Good morning, and thank you for joining us for Vicinity Centres' results call for the 12 months ended 30 June 2022. Before we begin, I'd like to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the lands on which we meet today and pay my respects to their elders past, present, and emerging. I extend that respect to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples on the call today. Joining me on today's call are Peter Huddle, Vicinity Centres' Chief Operating Officer, and Adrian Chye, our Chief Financial Officer. I'll start today on slide 5. FY 2022 was a year of recovery and substantial progress at Vicinity Centres.
Our results highlight strong operational and financial execution in a recovering retail landscape, where consumers continue to show confidence and capacity to spend, and retailer confidence was robust. We made significant progress against our long-term strategy this year.
Our core retail portfolio performance was strengthened by driving high-quality asset management, including the introduction of on-trend retailers and the success of the luxury retail category across our flagship outlet and CBD centers. During the year, we also made strategic decisions to enhance the overall quality of our portfolio, attaining our leadership position in the growing outlet sector with the acquisition of a 50% interest in Harbour Town Gold Coast and divesting our 50% interest in Runaway Bay at an 18% premium to book value while also delivering earnings accretion. We invested in our funds management and third-party capital business, notably with the appointment of David McNamara in February this year, and have been able to participate in potential opportunities in a far more targeted and focused manner.
Finally, we have transitioned to execution of our retail and mixed-use development pipeline, as many of you would have seen at our development showcase in June. As Adrian will discuss in more detail shortly, our financial results in FY 2022 highlight our continued recovery from the pandemic. We delivered statutory net profit after tax of AUD 1.2 billion, representing a AUD 1.5 billion uplift from the prior year. The board declared a final distribution of AUD 0.057 per security, bringing the total FY 2022 distribution to AUD 0.104, representing a payout ratio of 95.3% of AFFO. We maintained our disciplined approach to financial stewardship and, despite the disruption and cost of the pandemic, preserved our strong balance sheet and credit metrics.
Gearing remains at the low end of our 25%-35% target range, and we enter FY 2023 with around 85% of our drawn debt hedged. Pleasingly, the uplift in valuations in FY 2022 has supported a strong uplift in our NTA. From a retail trading perspective, while our two largest states, Victoria and New South Wales, were in lockdown for much of the H 1 of the year, we observed a significant and sustained rebound in retailer confidence and retail trading conditions in the six months that followed. Demonstrating the underlying resilience of the Australian retail sector, sales across our portfolio in the H2 of FY 2022 surpassed pre-COVID levels by nearly 16% despite the outbreak of Omicron in late December 2021.
As Peter will talk to you shortly, this profound recovery in the retail sector after the lockdowns in early FY 2022 underpinned another six months of positive leasing momentum. Finally, as I'll describe in more detail later, we are pleased to once again provide earnings guidance for FY 2023. Turning now to slide 6, in the six months since we last showed this slide, there has been a shift in the macroeconomic landscape and near to medium-term outlook. Consumer sentiment is being impacted by rising inflation, associated interest rate increases, and reducing confidence in the economic outlook, both in Australia and abroad.
That being said, at a broader retail industry level, falling consumer confidence has not dampened consumer spending. From a Vicinity perspective, we continue to observe elevated retail sales in our centers relative both to prior year and pre-COVID levels.
With a record low unemployment rate, historically high numbers of job advertisements, and with household savings continuing to be more than 10%, which is still well above the five-year average, we believe that any potential negative impact on consumer spending may be limited. Looking forward, while we are mindful that the immediate outlook is uncertain and ultimately depends on where and when inflation peaks, we cautiously anticipate a soft landing for the Australian retail sector over the next 12-18 months. I'll now hand you over to Peter Huddle, who will provide an overview of our operating performance for the full year.
Thanks, Grant, and good morning. I will start on slide eight with a review of our retail trading conditions. Similar to FY 2021, we would describe FY 2022 as a tale of two halves. The majority of the H 1 was materially impacted by prolonged lockdowns in our two largest states, Victoria and New South Wales.
