Thank you and good morning, everyone. Welcome to Scentre Group's half-year 2025 results briefing. Before we begin, I would like to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land I am on and pay my respects to their elders past and present. I am joined today on the call by our Chief Financial Officer, Andrew Clarke, together with Lillian Fadel, Group Director of Customer, Community and Destination, and John Papagiannis, Group Director of Businesses. Our focus on creating more reasons for people to spend their time at our 42 Westfield destinations in Australia and New Zealand continues to deliver strong performance and continued earnings growth.
We made a deliberate strategic decision almost three years ago to focus and invest in initiatives to continually reimagine how we operate and repurpose our space to drive more customer visits to our destinations, thereby increasing opportunities for the businesses that partner with us to interact with our customers. Importantly, we have been implementing this without incurring significant downtime or dilution of earnings during this process, but rather by creating and enhancing active town centers that are more and more relevant to how people choose to spend their time. We have been able to do this, grow visitations, grow business partner sales, increase occupancy, and deliver the sector's leading earnings growth year after year, and we expect this to continue. For the first half of 2025, funds from operations were AUD 587 million, up 3.2%, and distributions to our security holders were AUD 0.08815 per security, up 2.5%.
Today's results have been made possible by the efforts of our team. I thank them for their focus on continued operational excellence in how they operate our destinations and serve our customers and communities. For the full year 2025, the group reconfirms its target for FFO of AUD 0.2275 per security, representing 4.3% growth for the year. Distribution guidance for the full year has been upgraded to AUD 0.1772 per security, representing 3% growth. We have upgraded our distribution guidance for the second half of 2025 to grow by 3.5% to AUD 0.08905 per security. In the first half, net operating income grew by 3.7% to AUD 1.043 billion. In the first 34 weeks of 2025, we have welcomed 340 million customer visits, 10 million or 3% more than for the same period in 2024.
Our business partners achieved record sales of AUD 29.3 billion in the 12 months to 30 June 2025, an increase of AUD 719 million on the same period in 2024. This is approximately AUD 5 billion more sales generated through our destinations than in 2019. In the six months to 30 June 2025, business partner sales grew to AUD 13.8 billion, up 2.9% on the same period last year. Specialty store sales were 3.9% higher in the same six-month period. We have seen this strong performance continue with the total business partner sales for July 2025 up 5% and specialty sales up 6.1% on the same period last year. Attracting more people to our destinations has continued to drive strong demand from businesses to partner with us, with portfolio occupancy now at 99.7%, its highest level since 2017. During the half, we completed 1,577 leasing deals and welcomed 591 new merchants to the portfolio.
Average specialty rent escalations grew by 4.5%, and leasing spreads on new leases signed during the first half were + 3%. We collected AUD 1.415 billion of gross rent during the half, an increase of AUD 43 million compared to the same period in 2024. Our Westfield membership program now exceeds 4.7 million members, an increase of 600,000 compared to 12 months ago. We continue to invest in unique offers and experiences to strengthen member engagement and visitation, as we know that an engaged member is significantly more likely to visit us more often and spend more with our business partners. Our destinations and 670 hectares of strategic land holdings are key community infrastructure with the potential to deliver additional housing at scale. We continue to progress our significant and long-term growth opportunities by utilizing our prime located urban land to create the town centers of the future.
Our land holdings have the potential to supply a substantial number of new dwellings in town centers where people already want to live and work. We are engaging with governments and potential capital partners on how we can realize these long-term significant growth opportunities for the group. Earlier this year, Westfield Warringah in Sydney was declared a State Significant Development with the potential to create approximately 1,500 new dwellings. This joins Westfield Hornsby in Sydney and Westfield Belconnen in Canberra, which have zoning approvals for approximately 2,000 dwellings at each location. We have the portfolio of the highest quality retail property assets in Australia and New Zealand. Investment in repurposing our space to maximize productivity and visitation is key to our long-term growth. We have continued to progress our AUD 4 billion pipeline of future retail development opportunities, targeting a yield of 6% - 7%.
