 billion of debt at improved margins, which has helped maintain our 4.5% weighted average cost of debt.
We also continued our on-market security buyback, purchasing 12.7 million securities for AUD 29.2 million at a discount to NTA at an average price of AUD 2.29 per security. Overall, this positive momentum translated to a 9.8% total security holder return over the period, which outperformed both the S&P/ASX 200 and S&P/ASX 200 A-REIT indexes. Now let's look at retail sales on slide eight. With an ever-changing consumer environment, spending on everyday essentials has remained resilient over the past year. Total comparable portfolio MAT growth was 3.3% for the year. Supermarkets that generate 70% of our total portfolio sales have delivered 4.1% growth, and that's up from 3.3% last year.
We saw sales growth across each of our essential retail categories, and specialty sales productivity has increased by more than 3% over the period to now being AUD 10,345 per square meter. Specialty comparable sales growth was 2.5%, and that's largely driven by our key non-discretionary categories such as food, retail, services, medical, and other retail. These results reflect the strength of trading across our centers and provide a strong foundation for sustainable rental growth over time. Slide nine. Our major retailers include Woolworths, Coles, Aldi and Wesfarmers related businesses. They're fundamental to the portfolio and generate 45% of total gross rent. We continue to strengthen our partnership with our major retailers, including the prioritization of center enhancement projects alongside their investment in store refurbishments, expansions and the rollout of e-commerce facilities.
We completed a further six e-commerce facilities, and we now have 77 of these increasingly important facilities in total, with an additional two currently underway. This represents over 90% coverage across the portfolio of supermarkets. Aligning our capital programs alongside Coles, Woolworths and Aldi facilitates both retailer sales growth and rental growth. Online sales are included in turnover rent for over 97% of our supermarkets. In FY 2026, 58% of our supermarkets were generating turnover rents and a further 15% are within 10% of their respective turnover rent thresholds. Moving to slide 10. We remain committed to refining the retail mix in our centers. We do this by favoring essential retail and service categories, including food and allied health, which were both particularly active trade categories for us over the year.
We achieved 4% average specialty leasing spreads and average annual rent increases of 4.4% across the 380 leasing deals transacted. Average specialty rent per square meter has increased to AUD 940 per m, which represents compound annualized growth of 4.3% since FY 2022. A deliberate focus has been on the introduction of new tenants with a record number of 172 new deals over the period. Demand for our essential retail space is evident through increased occupancy and strong leasing spreads of 5.2% on these new deals. Average tenure on these new deals is extended to 6.3 years, while incentives have decreased to 10.5 months. Tenant retention sits at 77% and specialty vacancy improved to 4.3%.
We have a clear focus on improving portfolio occupancy by introducing more productive retailers. Sustainable specialty occupancy costs of 9.7% and favorable market conditions, including very limited new retail supply and continued retailer sales growth, indicates positive leasing momentum to continue. Moving to slide 11. An important component of our organic growth strategy is disciplined reinvestment into our existing portfolio. An early priority in my tenure has been to review a number of potential projects with the team, and we see significant opportunity to drive further growth through active asset management and investment. We are targeting incremental returns of greater than 7%, with a focus on projects that improve productivity and long-term income growth, while responding to the needs of our retail partners and the local communities that we serve.
North Orange Shopping Centre in Central Western New South Wales is a current example, where during the year we completed the first phase of the project, including a Woolworths store refurbishment and extension, adding approximately 720 sq m . The project also delivered direct-to-boot e-commerce offering of six bays and three dedicated home delivery hub docks. The expanded store has recently opened for trade. We intend to soon commence phase II of this project with the inclusion of an Aldi supermarket. The project has recently secured development approvals and has a project cost of approximately AUD 9 million and a targeted completion date of Q4 of this financial year. At Pakenham in Victoria, we have also recently completed a AUD 10 million specialty leasing led center enhancement. This asset is now fully leased, strengthening the center's retail offer and supporting its ongoing performance. Slide 12.