While the H2 reflected a more normalized period despite some ongoing impacts from Omicron across the country. The important point though is that the momentum of recovery observed in the H 1 accelerated in the H2. We saw a steady improvement in visitation, and shoppers continued to spend on average 30% more per visit than pre-COVID. Shopper preference for omni-channel retail, which combines the power of the physical store with an online presence, was further supported by a contraction in the rate of online sales growth between October 2021 and June 2022.
The buoyant retail trading conditions in the H2 underpinned a strengthening in retailer confidence, which in turn drove strong leasing activity, particularly through April to June. While CBDs continue to improve, visitation remains below pre-COVID levels. A prolonged return of CBD office workers has impacted midweek traffic. However, weekend trade in the H2 returned to near pre-COVID levels as day shoppers returned en masse, assisted by city activities and events. Turning now to slide 9. The trend of annual retail sales growth across our portfolio since FY 2019 also shows a clear recovery is evident. We have highlighted the H2 of FY 2022 to further depict the return of consumer confidence and sales outside of government-mandated lockdowns. Total portfolio sales in the half increased by 11.5%.
While the bulk of this growth was observed across our Victoria and New South Wales centers, the specialty and mini major sales in other states also continue to grow despite coming off a high growth of 13.4% for FY 2021. More specifically, as we emerge from the pandemic, we have seen shoppers keen to refresh their wardrobes, indulge in high-value items such as jewelry and luxury goods, as well as return to in-center dining and entertainment activities. As part of this recovery, it's been particularly pleasing to see the strong recovery in SME retailer sales after a challenging two years. Turning to slide 10. Together with our rigorous focus on collecting due and overdue rent, the sustained strength of retail sales in the H2 led to stronger cash collections.
In FY 2022, we collected on average 91% of gross billings, and in the H2, we collected 93% of gross billings. With the expiry of the SME codes in New South Wales and Victoria in March, we have steadily completed required negotiations with SME retailers and forecast conclusion of those terms prior to the end of the calendar year. For non-SME retailers whose leases are not governed by the code, we are substantially more progressed in terms of providing targeted assistance where required, resulting in materially improved financial outcomes relative to those in the pandemics of FY 2020 and 2021. With SME retailer sales performance broadly in line with non-SME specialty sales, the collection of current and overdue rent for SME tenants improved from 66% of gross billings in the H 1 to 80% for the full year.
Post expiry of the codes in New South Wales and Victoria, we have seen minimal new vacancies, with occupancy slightly increasing to 98.3%. Having said that, we will continue to partner with and support our SME retailers, and particularly those in CBD centers. More broadly, cash collections from our national and major tenants moved closer towards pre-COVID levels, particularly in the H2. This again reflects not only the strong retailer sales environment, but also our disciplined approach to if and how we provided rental support to non-SME tenants. Consistent with the prior year, retail administrations remain low, and we've continued to monitor the health of retailers. Turning to slide 11. We continue to focus on driving high-quality leasing outcomes that not only lock in future NPI growth, but also reflect and enhance the quality of our assets.
In the year, we completed 1,378 leasing deals. The majority of these were completed in the H2, despite a meaningful moderation in leasing activity in January and February 2022 due to both seasonality as well as the outbreak of Omicron. Once the risk of potential lockdowns abated in March, deal momentum accelerated. In fact, the number of deals completed in June 2022 was nearly 50% higher than the number completed in June 2021. Adding to this, if we take the total managed portfolio, including all project leasing deals, the number of leasing transactions surpassed 2,000 for the year. We leased 374 vacant stores, equating to more than 52,000 square meters of GLA over the year, which in turn supported a modest increase in FY 2022 occupancy rate to 98.3%.