During the half, we completed the first stage of the redevelopment at Westfield Bondi in Sydney. Now open to customers, newly reconfigured space on level 1 features a global-first social wellness club concept from Virgin Active and a new rebel rCX concept store. Since opening, customer visitations have increased by 13% compared to the previous period. In June, we successfully opened the first stage of the redevelopment of Westfield Southland in Melbourne, including an extended family dining and entertainment precinct. David Jones and Village Cinemas are due to open their upgraded stores in the first half of 2026. Since opening at Southland, visitation has been strong, with a 13.4% increase in traffic. The expansion of Westfield Sydney opened during the period, including the new CHANEL boutique, Moncler, and Omega. Thank you, and I'll now hand over to Andrew Clarke.
Thanks, Elliott, and good morning, everyone. Net operating income for the period was AUD 1,043 million. This is an increase of 3.7% over the first half of 2024. Underlying net operating income, excluding the AUD 4 million prior period relief of the expected credit charge, grew by 4.1%. This consists of strong growth in property revenue of 3.9%, primarily driven by average specialty rent escalations of 4.5%, an increase in occupancy to 99.7%, and an improvement in positive leasing spreads to 3%. Property expenses grew by 3.4%, primarily driven by a full six-month period of increased levels of security and slightly higher contracted rates for cleaning. Management fee income grew by 3.7% for the period, in line with the growth in property revenue. Overheads were AUD 48.7 million, an increase of 3.6%, primarily driven by wage growth. The growth in net interest was 4.3%.
This includes a part-period benefit of refinancing AUD 1 billion of subordinated notes in March 2025. Following the execution of these transactions, we expect an improvement in the group's 2025 full-year net interest expense of approximately AUD 18 million. This benefit will also flow through to future years. Operating profit grew by 3.5% for the period, underpinned by these strong results. Project income after tax was AUD 1.4 million. This includes approximately AUD 15 million of additional costs for the 121 Castlereagh Street third-party construction of the office and residential development on behalf of CBus Property. The additional costs were primarily due to a facade subcontractor going into administration and the subsequent program delays. The project is expected to complete by the first quarter of 2026. Overall, funds from operations for the six-month period was AUD 587 million, which grew by 3.2% compared to the prior corresponding period.
Operating and leasing capital was AUD 74 million for the first half. The full-year spend is expected to be approximately AUD 160 million. The group has made significant progress in its capital management, funding, and interest rate strategy. In March, the group completed the make-whole redemption of all the remaining non-call 2026 subordinated notes, totaling AUD 1 billion, which had a margin of 4.7%. The group refinanced these notes with a new issue of AUD 650 million of new non-call 2031 subordinated notes at a margin of 2% and AUD 350 million of bank drawings. These transactions are in line with our capital management strategy to drive earnings growth by optimizing the group's weighted average cost of debt. During the period, the group also issued AUD 371 million of 10-year senior notes through private placements.
In July 2025, the group completed the divestment of a 25% interest in Westfield Chermside for AUD 683 million at a capitalization rate of 5%. The proceeds of this transaction have initially been used to repay bank facilities. This transaction is in line with our strategy to introduce joint venture partners across our portfolio of wholly owned assets. At 30 June 2025, pro forma for the divestment of Westfield Chermside, the group had AUD 3.3 billion of available liquidity. Year to date, the group has executed AUD 3.2 billion of interest rate swaps, increasing hedge coverage to 100% as of June 2025, with an average base rate of 2.99%, and 99% at December 2025, with an average base rate of 2.96%.
The group's hedging strategy has locked in an average base rate in the near term that is significantly below the current floating rate, whilst maintaining the flexibility to take advantage of a reducing interest rate environment over the coming years. Our distribution reinvestment plan continues to be in effect for the August 2025 distribution. The DRP will continue to add to the group's various sources of capital. These capital management initiatives have enabled the group to maintain a weighted average interest rate of 5.7%. Included in this was an average base rate of 3.1% and an average margin of 2.6%. This is a significant improvement of the average margin compared to this time last year of 2.9%. The statutory result was a profit of AUD 782 million, which includes an unrealized property revaluation increase of AUD 177 million.
All properties were revalued during the half year, of which approximately 50% of the portfolio were independently valued. Overall, property valuations increased by 1.2% during the six-month period, primarily driven by growth in net operating income. The weighted average cap rate for the portfolio remains at 5.43% at June 2025. Thank you, and I will now pass you back to Elliott for closing remarks.
