Thank you for standing by, and welcome to the Scentre Group 2022 half-year results update. All participants are in a listen-only mode. There'll be a presentation followed by a question and answer session. If you wish to ask a question, you will need to press the star key followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. Please note that this conference is being recorded today, Tuesday, 23rd of August, 2022 at 9:00 A.M., Australian Eastern Standard Time. I would now like to hand the conference over to Mr. Peter Allen. Please go ahead.
Thank you. Good morning, everyone. I'd like to acknowledge the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation as the traditional custodians of the land I am on this morning. Recognizing that many of us are on different lands of different traditional custodians, I'd like to pay my respects to each of their elders past, present, and emerging. Welcome to Scentre Group's half year results briefing. I'm joined today on the call by our Chief Financial Officer and incoming CEO, Elliott Rusanow, as well as Andrew Clarke, our incoming CFO. I'm very pleased to deliver today's strong results. Our team has continued to drive our business and deliver strong operational performance. We've grown customer visitation, portfolio occupancy, rental income, and cash collection, resulting in strong profit growth for the half. Today's results highlight the quality of our portfolio and our continued proactive approach and operational excellence.
Funds from operations was AUD 548.6 million, up 18.3%. We're well-positioned for growth, and I'd like to thank our team for delivering these results. Our ambition is to grow the business by becoming essential to people, their communities, and the businesses that interact with them. During the six months to the thirtieth of June, the group completed 1,579 lease deals, including 585 new merchants, of which we welcomed 108 new brands to the portfolio. This has driven strong portfolio occupancy, increasing 30 basis points to 98.8% at the end of June. Our leasing spreads improved significantly to -3.9% in the first half of the year, and lease incentives remain in line with prior periods.
We continue to maintain our standard lease structure with fixed-based rent and inflation-linked escalations. Our average specialty lease terms have lengthened to 6.8 years, eight years. We continue to create the most productive and efficient platform for our business partners to engage with customers. Business partners generated AUD 500 million more sales from our platform this half than the comparative period in 2019. Excluding travel and cinemas, total sales are AUD 900 million higher than the six months to the 30th of June 2019. Total majors and specialty sales were 10.8% higher for the three months to June, and 7.1% higher for the six months to June compared to 2019.
Specialty sales were 13.7% higher for the three months and 8.1% higher for the six months compared to 2019. When we established Scentre Group in 2014, we established our purpose. Creating extraordinary places, connecting and enriching communities. It guides the delivery of our plan and our ambition, and the way we lead our teams. We wanna create destinations where people choose to spend more of their time. We continue to drive more visitation to our Westfield destinations. Visitation has increased to 277 million people, or visits year to date, and we're on track to reach approximately 500 million visits for the year. We continue to make significant progress on our integrated strategic initiatives, which enhance our connection to and between our customers and businesses.
Westfield Plus, our membership platform, has grown its membership to 2.75 million people, welcoming 550,000 members in 2022. We continue to deliver sought-after personal experiences that enhance our connection with customers and their experience across Westfield. We launched Westfield Direct, our aggregated click and collect service in October 2021. It has experienced continued growth in customer advocacy and business engagement since. Westfield Direct now has 300 sellers and more than 325,000 products. In the six months since launch, we have fulfilled more than 100,000 orders, with the majority of these orders choosing to click and collect from their Westfield local center. Creating destinations to achieve our ambition drives our development opportunities.
During the half, we opened the AUD 55 million rooftop entertainment, leisure, and dining precinct at Westfield Mount Druitt. Since opening, customer visitation and dwell time has significantly increased. The 355 million dollar investment in Westfield Knox, Melbourne is progressing really well with strong pre-leasing in line with budget. Stage one, which will open in December 2022, is currently 96% leased. The group continues to make significant progress on its responsible business initiatives across community, people, environment, and economic performance. During the half, we released our 2021 responsible business report, 2021 modern slavery statement, as well as our third reconciliation, Reconciliation Action Plan for 2022 to 2024.