Beyond the projects I have just discussed, we have identified a broader pipeline of potential opportunities to unlock further value from our existing portfolio. A few of these near-term opportunities include projects at Kwinana Marketplace in Western Australia, the Greenbank Shopping Centre, which is located in the Southwest Brisbane growth corridor in Queensland, and Currambine Central in Western Australia. While every project is different, they all reflect the same disciplined approach. Remixing existing space, activating surplus or underutilized land, and introducing complementary uses that enhance the everyday customer experience and deliver attractive returns. We will continue to assess these and other opportunities, and we will certainly keep you updated. Moving on to slide 13 for sustainability. During the year, we continued to make progress across our sustainability objectives.
On the environmental front, we now have 21.8 MW of solar PV installed and operational across 33 centers, with a further 3.2 MW in design. This ongoing investment improves the efficiency and resilience of our portfolio while supporting our pathway to net zero Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions by FY 2030. Our center teams contributed to more than 2,100 hours to local causes during the year, reinforcing the role our centers play as trusted community hubs. We remain on track to meet mandatory ASRS requirements during FY 2027, and throughout the year, we continue to strengthen our climate governance, data systems, and reporting capability to ensure we are well-positioned for the new reporting framework. Looking at slide 14. Alongside our organic growth pathways, we are selectively optimizing the portfolio through three inorganic growth levers, namely divest, invest, and partner.
Having undertaken a comprehensive review of the portfolio, we have identified a number of assets that are typically smaller, assets in smaller markets that we are progressing for potential divestment. We have demonstrated this through the very recent divestments of both Woodford Shopping Centre and Mission Beach Marketplace in Queensland for a combined value of AUD 32.8 million. These assets have an average yield of 5.8%. These divestments allowed us to reinvest that capital into high growth opportunities, such as the acquisition of Treendale in Western Australia at a 6.4% yield. This acquisition is strategically located next to an existing Region asset, giving us the opportunity to capture operating and management efficiencies. The transaction market is competitive in our retail sector. We will continue to remain disciplined with our investments and look for opportunities where our scale, focus, and expertise create value and advantage.
It has also been a strong year of inorganic growth in our existing metro fund partnership alongside a global institutional investor. Together, we acquired Dalyellup Shopping Centre in Western Australia and three additional strata properties at West Village in Metro Brisbane for a total of AUD 124.8 million. These partnerships provide another avenue to grow the portfolio, and we are well-positioned to explore additional partnership opportunities over time. Our objective is to progressively strengthen the quality and growth trajectory of the portfolio while maintaining a prudent approach to capital management and allocation. On that note, I will now hand over to David to talk through our financial results.
Thank you, Greg, and good morning, everyone. From FY 2025 to FY 2026, FFO per security increased by 3.2%, predominantly due to the inorganic growth initiatives. Importantly, we recorded strong comparable net operating income growth of 3.3%, driven by improved occupancy, positive leasing spreads, contracted annual rent increases, and controlled operating expense growth. Comparable revenue growth was higher than expense growth during the period, which has helped improved our NOI margin. We are also seeing the benefits from the capital invested into our asset enhancement and projects coming through earnings. The portfolio optimization and partnership activity previously referred to helped contribute to our upgrade in earnings, which we announced back in February. At the start of this financial year, we flagged an expected increase in the weighted average cost of debt due to the maturity of some favorable hedges.
For the impact of this WACD increase, FFO per security growth for FY 2026 was more than 5%. Let's move into slide 17. Our FY 2026 distribution is AUD 0.141 per security, which is in line with guidance and provides growth of 2.9% on FY 2025. Net operating income growth of 3.3% was driven by the comparable NOI growth of 3.3% and the impact of transactional activity. Other operating income grew by close to AUD 1 million or 15% due to the growth in our metro fund partnership. Interest expense growth during the year reflects the increase in WACD, which I flagged, which we flagged at the start of FY 2026, as well as the funding of our asset enhancements and projects and also the on-market security buyback.