Leasing spreads continued to show positive momentum with the average leasing spread for FY 2022 improving to -4.8% versus -12.7% in FY 2021. Of all new leasing deals agreed in FY 2022, 71% were negotiated with fixed annual increases of 5%. Cumulatively, 94% of all new deals were negotiated with fixed annual increases of at least 4%. Importantly, the average new lease tenure has increased to 5.1 years, reflecting our deliberate focus on repositioning our assets with the right offers that produce recurring growth for the long term. Turning to slide 12. With the recovery gaining momentum, retailers are positioning themselves for the future. This page shows a selection of new stores that have opened across our portfolio during the year. Vicinity is a key partner to luxury brands.
Breitling and Balenciaga are expanding their presence in Australia, taking advantage of strong demand for luxury goods. As with other flagship retailers seeking prominent positions in premium CBD assets, we're excited to have opened Australia's first NBA store at Emporium Melbourne. We've remained focused on our CBD assets to ensure that we capture flagship stores and first-to-market offers that create a retail vibrancy that is second to none. The expansion of quality food offers continues to be a key driver for Vicinity. We have recently opened a superbly finished French brasserie called Manon at QVB, elevating the offer and assisting the return of trade for this CBD asset. We have worked with growing Melbourne fresh food operator, Sacca's Fine Foods, to support their expansion plan.
After a successful few years since we brought them to Altona Gate, we have further expanded that store and opened a new flagship store for them at Broadmeadows, replacing in part an older discount department store. Importantly, we continue to elevate the offer of our market-leading premium outlet business, including the expansion of Tommy Hilfiger at DFO South Wharf on this page. Our outlets business has played an important role through the pandemic and generally performs well through the cycle. Moving to slide 13. Our Retailer First program has proven to be a successful strategic initiative, with Vicinity increasingly being recognized as a partner of choice for growth-oriented retailers. Of note, our national retailer tenants ranked Vicinity number one on the retailer net promoter score, and number two overall for tenant satisfaction, which compared Vicinity to 10 retail peers.
Our tenant satisfaction score reflects our progress on building stronger and more long-term relationships with our retailers and enhancing tenant experiences. Given that these results occurred in a year with major lockdowns, demonstrates the team's commitment to being customer-focused. Over the past twelve months, we had around 333 million customer visits through our centers. The persistently strong spend per visit this year has in part been driven by our teams, not only creating an attractive and safe retail environment, but also implementing tailored and global award-winning marketing programs that were highly targeted towards driving retailer sales and enhancing experiences across our diverse portfolio. Turning now to development on slide 14. I'll provide a brief update on progress made across our AUD 2.9 billion pipeline since our development showcase in June this year.
We continue to move from planning to execution, and in August, we received all formal approvals to commence our large-scale fresh food retail and One Middle Road office developments at Chadstone. This project will further complement the two existing projects already commenced during the period, being the refurbishment of Chadstone Place to introduce Officeworks' new headquarters, as well as the development of a new dining and entertainment terrace, which will elevate the leisure experience to be delivered at Chadstone in quarter 3 of FY 2023. Our retail redevelopments at Bankstown Central are on track to be completed later this year. The center's offering will be notably improved with the introduction of a new Coles supermarket and fresh food precincts, as well as new stores including Uniqlo, Glue Store, and a Services Australia center.
At Box Hill South, Coles is expected to open its new store in the coming month, and we are bringing a number of dual-fronted restaurants, while at the same time remixing the tenant offer and upgrading the mall finishes. Concurrently, the development of a 4,000 square meter four-level podium for Hub Australia is on track to open this financial year. We believe Box Hill is a great location for co-working, being a key metropolitan hub with strong transport links. We continue to progress upgrades across our portfolio to ensure all our assets remain attractive and relevant to their catchments. More recently, we completed major tenant reconfigurations and/or ambience upgrades at Broadmeadows, Mornington Central, and shortly at Northgate. Onto slide 15. We have more projects forecast to start in FY 2023.