Earlier this month, we announced an agreement with CleanCo to source 100% renewable electricity to power our Queensland portfolio from 2025, consistent with our net zero target pathway. We continue to make great progress on the integrated energy, water, and waste plan. I'll now hand over to Elliott to take you through the financial results.
Thanks, Peter. Operating profit for the six months to June 30 was AUD 541 million or AUD 0.1043 per security. This is an increase of 17.5% over the first half of 2021. Funds from operations for the six-month period was AUD 549 million or AUD 0.1058 per security, which grew by 18.3%. Our net operating cash flow after interest, overhead, and tax was AUD 570 million or AUD 0.11 per security, growing by 16.9% compared to the first half of 2021. Our focus has always been on cash flow. Since June of 2020, our net operating cash flow has exceeded FFO. For the first half of 2022, net operating cash flow was AUD 22 million higher than FFO.
The group announced an interim distribution of AUD 389 million or AUD 0.075 per security for the half year, representing 7.1% growth. Since the start of 2020, the group has distributed AUD 1.5 billion to security holders and has retained AUD 687 million of earnings. During the first half of 2022, net operating income grew by 6%. An expected credit charge of AUD 14 million was booked relating to the financial impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on rental income during the six-month period. This compares to the AUD 45 million charge booked in the first half of 2021, and the AUD 124 million booked in the second half of 2021.
As indicated in our previous results, the pandemic has also impacted other revenue items such as car parking and ancillary income and extended downtime for opening of new merchant sites. During the period, we have seen these areas continue to recover, and for 2022, we expect to see ancillary income and extended downtime continue this improvement and to be within approximately AUD 55 million of the pre-pandemic levels. During the six-month period to 30 June, we collected AUD 1.25 billion in gross rent cash collections. This represents an increase of AUD 192 million compared to the second half of 2021. Included in our AUD 1.25 billion collected to 30 June was the full recovery of the AUD 185 million in trade debtors as booked at the end of 31 December 2021.
The net trade debtors after the expected credit charge provision at 30 June were AUD 151 million, all of which relate to the 2022 billings. During July, we have collected a further AUD 220 million. Operating and leasing capital was AUD 56 million for the first half, and AUD 12.4 million has been invested in our strategic customer initiatives, Westfield Plus and Westfield Direct. During the half year, the group repaid AUD 800 million of debt, including the early redemption of the GBP 400 million bond in January 2022. Also in January, we redeemed the AUD 243 million Westfield Parramatta Property Linked Note. In August, the group refinanced the AUD 900 million syndicated bank loan facility.
Due to strong demand from lenders, the facility was upsized to AUD 1.1 billion and the pricing of the facility of 142 basis points compares favorably to current bond market pricing. The AUD 300 million secured bank facility in Carindale Property Trust was refinanced during the half as well as AUD 1.2 billion of bilateral bank facilities. A total of AUD 2.6 billion of new and extended banking facilities have been completed during the half. The group now has AUD 4.8 billion of available liquidity, which is sufficient to cover all debt maturities until the fourth quarter of 2025. The average net interest cost for the half was approximately 4.2%. The group continues to actively manage its interest rate hedging position.
During the half year, we have been deliberate in allowing our hedging position to reduce in the short term as contracts mature in order to take advantage of the lower floating interest rate environment. At the same time, we have increased our interest rate hedge coverage to 70% in January 2023 at an average rate of 1.99%, and 67% at December 2023 with an average rate of 1.97%. In addition, given the current volatile interest rate environment, the group has taken the opportunity to put in place short-term interest rate hedging for the second half of 2022, providing the group with a greater level of certainty with interest expenses for the remainder of the year.
The additional short-term hedging has resulted in overall hedge coverage of approximately 80% for the second half of 2022 at an average rate of 1.99%. This additional hedging was undertaken at no capital cost to the group. We retain our single A or equivalent ratings from S&P, Fitch, and Moody's. The statutory profit was AUD 480 million for the half, which includes the unrealized non-cash increase in property valuations of AUD 286 million. Approximately 50% of properties were externally valued during the half year, and the increase in value for these assets was driven by net operating income with minimal cap rate movement. We have provided on slide 24 a summary of values by each property.