Maintenance and leasing capital spend was higher due to the increased number of new leasing deals this year, noting the average lease incentive per deal have reduced, also with longer average lease terms achieved. Following positive investment property revaluations, the statutory profit after tax was AUD 268.8 million. Slide 18 shows our balance sheet. As of 30 June 2026, our total assets under management were AUD 5.5 billion, which represents a 5.5% increase from the prior year. Our balance sheet remains healthy with pro forma gearing of 34.1%, below the midpoint of our target 30%-40% range, and this includes the divestment of Mission Beach Marketplace, which settled in July 2026. This gives us the capacity to deploy capital when strategic opportunities arise. Our NTA has grown by 4% to AUD 2.57 per security, primarily off the back of investment property value revaluation growth during the year.
Slide 19 shows additional information on the movement in the valuation of our portfolio, which increased by AUD 224 million or 5.1%. The movement was driven by a 4.4% fair value increase, including capital expenditure plus net acquisitions completed as part of our portfolio optimization strategy. Capitalization rates firmed by an additional 11 basis points to 5.86% over the year, with income growth the key driver of valuation uplift. We continue to see potential upside in our portfolio valuations with both strong income growth and demand for assets in our sector. Let's move to slide 20. We continued to execute on our disciplined capital management strategy during FY 2026.
We have refinanced over AUD 1 billion of debt facilities at improved borrowing margins. This included the issuance of a AUD 300 million six-year Australian medium-term note at a borrowing margin of 1.22%, and the repayment of AUD 407 million of U.S. private placement notes, which had a weighted average borrowing margin of 1.83%. These initiatives contributed to a reduction in our weighted average borrowing margin from 1.6% in FY 2025 to 1.5% in FY 2026. As I mentioned before, our weighted average cost of debt increased by 20 basis points to 4.5% this year, and 100% of our debt was hedged or fixed. Looking ahead, with gearing below the midpoint of our target 30%-40% range, over AUD 200 million of undrawn debt capacity and high levels of hedging in place at attractive rates, we are well-positioned. I'll now hand back to Greg, who will talk through our outlook.
Great. Thank you, David. Our strategy is targeting 3%-4%+ sustainable AFFO growth per security, and we're confident that that starts with the portfolio we already own and manage. Our focus is on proactively unlocking organic growth within our existing essential retail centers through active asset management, majors and specialty leasing optimization, and targeted projects and asset enhancements. We complement that with selective inorganic growth opportunities through portfolio optimization, disciplined acquisitions, and partnerships where they strengthen the portfolio quality and create additional long-term value. Our internally managed integrated operating platform enables us to execute consistently across the portfolio, supported by our disciplined approach to capital management and allocation. Our strategy and growth model is designed to generate defensive and resilient cash flows that support growing distributions and deliver sustainable security holder returns. Finally, moving to slide 23 and FY 2027 guidance.
Looking ahead, our priorities remain clear, and our focus is on executing the growth strategy that we've outlined today. Against that backdrop, and assuming no material change in market conditions, we're providing FY 2027 earnings guidance of 3% growth in FFO to AUD 0.165 per security and 3% growth in AFFO to AUD 0.145 per security, with a targeted distribution payout ratio of 100% of AFFO. This guidance does not include any transactional activity beyond what we have already disclosed. With a high-quality essential retail portfolio, a strong balance sheet, and continued momentum across the business, I'm very confident that the team at Region is well-positioned for the year ahead. That concludes the formal presentation. I would like now to hand over to the moderator and open it up to any questions. Thank you.
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 Adam Calvetti with Bank of America. Please go ahead.
Oh, hi, Greg and David, and congrats on your first result. What needs to happen to reach the top end of your 3%-4% AFFO guidance?
Hi, Adam. Yes, David. What I'd highlight in our guidance of 3% growth is we haven't assumed any inorganic activity, and by that I mean any asset sales or acquisitions or funds management or metro fund expansion activities. Just to put it in context, if we had a similar level of funds management activity in 2026 as we did in I'm sorry, into 2027 as we did in 2026, we'd be guiding closer to that 4%.