Thank you, Andrew. In April, the New South Wales Coroner commenced the Bondi Junction inquest. The five weeks of hearings that were completed on May 30 were a very difficult time for the victims' families and many in our community and our team. I would like to recognize our team members, many of whom have provided significant assistance to the important work of the New South Wales coroner, and this assistance and support is ongoing. The group has continued to deliver earnings and distribution growth for the first half of 2025. Our strategy to attract more people to our Westfield destinations and to unlock long-term growth opportunities from our strategic land holdings is expected to continue to deliver ongoing growth in earnings and distributions.
Subject to no material change in conditions, the group reconfirmed its target for FFO of AUD 0.2275 per security for 2025, which would represent 4.3% growth for the year. As I outlined earlier on the call, distribution guidance for 2025 has been upgraded for the full year to grow by 3% to AUD 0.1772 per security. Thank you, and I'll now hand the call back to open it up 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're on a speakerphone, please pick up the handset to ask your question. We will just pause for a moment to allow questioners to enter the queue. That's star one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. Your first question comes from James Druce with CLSA.
Yeah, hi, good morning, Elliott. Just a question on guidance first. Your top line's growing at circa 4% and you picked up a 2% tailwind on that refinance of subordinated debt. You haven't moved FFO guidance. Is that just project's income rolling off or how do we think about that?
Yeah, hi, James. It's Andrew here. Look, in summary, that's right. We've seen very strong growth in the underlying core business in terms of the net operating income. We expect that level of growth to continue in the second half of the year. Our net interest expenses we spoke about, we're definitely seeing a reduction in terms of the overall interest expense over the longer term and the benefit of that refinancing coming through this year. As I said, we have included an additional AUD 15 million of additional costs relating to the third-party design and construction of 121 Castlereagh Street, which is partially reducing that level of growth as a one-off for this year.
Okay, just to be clear, so that'll be a loss this year for when you're reporting 2025 full-year results?
No, we'd still expect project income overall to be a slight profit, but there's additional costs within that number relating to that project.
Okay, thank you. Maybe just one on maintenance CapEx and leasing incentives. I think you're guiding to sort of a flat number for this year. I think in your comments, Elliott talked about about AUD 170 million, we're not talking about a large increase, but there's an increase nonetheless. Just talk to what that relates to.
Yeah, no, just a correction there, James. I mentioned my speaker note's AUD 160 million, which is pretty much flat compared to the prior period.
Okay, that's question answered. That's it for me. Thank you.
Thank you.
Your next question comes from Carolyn Brunner with Macquarie .
Morning team, thanks for taking my question. Just around how we should think about refinancing of the subordinated notes going forward from here and whether, with asset sale the term side, you've got a greater level of flexibility to replace that with even cheaper bank debt.
Yeah, thanks, Callum. Andrew here. That's right. The opportunity to recycle capital out of our wholly owned assets and to bring that capital back onto balance sheet and then to use that capacity over time, potentially to refinance the subordinated notes, is definitely an opportunity that we're thinking through and looking at. We'll continue to monitor the market in terms of where the subordinated notes are trading in order to see if that is an opportunity that we can unlock. We obviously have to work with the rating agencies around that as well in terms of how we maintain the equity credit that we receive on the balance sheet in your subordinated notes as well.
There are a number of moving parts, but I think you're spot on in terms of long-term strategies to how do we refinance the subordinated notes and continue to generate a really strong tailwind for the business as we've done over the last few years.
Thanks. Just on the development pipeline, can you talk to us about how we should think about a run rate, if you like, for development, both of the redevelopment of existing retail? Maybe, I don't know, the dollar value per annum that when we're thinking longer term, medium to longer term, and also just realistically when those residential opportunities at Hornsby, Belconnen, and Warringah would be executable?
Yeah, so it's Elliott here. Our run rate for CapEx is circa AUD 400 million-AUD 450 million, which includes the leasing and maintenance CapEx and the redevelopment, effectively repurposing of existing space in our 42 destinations. The development CapEx, obviously, if you deduct that, would be around AUD 250 million - AUD 300 million as a run rate, and we expect that to continue. I think when we move to the second part of your question, we're in the process at the moment of effectively obtaining optionality in the form of how to understand what is the maximum opportunity for the land holdings, the strategic land holdings that we have. When it comes to actually delivering that, our expectation would be that we would introduce potential capital partners to effectively assist in a great significant way the actual dollar funding of how to execute that.