The accounting stated net assets of the group is AUD 3.67 per security and is AUD 4.32 per security when the implied value of our property management income at the equivalent cap rate is included. Our business is in a strong position to deliver long-term growth by being essential to people, their communities, and the businesses that interact with them. For 2022, the group expects FFO to be above AUD 0.19 per security, subject to no material changing conditions. This would represent growth of more than 14.2%. Distributions are expected to be at least AUD 0.15 per security, representing at least 5.3% growth. Before opening the call to questions, I would like to acknowledge that this is Peter's last earnings call for the group.
I've tried to work out how many calls Peter would have now done during his career at both Westfield and Scentre Group, but I gave up trying. It's an enormous number. On behalf of the team, I would like to thank you for your tremendous leadership at Scentre Group since its inception in 2014. I also want to thank you for the positive impact you have had, you and your leadership have had, both personally and professionally to so many, many people over the years. Thank you.
Thanks, Elliott.
On that note, I'd like to hand over the call 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'll now pause a moment to assemble our roster. Your first question comes from Richard Jones from JP Morgan. Please go ahead.
Good morning, Peter and Elliott. Congratulations on your tenure, Peter. Just in terms of the comments you made, Elliott, just about the drag on ancillary income. Can you spell out what the first half contribution was in ancillary income and what that was in the first half in 2019?
The normalized number, pre-pandemic, well, it's around AUD 165 million.
For the full year.
For the full year. During the half year of this year, the number was around AUD 70 million. On that basis, you can see where that drag is, coming from.
Okay, that's helpful. Just in terms of project income, wasn't a significant contributor in the first half. Is there more project income you'd expect to come through in the second half?
During the half year, we recognized project income principally at Knox and Mount Druitt. During the second half of the year, we'll recognize more of Knox. Obviously Mount Druitt is now completed and likely to start recognizing income from 101 Castlereagh Street.
Just in terms of what the guidance implies in your cost of debt, is there major changes anticipated in the second half?
We've adopted the market curve, call it as at yesterday or today, which would imply that BBSW three-month, which is effectively our floating rate, cost increases to 3.3% by December of this year.
Okay, that's very helpful. Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you. Your next question comes from Lou Pirenc from Jarden. Please go ahead.
Yes. Good morning. Can you talk about asset values? I mean, they haven't really moved much during COVID. They didn't really move much. I mean, do you feel that valuers are still being conservative given the significant increase in rents? I mean, I do recall you wrote down your assets at the beginning of COVID. How should we think about that?
I think it's fair to say, Lou, that there's an absence of market transactions, which obviously impacts how external valuers calculate their view of what a valuation should be. It's also fair to say that income has performed better in our results than what valuers had assumed in June of 2020 when the big write-downs did occur. They have taken a more conservative approach with regards to downtime, with regards to leasing spreads. As you can see from our results, we believe that our operating cash flow is showing better results than probably what the valuers have been assuming. The issue, I suppose, is in the valuation community, the impact of a changing of interest rate environment.
Again, in the absence of an external market pricing, it's very difficult for valuers to, you know, ascribe a value. All we can say is that our operating cash flow and what we're seeing from the operating metrics is better than what the valuers have been assuming.
Yeah. I think the other thing, Lou, just to make a point, is that we've externally valued half the portfolio and the balance has remained flat. Okay? We haven't got that external and the internal value we kept flat is where it was at December. That has an impact. The other thing is, if you look at the cap rates which have been used, you'll see there's been no change in cap rates. The growth has really come from the growth of income, which is a real positive sign to me. As you know, we're not driving the business in terms of the valuation growth. We're driving the business in terms of operational cash flow.
Makes sense. Just to confirm, when you collect rents from prior periods, so 2021, you don't include it in your FFO, right?
No. Again, there is a disconnection, call it, in accounting terms between cash and FFO. In effect, when you look at over that extended period, cash has exceeded FFO, which is part of the reason why the trade debt keeps reducing each accounting period. Just to be clear, no reversal of any provisions, all cash-backed, and our cash collections remain very strong.