Great. That's clear. Hey, and then just on FY 2026, I think you spent about AUD 65 million in CapEx. Some of that was, there was a range of different reasons, but I think there was AUD 1.4 million of development income that's come through. It's a pretty low yield on cost. Is there more expected to come through in 2027 from that AUD 65 million that was spent? And how do we think about the CapEx that you're spending in the future and that flowing through to top-line income?
Yeah, that being said, Adam, that AUD 1.4 million return is only on a partial allocation of about AUD 60 million. So there's about AUD 30 million associated with projects that were delivered in the part year at Miami, Lavington and Pakenham. So all those projects were delivering or will deliver full-year benefit of closer to seven on a full-year basis, which we'll start to see the benefit of in this financial year.
Okay. Amazing. One more, if I may. Just on the metro fund, there's less of a focus on that fund. I don't think you provided actually the total AUM in this presentation than you did in the last presentation. How is the discussions going with capital partners and how are the funds progressing? Is it looking likely? I know guidance doesn't assume growth. Does it look likely there'll be some more transactions?
Yeah. As David mentioned, there's no inorganic growth in our guidance. The existing metro fund that we have has now got just in excess of AUD 800 million of assets. And we have one partner in that space. So it is a partnership. Ideally, we would like to be growing it alongside our existing partner. And we are assessing a number of opportunities. But there's nothing baked into our guidance. But in short, we would be looking to grow that partnership.
Okay. And that got capacity to continue to support.
Yes, it does.
Okay. Perfect. Amazing. Thanks.
Thank you.
Thank you. Your next question comes from Carl Braganza with Jarden. Please go ahead.
Morning, Greg, David. Thanks for your time. A few questions from me. The first one was just about how you're thinking about your best uses of capital. Could you rank your preferences between, firstly, development, second, the continuation of the buyback, and then lastly, acquisitions?
I think you've probably put it in that order. Largely the capital works that we're doing, I wouldn't term necessarily as developments in more asset enhancement projects. In essence, our strategy there is to line our capital programs alongside our major tenants. We've got a reasonably good opportunity there to try and bridge the gap in economic rent. For our supermarket operators to get new space on the ground, which is proving to be increasingly difficult, the economic rent's in excess of AUD 600 a meter. There's a real focus on enhancing existing estate. We're aligning our capital programs alongside our existing major tenant partners. That's a real priority. We've looked at a number of divestments. I've been in the business now for five and a half months. We've looked at a number of divestments.
The pricing on the sort of assets that we have been looking at has been very tight, and we have not been able to complete anything. Overall, the third option for us is buying back stock. That is the order of priority for us.
Thanks for that color. The next one was on the divestments piece. You talked about looking to divest small, lower growth assets in remote regions. Can you quantify the assets in that bucket and the cap rate you would expect to sell those assets for?
Sure. In simple terms, the way that I would look at that is we have got 16 assets that are below AUD 30 million in value. A good proportion of those are in remote or smaller markets, and they have passing yields in the mid 5% range broadly. That is the opportunity for us to recycle some of those assets and to redeploy those proceeds into the capital works programs that I articulated before alongside our major tenant partners.
Thanks for that. My final question. How are you thinking about cost growth going into next year?
Yeah, I mean, there's been a lot of work done on cost growth or managing our expenses over the last 18 months or so in the business. You'll see that we've managed our expense growth into the mid 2% range for FY 2026. And we anticipate with the hedging that we've undertaken on a number of major cost lines, that we should be at a similar level in FY 2027. And we're starting to see the benefit of the investment in solar that the business has undertaken progressively over the last few years in controlling our electricity costs. So, I would suggest a very similar outlook to what we've delivered in FY 2026.
Thanks, Greg. That's all from me.
Thank you.
Thank you. Your next question comes from Simon Chan with Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.