For us, we see that as a very long-term, it's a long-term growth opportunity, not in the long term, but for the long term, because we're effectively using land that we have already, so we don't have to buy new land, but effectively meet the thematic demands of both Australia and New Zealand, which are particularly shortage of housing.
Okay, just to be clear, does that mean we should think about it more as you earn just fees in relation to doing that residential development and development management as opposed to participate, or will you take a co-investment or retain a co-investment if you like?
I think it's probably the latter because it is on our land. If you look at historically pre-Scentre Group days, the Westfield organization was quite successful in offshore opportunities, particularly in London, where land effectively was the capital contribution. We would look at it as a group that we're maximizing the potential of the land that we have, which in the main is being used for car parking at the moment in order to create additional value for security holders without necessarily expanding in any significant way our balance sheet exposure in order to execute that opportunity.
Okay, thank you so much.
Thank you.
Your next question comes from Simon Chan with Morgan Stanley.
Hey, good morning, Andrew. Good morning, Elliott. Hey guys, can you give me a bit of color on Westfield Sydney Market Street there? Like you said, three retailers have opened. How far are we away from earning full freight rent, you know, the full yield on cost there at that point?
Yeah, so there is more than three retailers that are open. Just to put it into perspective, the amount of space and even capital that's been added with the 101 Castlereagh Street represents around 10% of Westfield Sydney in its totality. It is a relatively small addition, but a very important addition because it includes a CHANEL boutique, a great CHANEL boutique, probably one of the best fit-outs of any CHANEL in the world, which takes a significant proportion of that space. Moncler have also done a fantastic job in their store, as well as Omega, which has recently opened. We also have a great café there, so if anyone wants to have a good coffee, that's where they go.
We expect that will continue to progressively open, particularly as CHANEL opens more of their space and the basement level, which is leased, but will be expected to open towards the back half of this year. In effect, and early next year, between now and call it the first quarter of 2026, the additional amount of space that's been added to Westfield Sydney will be fully open, operational, trading, and even as of today, welcoming customers like yourself to go and shop.
I've already been there, Elliott, just for the record.
Great.
Just to follow up to that though, what about capitalization of interest? Have you guys fully stopped capitalizing interest in relation to the AUD 400 million or so of incremental CapEx, or will that also be phased in over between now and the first quarter of 2026?
Yeah, hi, Simon. From a capitalized interest perspective, included in our net interest expense for the half, we have actually reduced the level of capitalized interest. That is predominantly related to other projects that have completed, primarily Mt Gravatt, David Jones. With Sydney, you're right, because it's a staged opening and it's only just opened, the level of capitalized interest will progressively reduce as we get to fully open.
Great, and just one more from me. Hey guys, it's all very good that you've upgraded [divvy] guidance. I mean, it translates to, I think, AUD 4 million or AUD 5 million just by my calcs. Can you just let us know what's the reasoning behind it? Is it a signal that you guys actually think that you know the CapEx impost going forward will be lower and that's why you're comfortable with having a slightly higher payout ratio, or, yeah, what's just driving that?
I think the reality is that we've brought capital back onto balance sheet. Our operating performance of the business itself is strong. We expect it to continue to be strong, and we have the opportunity of returning in the form of a dividend a higher amount of money to our security holders. We'll look to continue to be able to do so.
Thanks very much, guys.
Thank you.
Your next question comes from Ben Brayshaw with Barrenjoey.
Yes, good morning. Thanks for your presentation. Just a quick question on customer demand, new store openings. I was wondering if you could comment on what you're seeing across the portfolio.
We're seeing excellent demand from new businesses. I mentioned an occupancy rate of 99.7%, which is the highest it's been since 2017. In numerical terms, that is double digit, so not triple digit. It's below 100 and we're talking about over 12,500 outlets. It's quite minimal. Demand for space is actually so strong that we're having to choose in a way and make the right decisions from a curation point of view of who takes the space when that space becomes available. In many centres, there is no space available. You'll see now in the metrics where leasing spreads are positive, rent escalations remain strong and will continue to remain strong.