Outside of Chadstone, leasing activity has commenced for the Bankstown Exchange office towers, where we have received development approval. We are also nearing commencement of the lower ground redevelopment at Chatswood that will deliver a significantly enhanced fresh food precinct and dining offerings, including quick-service restaurants. This will prepare the asset for the larger retail and commercial development planned to commence in FY 2024, where an amended development application has been lodged and pre-leasing has materially progressed. At Galleria in Perth, we plan to substantially refurbish the existing center in addition to introducing an enhanced dining and leisure precinct. Pre-leasing is well advanced, and we expect to commence the project during this reporting period.
We continue to invest in smaller, more tactical projects across the portfolio that include aesthetic renovations, replacement of underperforming major retailers and the introduction of food and entertainment offers to meet market demands, such as Armadale and Northland. Finally, progress on our six major mixed-use destinations continues. Given we own the land parcels in market development, the pipeline is able to be flexed up and down in order to preserve risk and return parameters of our projects and pace the capital deployment, thereby ensuring that we can maintain our strong balance sheet, credit ratings, and disciplined approach to paying distributions. Thank you, and I'll hand the call over to Adrian to discuss our financial performance.
Thanks, Peter, and good morning. I'll start on slide 17. Vicinity delivered a strong financial result for FY 2022. Statutory profit for the year was AUD 1.2 billion, an uplift of approximately AUD 1.5 billion compared to FY 2021. FFO was up approximately AUD 39 million or 7.1% on the prior year, driven by an 8% uplift in net property income to AUD 803 million. NPI growth largely reflected the sustained strength of retail sales and improved negotiation outcomes with retailers. This led to lower waivers and provisions in FY 2022 and a strong rebound in cash collections, notably in the H2 of the year. Pleasingly, improved cash collection outcomes were achieved despite a high proportion of the portfolio being subject to lockdown in FY 2022.
Supportive retail trading conditions, as well as our rigorous focus on debt collection, also enabled a AUD 63 million reversal of prior year waivers and provisions, which increased AUD 11 million since the H 1. NPI also benefited from growth in base rent and a continued recovery in ancillary income. Outside of NPI, external management fees increased as we ramped up our development projects, and net corporate overheads and net interest expense increased, mainly due to one-off items in the prior year. Due to the higher volume of leasing activity and a catch-up on previously deferred maintenance CapEx, FY 2022 AFFO capital increased by AUD 28 million. The FY 2022 distribution per security of AUD 0.104 reflects an AFFO payout ratio of approximately 95%. Turning now to slide 18.
For the six months to 30 June 2022, the portfolio delivered a net valuation increase of AUD 233 million or 1.6%. Combined with the H 1 net valuation gain, the gain for the full year totaled AUD 554 million or 3.9%. Positive valuation outcomes for this half were recorded across all center types and states. While the weighted average cap rate tightened by 5 basis points to 5.3%. The majority of the valuation increase was attributable to income growth. Our subregional and neighborhood portfolios recorded the strongest growth, highlighting the continued resilience of non-discretionary based retail and investor appetite for these types of assets. Outlet assets again saw solid valuation gains, which was almost entirely driven by income growth.
The value of our CBD portfolio remained steady this period, which, considering the continued impact of the pandemic on CBDs more broadly, was a pleasing outcome. While CBD traffic remains below pre-COVID levels, leasing activity is robust and we are confident in the ongoing recovery of our premium CBD centers. Turning to slide 19 and our capital structure. FY 2022 was an active year from a capital management perspective.
We successfully issued a 6-year, AUD 300 million inaugural green bond. We extended AUD 475 million of bank debt out to FY 2028, and we optimized our liquidity through the cancellation of AUD 800 million of bank debt. Our capital management activity in the year further strengthened our balance sheet. Our weighted average maturity is 4.8 years. We have increased diversity of our funding, and we have no debt maturities until FY 2024.