Great. Thank you.
Thank you. Your next question comes from Grant McCasker from UBS. Please go ahead.
Good morning, and thanks for providing FFO guidance. I think in the past or very recently, you sort of made some pretty clear comments to say that's not in the policy for Scentre to provide FFO guidance. You know, what's changed there?
Well, I think, Grant, what we did say was that given the volatile environment that we have been in, particularly at February results, it was very difficult. If you remember, at that time, there was another wave of the pandemic occurring, and we weren't in a position that we would provide guidance on an earnings level for a 12 months out period. As you know, we're a December year-end. As we've gone through the year, as conditions from that pandemic have become clearer, as our cash collections have become very clear, obviously with our result and continue to be, our operating metrics are performing very well. As Peter said, occupancy has increased, customer visitations have increased, average rent has increased. Our standard leasing structure has not changed, and leasing spreads continue to improve.
We're in a position where we can provide guidance, albeit our guidance is in the form of what we expect to be above rather than giving a hard guidance number that we're aiming towards, given that there is still a volatile environment out there, particularly with interest rates, as Richard asked before. We'll know more as the months progress, but we're in a comfortable position now to provide call it a baseline of where we expect FFO to land.
Okay. Excellent. Just secondly, you know, you've done a lot of debt refinancing there, shown a lot of support from the lenders. Your A rating negative, your interest cover, obviously, as we move into 2023, is probably one metric to consider. Is the debt levels appropriate for this current interest rate environment?
Well, I think that firstly, our rating is A, and it's stable from all three rating agencies. You know, interestingly, there's a lot of commentary in the core equity landscape around our debt levels as a percentage of total assets. As I articulated, the cost of our debt is actually very competitive vis-à-vis other groups that might, on the face of it, have different gearing levels. I'd, you know, just highlight that the support from the people who are actually providing the debt, who do use credit ratings and do look at the debt levels on our balance sheet are willing to provide us with increased levels of that at cheaper pricing relative to others. We are comfortable with the current settings, and we'll continue to manage it through.
I think importantly, we have sufficient liquidity now to cover us for all bond maturities and debt maturities through to the fourth quarter of 2025, which provides us with a lot of flexibility with respect to where we source capital and the pricing of where we source that from.
Okay. Excellent. Yeah, apologies about the negative comment. Thanks for your comments.
Thanks.
Thank you. Your next question comes from Ben Brayshaw from Barrenjoey. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi. Good morning. I was wondering if you could comment on the recovery in travel and cinema sales and what your expectations are for those two categories going forward?
Yeah. Ben, it's Peter. In terms of cinema sales, cinema sales are growing pretty strongly, as you would have been aware, with the movie releases that we've had in the first six months, has been very strong. They're still not back to where they were in 2019. They're probably around the 80% mark to where they were previously. Travel is still growing, but it's still being limited by the availability of flights, both domestically as well as internationally. The growth of travel, whilst it is growing, it is certainly far below where it was before. I think if you look at the slides, you can see that, you know, cinemas and travel are up, what?
About AUD 200 million between the first half of last year and the first half of this year, which is a positive sign, but we're still nowhere near where we were back in 2019.
Great. Thanks, Peter.
Thank you. Your next question comes from Simon Chan from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.
Hey, good day, guys. Your guidance of more than AUD 0.19 implies second half FFO of about AUD 0.085 after you guys having achieved AUD 0.10 and AUD 0.106 in the first half. What's the reason for that step down? Is it purely the floating rate impact?
Well, I think there's a combination of things. Firstly, it's above AUD 0.19, so I wouldn't go into the implications of what second half looks like versus first half necessarily. Just bear that in mind. There are, as you point out, changes in certain line items, particularly as you pointed out, the interest rate line, which we did see the benefit of very low interest rates in the first six months of the year.