G'day, Greg. G'day, everyone. Greg, I just wanted to clarify, give you the clarified response to the previous question. Similar outlook to FY 2026 on costs. Are you suggesting that property level expense, in FY 2027, should grow at a similar rate?
Yes.
Which is, I think, 2.5%.
Yeah. There or thereabout, Simon. Yes.
Yeah. Okay, cool. In one of your slides, and also in your prepared remarks, you talked about divest, invest and partner. I think on slide 14. If I were to reconvene in 12 months' time, which of those buckets do you reckon you would have had made the most progress or done the most stuff in?
Yeah. I mean, it's not a race. I think it's probably, we're focused on divesting assets in order to be able to fund where we invest and what we invest in. We've got a very strong partnership with the metro fund vehicle that's been in existence now for quite a few years. We very much hope to expand on that. I would think it's progress on all three, would be my desire over the next 12 months.
Is there one bucket which is easier to execute than others?
I think probably the hardest one at the moment, which is part of the invest bucket is new acquisitions. Just pricing is very challenging. We do have a very strong balance sheet that gives us flexibility, but I would think probably the most near-term activation for us is the divestment and reinvestment back into the top end of our fleet, and aligning our capital programs alongside our major tenants as I articulated earlier.
Great. Just one more, probably more for David Salmon. Hey, cost of debt into FY 2027. What have you factored into your guidance there?
Yeah. Hi, Simon. Yeah, obviously we're at 4.5% for FY 2026, but for FY 2027, I'd say it'll be circa 4.6% or thereabout. And I think there's two, I guess, drivers of that we're seeing. Whilst we're highly hedged, there will be a little bit of base rate increase, through to the, there's an unhedged component there, reverting to market or floating rates. But offsetting that, or partially offsetting that will be some lower borrowing margins coming through. So yeah, on a blended basis, I think we'll be around that sort of 4.6% thereabout.
Okay. Very clear. Thanks, guys. Cheers.
Thank you. Your next question comes from Solomon Zhang with UBS. Please go ahead.
Morning, Greg and David. Thanks for your time. Just taking a look at slide 11 and 12, just on the center enhancement, and repositioning works, and just wanted to pick up on, Greg, your earlier comments around accelerating organic growth. I guess historically you've done probably around AUD 20 million per annum, give or take, in these works. Do you have a sense of
How much you could lift this to per annum, knowing you do have a constraint around opportunities that, I guess human resourcing and capital as well. Any thoughts there would be great.
Yeah, I guess it will be a progressive evolution for us. We are reallocating priorities and resourcing into this space. It will take a little bit of time to move along. What we will probably focus on more so than projects that the business might have focused on historically is smaller, higher impact projects, and again, without being repetitive, aligning our capital programs alongside our major tenants. Those returns of 7%+ , I think are very achievable on these smaller projects that are high impact. Again, we will be driving better outcomes from our major tenants, which make up circa 45% of our total income.
Great. Maybe just a definitional question. When you are calling out 7% incremental returns, is that a year on cost, purely looking at the direct impact of-
Yes.
I guess the cost versus the income-
Exactly
or do you factor some of the
It is the incremental return on incremental capital.
incremental return on the incremental capital? Got it. And maybe just a final one on this topic. Is there much of a P&L impact from, I guess, the center being disrupted or is
No
that a broad wash with
No. No.
Increased capitalized interest?
No. This is all done in existing trading environments. Look, there might be some slight impacts. We are doing quite a lot of tenancy remixing. You will note that we have called out 172 new deals during the period, but no lost rent, in essence. Again, the projects are not overly disruptive.
Appreciate it. Thanks.
Thank you.
Thank you. Your next question comes from Michael Armstrong with Bell Potter. Please go ahead.
Hi, Greg and David. Just on the 2027 guidance, what are you assuming in terms of the 7.8% lease expiries?
Sorry, I just couldn't get you there, Michael. Can you repeat that question, please?
Sorry. Just in terms of guidance for 2027, what are you assuming in terms of the 7.8% lease expiries?