Gearing of 25.1% is at the low end of our 25%-35% target range, and we have AUD 1.4 billion of available liquidity. Our consistently prudent approach to managing our capital structure underpins our approach to hedging. We are currently 85% hedged and have hedged 80% of our expected drawn debt for FY 2023, with a very modest step down in FY 2024. These relatively high hedging levels provide us with increased certainty in a volatile interest rate environment. Finally, we retained our strong investment-grade credit ratings of A and A2 with Standard & Poor's and Moody's respectively, both with a stable outlook. I'll now pass back to Grant.
Thank you, Adrian. Turning now to slide 21. Sustainability is fundamental to the successful execution of our strategy and the long-term performance of our business.
During FY22, we strengthened a number of our sustainability credentials, and our approach continues to be anchored by our objective of driving shared value for all stakeholders. Once again, Vicinity improved its ranking on the Dow Jones Sustainability Index from 7th to 5th. We were also ranked Oceania sector leader and number 3 globally in the listed retail shopping center category by Global Real Estate Sustainability Benchmark or GRESB. We published our second Modern Slavery Statement, as well as our second Innovate Reconciliation Action Plan. We were listed in the top 50 GivingLarge list, and we became a supporter of the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures. We continue to make good progress towards our net zero carbon target by 2030 and installed another 3 solar arrays in our industry-leading solar investment program.
Finally, as Adrian mentioned, we leveraged our strong sustainability credentials and investment in sustainability to date by completing our first green bond. Turning now to slide 22. In summary, FY22 was a year of recovery and progress at Vicinity. Our results highlight strong operational and financial execution in a recovering retail landscape where consumers continued to show confidence and capacity to spend and retailer confidence was overall robust.
Our results also demonstrate that Vicinity remains the partner of choice for retailers who are looking for opportunities to grow. As we look ahead, we will continue to invest in our portfolio of assets to drive mutual growth for both landlord and tenant. We have demonstrated our willingness to recycle capital from well-optimized assets into higher growth assets with the acquisition of Harbour Town and the subsequent sale of Runaway Bay, which collectively delivered earnings accretion in FY22.
Our development pipeline represents an exciting phase of growth for Vicinity, and we have a number of important retail and mixed-use projects commencing in the coming year. Our flexible balance sheet is a source of strength and competitive advantage. We take a prudent approach to financial stewardship, where capital allocation is anchored by the maintenance of our credit ratings and focus on paying distributions. As described earlier, while we are mindful of inflation and rising interest rates, we are still seeing elevated retail sales trends in our centers, and we cautiously anticipate a soft landing for the Australian retail sector.
Nevertheless, we will continue to provide highly targeted support to retail partners who continue to be impacted by the pandemic, notably SMEs and CBD retailers. At the same time, we'll actively partner with retailers looking to expand in our centers to drive mutual growth for both tenant and landlord.
Finally, to our earnings guidance FY23. Providing there is no material deterioration in existing economic and COVID-related conditions, our expectation is that FFO per security to FY23 will be in the range of AUD 0.130-AUD 0.136, with AFFO per security in the range of AUD 0.109-AUD 0.115, and distributions in the target range of 95%-100% of AFFO. Importantly, adjusting for waivers and provisions written back in FY22, our FFO per security guidance for FY23 represents between 10% and 15% growth. Against the backdrop of retail sector resilience, we enter FY23 with confidence in our continued recovery and strategic execution across our core retail operations, retail and mixed-use development projects, and our funds management business. Thank you. With that, we are happy to take any 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 speaker phone, please pick up the handset to ask your question. Your first question comes from James Druce with CLSA. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi, guys. Can you hear me?
Yeah, yeah, we can, Lou.
Okay.
Sorry, James. Over to you.
Okay. Yeah, just on the stabilized net property income number, where does that sit now?
Yeah, James, I might take that. I think the way to think about maybe a stabilized NPI is to think about the FY22 number and then adjust for probably the COVID impacts. There's the AUD 63 million I think that we've provided in terms of write back and then the AUD 94 million of waivers and provisions. I think on top of that, you probably wanna be thinking about ancillary income in the year. We're probably still about 15% down on ancillary income. If you take those things, you'll probably get to a kind of normalized NPI number.