We've been very deliberate with that strategy, but we have locked away a lot of that call risk, expense risk on the interest line for the second half of the year, which has given us more certainty in being able to provide a base level of guidance for FFO for the second half. You know, in terms of that line, that's pretty clear now of, you know, as I said, we've assumed that the current floating rate gets to 3.3% by the end of the year, which is the current market curve. But clearly the other line items that will move is, you know, we anticipate that occupancy will continue to increase. We continue to expect that that rental escalations will continue to maintain that momentum.
One big variable is going to be what the inflation rate is for the third and fourth quarter of this year. There's a lot of variables in that number, which is why we've given a baseline which we expect to beat.
Great. My second question. Elliott, just on slide 10, I don't mean to be nitpicky in what's a good result, but if I just be very simple and look at the property revenue line, you know, six months to 2022 versus six months to 2021, it's only up by, like, barely 2%. Notwithstanding, you know, all your CPI impact, occupancy increasing, et cetera. Like, why is this? Why is there a mismatch?
It's a good question. The answer to that is that the expected credit charge is booked after the revenue. In effect, we book the revenue as if we're charging and collecting the full rent, knowing that COVID was in place in 2021, which meant that we then booked an expected credit charge after that revenue line. Net of the expected credit charge, you'll see that net operating income grew by actually 6% year-on-year for that six-month period.
Okay, thanks.
Thank you. Your next question comes from Louise Sandberg from Bank of America. Please go ahead.
Morning. Just a quick question. You're hedging at 80%, that excludes the subordinated notes, is that correct?
No, it doesn't. It's 80% of, call it total facilities, including the subordinate debt.
Total facilities.
Yeah.
Okay, awesome. Thank you.
Draw on facilities.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you. Your next question comes from Sholto Maconochie from Jefferies. Please go ahead.
Oh, hi, everyone, and congrats on a good result. Just on Simon Chan's question. If you look at that slide, if you back out the ECC, like it looks like the revenue went up 2.4% and ex ECC, the NPI is only up 2.3%. Is that just 'cause. It just doesn't seem like it's a big improvement. It seems like the growth was really driven from just the writeback of the lower COVID charges. Just trying to understand why there's only sort of 2.4% growth.
Sholto, there's two other things to note. Firstly, Knox has downtime. Obviously, it's not as much income for that development compared to 2021, that will come back in stages from December of this year. And secondly, the timing of escalations with regards to CPI flows through the year doesn't occur at the very beginning of the year.
Ah.
Yeah.
Yes, there should be a pickup in the second half you get, 'cause it's like you do it on a rolling basis.
Correct. Yeah.
You should see a pickup in the escalators in the second half because of that and which gets a bit offset by the debt. Okay. That makes sense. Just on the hedging, in your update, I think it was May or in your Q1 update, you had hedging, you increased it, I think 65%, now it's gone up. You've entered into more hedges post that update in the quarter, the first quarter update. Is that correct?
Yes. We principally did that when the market, if you remember, the interest rate market started pulling back with interest rates going down. We took advantage of that moment in time to lock away more of our interest rate exposure for the remainder of this year and increase it slightly for the duration next year.
Yeah, 'cause it went up, the hedge ratio went up a little bit, but you get more certainty, I noticed.
Correct.
Okay. Just on the spread, are you expecting a bit of improvement in the second half on the spreads, or sort of flat?
Sholto, it's really hard to say because what we're doing is we're comparing, as we've said before, apples and oranges, you know. It comes down to what business we're replacing and what we want to do in terms of curating that mix. I think what we've got to look at is that there is a positive trend where we're seeing that negative leasing spreads are improving quite dramatically and in fact, they're what? Less than half of where they were last time, which is a good sign. You know, rest assured the team are working as hard as possible to maximize the rent that we get out of the space.
More importantly, we wanna curate the mix so we have a destination which attracts customers because that's gonna be able to drive our certainty and grow our occupancy.
Yeah, no, it makes sense. Just on the distribution, you saved about AUD 101 million of cash over the operating cash flows. I guess now you've sort of collected all the cash, that was pretty clean result with no write backs. You'd expect sort of operating cash flow and FFO to start to normalize now that you sort of got or there's a bit of a reason to come back but from second half, does that start to normalize more in line with FFO?