Yeah. It is not a large expiry profile. We have already broken through about 40% of the year's activity, and we are printing positive reversions. So hopefully, we will be getting close to the reversions that we printed in FY 2026, which was 4%. But a real focus and priority for our business is the average annual contracted rent reviews. So in FY 2026, we delivered 4.4%, which is giving us an average fixed bump of 4.3% over our specialty leases. The other thing that we are noting is that the average lease terms are expanding. So I think on new deals, it was +6 years. We are doing a lot of conversion of retail space to food-related trades. So it is a continuation of that.
We are seeing better reversions on new deals than we are on renewals, and I do anticipate that that will continue.
Okay. Thank you. You have been fully hedged through FY 2026. Now that is starting to gradually roll off. Could you just remind me of your hedging policy and where you would like to sit in terms of being at the upper or lower end of possible hedging ranges?
Yeah. Hi, it's David Salmon. Look, obviously our hedging policy is quite broad. We just like to have more than 50% hedged for the year ahead. Having said that, obviously we like to hedge as much as makes sense. We like to have a smooth earnings profile, and that's the philosophy we're taking, and that's what you see reflected in our current hedging book. We'll continue to look for opportunities at the right time in the market to increase that level of hedging.
Okay. So you can see yourself going up to 100% again, potentially?
Yeah, we have the ability. It really comes down to the market and the economics of the hedge. We're trying to obviously keep a stable interest line as much as we can. That's what's reflected. Obviously, we're fully hedged in FY 2026. We're very highly hedged in FY 2027. We've got reasonable hedging levels in the years after that as well. We've got an eye on the future. We'll put on as much hedging as we think makes sense in the context of the broader interest rate environment and trying to protect the earnings line from that volatility.
Okay. Thank you. That's all from me.
Thank you. Your next question comes from Ben Brayshaw with Barrenjoey. Please go ahead.
Oh, hi, Greg. Thanks for the presentation. I was just wondering if you could comment on the capital deployment indicative spend that you're budgeting for FY 2027.
Yeah. Hey, Ben. In terms of non-FFO capital and projects, we spent around AUD 60 million in 2026, and I'd anticipate as we build up our program, it'll be a similar amount in FY 2027, and likely to get a little larger as we move into FY 2028. We've got a significant number of our supermarkets with averaging base rent reviews in FY 2028, so aligning our capital into that is a real focus.
Just on specialty store sales growth in the second half-
It does appear to have slowed.
Yeah.
Could you just comment on current trading conditions and what you are seeing in the months of July and August, if that is available?
Yeah. We have only got access to our majors sales for July. Supermarkets ticked up and are stronger again in July, which I think says a lot about the market more broadly. DDS sales are slightly positive against the prior period for discount department stores, and specs we do not have visibility to. But it is evident in the numbers that we have presented today that sales have gone backwards from the first half to the second half, and particularly in Q4 for specs and discount department stores. I think that has a lot to do with obviously the global gyrations and macro conditions of what was going on around the world in the fourth quarter of the last financial year. We will keep a close eye on sales.
Just to put it into perspective, 70% of our sales come from supermarkets, about 15% of our sales come from specs. That is something we will keep a very close eye on.
On the decline, presumably you are referencing specialty sales in the second half.
Yes.
Are you able to just unpack which categories you are seeing most change?
Yes, mostly in the discretionary categories, which we have got a fairly limited exposure to. So that is probably the most impacted. Food, which is about 60% of our specialty sales, is fairly flat. So it resembles pretty much the growth rate that we have put forward for the whole of the spec portfolio, about 2.5%.
Yeah, great. Thanks, Greg.
Thanks, Ben.
Thank you. Your next question comes from Callum Bramah with Macquarie. Please go ahead.