That supply and demand dynamic is something that we're very focused on in terms of making sure that supply meets the needs of the market, but in a way that is helping to maximize the return to the security holders who are effectively providing the capital for business partners to operate. In fact, 29 of our 42 centres have no vacancy, just to emphasize that point. We see conditions, particularly around business demands, continuing to be very, very strong.
Elliott, what are the main drivers for the particularly strong sales in the month of July? Just referencing your comments earlier on total and specialty sales being up strong for July.
There could be many reasons why, but I think what you are seeing is that consumer confidence is strengthening. Employment remains strong. Interest rates are on the way down and seem to be continuing to be on the way down. The weather has also helped, particularly in Sydney. The product is better. The activations are also yielding excellent results. Partnerships that we have with Disney, with Live Nation, with Sony that we've highlighted in the presentation pack continue to drive consumer traffic. The reality is that we're focused on creating the destinations that are unique and desirable for people to spend their time at. Because we have that focus across all our 42 centers of creating a reason for those marketplaces to spend most of, if not all, their time with us, we're seeing the strength of that continue in the form of visitation and business partner sales.
I do want to highlight the difference in our strategy. Our strategy is to strengthen all 42 centers as opposed to knocking down one particular center for an extended number of years and hoping that maybe the customer will return. We're focused on continuing to drive the 42 to make it as desirable as possible. We're seeing that yield benefits in the form of higher customer traffic, more business partner sales, higher profits to shareholders, higher dividends to shareholders, and that growing year after year without any dilution or downtime.
My final question was on the specs for the OCR for the portfolio. Apologies if you've included this in your presentation pack. Are you able to clarify where that was at June?
Yeah, so it remains at 17.2%, which is similar to where it was at December. It's actually the same number. As I said, in that dynamic, we still see the opportunity to continue to grow that. We're obviously seeing that with positive leasing spreads. Sales are very good, so those two cross, you know, the cross-section of that works well from an occupancy cost standpoint. The key point there is that, you know, we have been saying this for a while, that we do see scope for occupancy costs to increase. Productivity is a lot higher today than what it was when occupancy costs were higher a number of years ago. We know that with 29 centers with no vacancy and less than 100 vacancies in the whole portfolio, we are getting very good leasing outcomes.
We would expect that our ability to not only continue to drive sales growth, drive obviously on the back of customer traffic, but even increase our share in the form of occupancy costs is a growth driver for the business in the years to come.
Great, thanks for your time.
Thank you.
Your next question comes from Tom Bodor with UBS .
Good morning, Elliott and Andrew. Just be interested in whether you expect to see further asset-level partnerships similar to what you've done with Dexus at Chermside in the next 12 months.
Yeah, hi Tom. Absolutely. It's part of our long-term strategy. We'll continue to work away at opportunities around that over time. We are seeing some really strong dialogue with a number of potential partners that we continue to interact with and look at opportunities. These opportunities need to work for both, obviously, Scentre Group and the potential partners, but it is part of our long-term strategy. It's not something that we intend to do all in one year, but it's something that we intend to do over time because it's ultimately the best form of capital for us to fund the growth of our business going forward.
[crosstalk] Excellent. I'm sorry?
I was just going to say, as I touched on before, the opportunity to also refinance the subordinated notes on the back of these types of transactions is really strong.
Should we think about it as an opportunity to eliminate the subordinated notes or to just ultimately replace them with similar forms of capital?
I think we're open to all options, and I think you've seen that through how we refinance some of the original subordinated notes through the issuance of new subordinated notes at much cheaper pricing. That's a strategy that we'll continue to use when we can attract that sort of pricing. Also, what you've seen is our total volume of subordinated notes has reduced from the original volume of AUD 4.1 billion down to around AUD 3.3 billion over time. A strategy which is ultimately not dilutive from an equity perspective and an FFO return perspective is ultimately what we're trying to drive. I think Elliott highlighted in his comments that we have been sector-leading in terms of our FFO growth year to year over the last number of years.