Okay. Do you mind just reminding me where ancillary income, what was sort of the order of magnitude that is?
Yeah. It's about AUD 105 million on a stabilized basis. For FY22, we were at about AUD 88 million.
Okay, that makes sense. In your prepared remarks, it sounded like for the CBD retail assets, the day shopper had replaced the sort of drop in traffic from people coming to the CBD. Is that what's happened there?
James, hi, it's Peter. What we said in the commentary is that particularly on weekends, and Melbourne and to a lesser degree Sydney, is the day shoppers are coming back to essentially they're about the same numbers as pre-COVID levels. The situation with the CBD is midweek traffic is still substantially below 2019, but weekend traffic is heading towards more normalized numbers that we would expect.
Okay. Yeah, that makes sense. Just maybe in your guidance, we've seen leasing spreads the H2, I think, was sort of negative 3%. The outlook for that is for FY 2023. I know there's a bit of uncertainty around, but where do you see that trending? Can that continue to tighten or have we sort of maxed out that number?
James, it's hard to forecast. All we can say is that essentially it's been a positive momentum in terms of leasing spreads over the last three reporting periods. We're seeing good growth and leasing activity, good retailer demand, more positive leasing spreads than, obviously, in the pandemic period. Subject to where sales end up, we'd hope that would continue.
I think for guidance purposes, james what we're assuming in that guidance is a continuation of that positive trend, probably reflecting the leasing spreads that you're seeing H2 of the year.
Okay, that makes sense. Waivers for FY 2023, do we have a number for that?
Yeah. Look, I think we are still expecting to be providing targeted rent relief, particularly to our CBD SME retailers as required. I would be expecting probably a similar level in 2023 as we provided for H2 of 2022, which is around AUD 30 million.
Okay. That's it for me. Thank you.
Thanks, James.
Your next question comes from Lou Pirenc with Jarden. Please go ahead.
Yeah, thank you. Good morning. Can I just follow up on it? Did you say that the waivers and provisions were still AUD 30 million in the H2? Because I thought you were at AUD 96 million for the H 1, and you're at AUD 93 million for the full year. How do I reconcile that?
Yeah. Hey, Lou. That's right. I think a good way to think about that is AUD 96 million, which we said at the half year. We've provided, I guess, in terms of waivers and provisions, another AUD 30 million. The half year, we've probably written back about AUD 30 million, so that's offset that amount. That's probably given you a flat outcome on a full year basis.
Okay. Thank you. Also, I mean, with what's happening here in terms of you're quite positive on ancillary income clearly fixed rental growth, your releasing spreads are improving. What are the negatives here to only get to that 1.5% or so growth, FFO growth in the mid-range? Is it just cost of debt, or should we expect any big increases in overheads or drops in external management fees?
Yeah, Lou, it's Grant here. Look, there's a lot of moving pieces in guidance, probably even more than the three or four that you just mentioned. I think it reflects overall a balanced view of the potential ups and downs that could eventuate. You know, one of the keys that Adrian touched on is we're not assuming any write-backs for FY 2023, but we do have, of course a watching brief, I suppose you could call it, on the macro environment. There's a fairly complex guidance equation. Happy to go into that perhaps offline, but I think beyond our remarks today, it's probably appropriate to leave it at that for the moment.
Your next question comes from Stuart McLean with Macquarie. Please go ahead.
Good morning, and thanks for your time. First question is just on that rental relief you're expecting to move forward into FY 23 for CBD. Office foot traffic doesn't appear to be improving substantially. Is this just a new normal number you'd expect to come through and be hitting the P&L on a go-forward basis, or you genuinely think that we can move past this rent relief concept for CBD assets at some stage down the track?