Morning. Thanks for the presentation. A lot of the questions covered, but maybe just to clarify a couple. One, just around maybe funding and how you're thinking about it. Sorry, Greg. So on development spend, if it's increasing at the 60, the idea that you're selling those assets, the divested, to fund that over time. My second question, just be around margins. So I think, David, you referred to the weighted average cost of debt ticking up only a little bit. Your margin, I think in this year, was down at 1.5. That didn't include, I guess, the impact of the AUD 600 million at 1.22. Can you just clarify maybe the margin you're assuming into 2027? Thank you.
David, do you want to talk to the second question first?
Yeah. Just to answer your margin question, Callum. Yeah. Look, obviously the 1.5% margin that I talked about for FY 2026, that was a weighted average for the whole year. There were refinancing initiatives that we've done more recently that will flow through into the FY 2027 position. We've also got a bit more refinancing to do. We had a bridge facility in place for our USPP repurchase, which will turn that out into some longer debt. I think on a weighted average basis, you'll be looking at that sort of 1.4% or slightly better, coming through on the FY 2027 guidance.
And Callum, just on the funding of the projects. Yes, our aim is to be funding those projects through divestments of the assets that I've mentioned, and they're predominantly those smaller sub AUD 30 million assets in those smaller markets.
Just maybe, just to clarify, so expectations we should have around the buyback?
At the moment, we're prioritizing the spends on reinvesting into our portfolio. We haven't bought back units for a good number of months. We did buy stock at the start of the Middle Eastern conflict in early March when we had a dip in our unit price. But our priority is to get on with these capital projects across the portfolio, and we see good returns and good value in those investments.
Thanks so much.
Thank you.
Thank you. Your next question comes from Thomas Ryan with Green Street. Please go ahead.
Morning, team. Thanks for your time and the presentation. Just a question on capital allocation. Greg, your comments around recycling capital. Just on the numbers you have provided, I just wanted to get your thoughts on the spread between those assets you have acquired versus those you have divested, that 50 basis points sort of spread and how that sort of compares to the cost of capital.
Yeah, I mean, that is our focus, is to be divesting of assets that are tight yielders, but not just the yield, it is the growth attribute. Looking at the total return attributes of the assets that we are looking to trade and the investments that we are looking to make. There is a positive spread both at the yield and more importantly, the total return attributes of those assets. Some of the assets that we are selling have got a total return very similar to the yield, whereas the projects that we are investing in have got good growth prospects, and that is the whole intent of that work stream.
Appreciate that. Just on, if you strip out the development, just so it is clear, the income you generate off the AUD 66.5 million at 6.4, I am just trying to work out with the net income gain of that, taking out the assets you have sold. If you then apply your leverage, or call it 4.5 all-in equity costs and transaction costs, can you just confirm for us that that is actually accretive?
Yeah.
Excluding development.
It is, yes.
Okay, thank you. Just one last question on turnover rent. If you could provide some color on that as well, and in terms of MAT growth geographically across the country, if there's any pockets that are underperforming or outperforming.
Yeah. From a supermarket point of view, it's fairly generic across the country. I will say that Queensland looks a bit stronger than other states, and Western Australia is also pretty strong. But beyond that, our ability to continue to grow turnover rent when we've got our supermarkets growing at 4.1% for FY 2026 and nearly 60% of them in turnover rent, gives us good visibility to growth. As I touched on earlier in a previous question, we've got about half of our supermarkets that are in turnover rent currently coming up for their average base rent reviews over the next two years, with most of them in FY 2028. So a real focus for us to drive sales with our major tenant partners over that period so we can capture it into the averaging base rent reviews over the next two years.
Greg, just on turnover rent, can you just quantify what that was as a proportion of either FFO or AFFO?
Yeah. It's not a big number, but it's an important number. It's about AUD 7 million, there or thereabouts.
Yep. Okay. Thank you.
Thank you. There are no further questions at this time. I will now hand back to Mr. Chubb for closing remarks.
Great. Thank you everybody for joining us this morning. We appreciate your attendance and look forward to catching up with you over the next week or so as we have our one-on-ones. Wishing you all the best for today. Thank you.