Yeah, theoretically, the answer is yes, but we still have AUD 151 million of trade debt that we'd like to collect, so, and we will collect. We expect that cash will remain very strong relative to FFO.
Yeah. Okay. Just finally, I forgot what I was gonna say, but on the distribution going forward, is it still gonna be materially lower? Is it still gonna be retaining that extra cash for the strategic initiatives? Is that still the outlook for Scentre to retain a bit more cash to invest into the business.
Well, I think that as you know, we came out with a distribution guidance at the beginning of the year, and we're holding that guidance, which is at least AUD 0.15. At the time, we did disconnect distribution from FFO.
Mm.
Part of the reason being the investment in the strategic initiatives which remains true and remains a strategic initiative that we want to invest in. But the level of distribution obviously will have regard to what FFO ends up being, call it February, when we announce our full year number.
All right. Good. Thanks very much, Alida, and Peter, thanks for all your help along the way and best of luck in your retirement from Scentre. Thank you.
Thanks.
Thank you. Your next question comes from Stuart McLean from Macquarie. Please go ahead.
Good morning and congratulations, Peter, and all the best for the future. First question is just picking up on some of that NPI growth. I was looking at slide four and the average rent per square meter across the portfolio, AUD 827, up AUD 5 per square meter. That's 0.6%. Like how do we think? Is that like a like for like comp number, kind of ex comp growth number ex occupancy? Like how do we think about that 0.6% in the context of growth in the underlying business?
Yeah. It's rent per square meter across every rent payer, including majors, mini majors, specialty stores, cinemas, travel, every occupant. The key statistic though is that combined with occupancy, which is increased. If we can increase occupancy, increase the rent that people are well, businesses are paying, that leads to net operating income growth. Plus the growth in ancillary income less expected credit charge, all those add up to net operating income growth.
With CPI plus 2%, I appreciate CPI wasn't 5% on average for the last 12 months, but should be kind of getting at least 3%-4% growth maybe over the last 12 months. What's the difference between that 1% growth and kind of like a theoretical CPI plus 2%?
Well, the CPI growth is on our specialty leases, which represent probably 70% of our space. Therefore, when you think about our majors, our mini majors, discount department stores, supermarkets, et cetera, they have different rent review profiles in terms of when they take place, and also the timing is different in terms of those rent review profiles. That's what takes into account. With that, you also have as a slight adjustment is the negative re-leasing spreads we have with those new leases which we put in those renewals.
Okay, great. Thank you. Second question, just pick up maybe on a couple questions from Sholto. What is the expected spend on the strategic initiatives of Westfield Plus, et cetera, for this year, please?
We're still in line for what we had guided at the beginning of the year. We were guiding for, you know, around that AUD 24 million number, which we're still forecasting to invest.
Great. Thank you. Just another one on the capital requirements, going forward, and there's still circa AUD 350 odd million Property Linked Notes for the group to redeem, or potentially to redeem there. Just what's the outlook for developments post Westfield Knox? Is 77 Market Street getting close? Is Barangaroo getting close? Like what's the next come off the rank and potential quantum?
In terms of, as you correctly pointed out, the Property Linked Notes, one expires at the end of, we'll call it, January of next year, 2023 and January 2024. Again, we don't know whether they'll be redeemed or not, but we did redeem the Parramatta note earlier this year, as I said. We'll enter into discussions with the holder of that note to determine what they would like to do. With respect to the capital moving forward with regards to development, it's the current run rate that we've been guiding to around that AUD 300 million-AUD 400 million of investment is what we expect to continue.
As I said, there's the retail component of 101 Castlereagh, which luckily commenced. We'll finish off Knox. Then there are a number of opportunities that we're looking at at commencing. The Liverpool development, which is the entertainment and lifestyle precinct and an office building at Liverpool. We're in substantial pre-development work at Burwood, Parramatta, Albany in New Zealand. Barangaroo is something that's probably a lot further out. That kind of gives you a sense of what the earlier, the sooner projects are.