Our ability to continue to drive that continuous growth in FFO and distributions is ultimately what we're trying to achieve from a strategy perspective.
Okay, thanks. Just going back to the distribution, I appreciate the upgrades being talked about a bit today, but just be interested in your perspective on the upgrade to the DPU in the context of the operating cash flow going backwards quite a bit. Would you say it's more of a forward look on how you see things evolving or, you know, any other comments on the operating cash flow because it did go back pretty substantially?
Yeah, look, the decision around funding and distributions and obviously growth, we're looking at over the long term. We're firstly looking at the performance of the underlying business. As we've highlighted in our results, the performance for the first half has been extremely strong, and we expect that strength to continue. The second part of it, from a capital management perspective, we've made significant progress in the first six months of this year in terms of capital management initiatives to put us in a position to drive higher growth in our distributions. The more progress we can make on both of those two key pillars, the more we'll be able to drive growth for our shareholders. I think the second part in terms of the operating cash flow, that really is a timing issue.
If you look back over the last circa three years, operating cash flow has been, I think it's been circa AUD 200 million plus higher than FFO. With timing issues, it always has to catch up at some stage. For this period, we've just seen that operating cash flow from a timing perspective of working capital has slowed, but the underlying strength of the business is there.
Okay, thanks. Just a final one on Bondi Junction , the next phase of the redevelopment there at the dining precinct. Just be interested in how much you're looking to spend there and the expected yield on cost on that spend.
Yeah, I think we're still working through all of that detail, and I think it'd be premature to discuss at this point, but I would expect in the next six months we'll be able to give a lot more color on that, particularly in the context that we're looking at what we're doing at Bondi from a holistic standpoint. We've obviously opened the level 1 part, which was the repurposing of the old David Jones ground floor level. There are ambient upgrade works that are continuing to go through Bondi. Bondi first opened 21 years ago, so it is the best asset in Sydney. Arguably, I'd say it's the fashion capital of Sydney, including the north.
Our focus is how we're going to maintain that competitive advantage that Bondi has as being one of the best, if not the best center in, certainly the best center in our portfolio, but probably the best center in the country, I would argue.
Great, thanks so much.
Thank you.
Your next question comes from Richard Jones with JPMorgan.
Oh, thank you. Just wondering if the Chermside transaction was completed prior to the valuations being undertaken for the first half?
Yeah, hi Richard. The valuation ended up being aligned to the transaction price. The transaction was completed prior to locking in that final valuation. You'll see in our accounts, or in our slides, that the valuation for Chermside is the same valuation.
Yeah, I was just wondering whether it was used as a reference to valuations across the rest of the assets in the portfolio.
Oh, not really, no. No, just from a timing perspective, Chermside happened very close to the finalization of the valuations for all the other assets. I'd say very simply no.
It is, however, a vindication, I suppose, of valuations in a real sense as opposed to a value assess.
I was just also wondering whether you could really compare the spreads of your more, the leasing spreads that is, of your more productive centres like Bondi and Sydney and Chermside and Booragoon as examples relative to perhaps some of the less productive centres like an Airport West or a Knox or Innaloo?
Yeah, so there is a difference, obviously because of the productivity that's achieved at those centers that you've just named compared to others. Having said that, centers like Airport West are full. We are getting good leasing spreads across the portfolio. There obviously is a differential. I'm just trying to get you the exact numbers while I'm talking. The other part to it is that it depends on what you're replacing the business with, the new business. Sometimes it isn't a like-for-like comparison if it's a pharmacy. Pharmacies are less profitable today than they were, you know, 10 years ago and you're replacing that with another form. It's fair to say that the leasing spread that we've been achieving out of Bondi, Sydney, Chermside, and Carindale are in the range of 5% - 6%.
In other centers, obviously, that would balance out at a lower positive number to get the 3% overall.
Okay, thanks, Elliott.
There are no further questions at this time. I'll now hand back to Mr. Rusanow for closing remarks.
Thank you very much for joining us on our call today. I do apologize for the lateness in when the results were actually published on the ASX. There are, as I understand, some issues with queuing and the ASX releasing information. I do apologize for that. As you go through it, we are available at any time to answer any further questions, and we do look forward to seeing you in the coming days. Thank you for your time.