As well as, yeah, we also are always eyeing potential acquisition opportunities and, you know, maintain a very healthy level of liquidity, available liquidity which provides us flexibility to pursue a number of avenues should they arise.
Just taking into account that circa AUD 300-400 million spend per annum on developments and maybe some acquisitions, could there be some divestments on the other side to help fund those capital requirements? Or you're happy in terms of your leverage where it sits today and ability to execute on these growth initiatives?
I think that the reality is that when we look at what the opportunities are, we determine what the funding sources are. We maintain a sufficient level of flexibility to undertake our business plan. Should the opportunities arise which require additional capital, you know, in order to grow the business, we do have plenty of funding alternatives available to us, including a wholly owned portfolio of 12 assets that represent circa AUD 20 billion of asset value on the balance sheet, which we could joint venture, you know, should the opportunities arise to reinvest that capital.
Are they active considerations on that, those 100% owned assets or they're potential considerations sometime down the track?
Well, I think any consideration is an active consideration, even if it's potential.
Yeah. Should we expect anything in the next six months?
I'm not gonna guide on that.
All right. Thank you very much for your time.
Thank you.
Thank you. Your next question comes from James Druce from CLSA. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Good morning, Peter. Good morning, Elliott. Peter, congratulations on a tremendous career at Westfield or, sorry, Scentre. Listen, could Jonesy's and Jenny's and a couple of people's questions around the NPI growth. Can you give us the ancillary income contribution from the prior half, so the six months to June 2021?
Yeah. Ancillary income grew by AUD 15 million. The ancillary income, and I'll correct on what I said to Richard, the ancillary income is, we've forecasted for the full year to be AUD 55 million below where it was pre-pandemic. Pre-pandemic, that number was 200 odd million dollars. We're expecting ancillary income to be circa AUD 145 million. The first half of this year it was around AUD 70 million.
Based on that incremental contribution from the PCP to the first half of AUD 15 million, that sort of suggests that the ex-provision number was flat. Is that the way we should be thinking about it if you strip out ancillary income and the provision?
No. Again, you have to take into account that we have NOCs that's come out, and the timing of escalations. When we look on a comparable basis, stripping out all the noise of ECC, NOCs, comp NOI grew by 6%.
Okay. All right. Maybe just to follow up for Elliott, now you're in the hot seat. Do you have any intention on doing a strategic review or looking at changing things in the business?
Well, I think the pleasing thing is, during the period, we undertook a strategic review, and we articulated what our growth ambition is, which is to become essential to people, their communities, and the businesses that interact with them. There's a great deal of alignment from the board through the senior leadership team all the way through the business, and it's really now getting on with the job of achieving our ambition.
Okay, fantastic. One more, if I may. Are you capitalizing the costs of those strategic initiatives in the second half? I thought you're gonna make a call on that.
We have.
Expense or capitalize.
Yeah. We have expensed in the IFRS accounts the AUD 12.4 million, and we'll continue to do so.
What about for an FFO basis?
We haven't included an FFO because we look at it as being a strategic initiative.
It's capitalized. Okay. Thank you.
It's expensed.
It's expensed.
In the accounts. Yeah.
Thank you. There are no further questions at this time. I'll now hand back to Mr. Allen.
Yeah. Thank you, everyone. I'd like to close the call by reiterating the strength and quality of these results and how proud I am of the team who've led, delivered them. As you're aware, and Elliott said, today's my last results presentation as CEO before I hand over the leadership to Elliott and Andrew on the first of October. It's been an honor to lead the organization through its first eight years, building a new corporate brand culture, introducing our customer strategy, and commencing the expansion of our Westfield platform through membership and digital offerings to enhance our customer experience. I'd like to take the opportunity to thank the board, executive leadership team, Scentre Group employees, and you, the security holders and analysts for your support during this period.
The group's really well positioned for growth in the future years, and I look forward to watching and participating as an investor. As always, should you have any questions, please, reach out to our investor relations teams. Thanks and good morning.
Thank you. That does conclude our conference for today. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.