Stuart, it's Peter. look we're strong believers in the mid to long term of CBD assets, so I don't think it's a new normal number that's going in. Clearly we're still in recovery with CBDs. International borders have only just recently opened. The SME code has only expired essentially in March with mediation really only expired in June. From our point of view, we've provided some targeted assistance, particularly for SME retailers in our CBDs that are quality retailers, to hold that tenant mix together as we start to build traffic. From our position, we expect more normalized traffic to occur in the CBDs around FY 2024, and that's why we're guiding for additional assistance there for FY 2023.
Okay. Thank you. Second question is just on developments. Can you just talk to the returns that you're expecting to achieve at the Chatswood development, and for the major development, just not the more minor portion that's going to kick off this year, as well as at Galleria, what's the spend and the targeted return?
Stuart, look, we haven't given specific guidance in terms of the returns of either developments. I might have a chat to you with reference to the development showcase that we did in June, which we gave some guidance on classifications for retail categories. Generally, on our retail projects, our stabilized yields are around about 6% with IRRs that are closer to 9%-10% for retail. That would cover essentially both of those developments that you just spoke about. Clearly the Chatswood development, what we're planning to commence this year is a smaller CapEx development in that it's in the range of about AUD 30-40 million, and has about those type of return hurdles to them.
That really prepares the center for the larger development, which we plan to commence in FY 2024.
Both of those will hit that 6% return expectation.
Broadly.
Okay. Thank you. Just on those as well, is there any downtime from developments that we need to be thinking about for FY 2023 earnings? How do we think about that into FY 2024 as well, if the major Chatswood development starts coming on, please?
Yeah. I might take that one. FY 2023 loss of rent is probably in the AUD 10-AUD 15 million level, which is still lower than probably our typical level of lost rents, just given the nature of the projects, Chatswood in particular, we're not expecting to lose a whole lot, with the entertainment and leisure precinct development currently on at the moment. FY 2024 will tick up a little bit, so I'd be expecting something probably in the AUD 20-AUD 25 mil mark in terms of loss of rent.
Just one follow-up there. The AUD 10 million-AUD 15 million you're expecting in 2023, what's in the base in FY 2022? Is there already a number kind of in the base of AUD 10 million-AUD 15 million, so there's limited delta?
Yeah. That's right. Very similar number for 2022.
Okay. Fantastic. Thank you. Just a final one from me, just maintenance CapEx and tenant incentives came in at the bottom end of your range, AUD 100 million-AUD 110 million. Looks like guidance assumes AUD 100 million again. Just talk to how you're thinking about that line item, on a go-forward basis, please.
Yeah. Look, I think, there's two components. Obviously, maintenance CapEx, I think there was a bit of catch-up capital that we assumed would come through. We've probably been a little bit more judicious, I think, around maintenance CapEx and really focused the expenditure, and that's why that's come down a little bit. And we're expecting that subject to cost increases, et cetera, but we expect that to be around the AUD 50 million mark, next year as well and probably on a normalized basis. In relation to incentives, I think what you're seeing in the result is a very strong retention rate. So that's also led to a slight reduction in our expectation early in the year. And we're expecting that level going forward as well, assuming that the continued strong operating conditions.
Great. Thank you for your time.
The next question comes from Grant Kelley with UBS. Please go ahead.
Good morning. Just a question on the leasing. I see holdovers seem to have ticked up to around 9%. Is that development impacted or any sort of further information you can provide on that?
Hey, Grant. It's Peter. Essentially on a 9% in the appendix there. That includes all deals, includes some office deals, includes deals that we haven't documented yet, but they've been agreed. Probably the real number to think about, which is the trended number we go through, is about 10% of leases in holdover. It's about 7.3% of rent. And if we trended that against prior results, it's broadly similar, if not slightly better than about the last three years. We can go through it in more detail, maybe offline, Grant, but that's holdovers. They're in reasonably good shape. About 33% of them are held over on behalf of the tenants.
In other words, holdovers that we wanna have vacant possession for in the short term for development activity.
Okay. Great. If we just look at the occupancy, so that occupancy includes temp leasing. You know, maybe can you just outline what is the percent is in temporary leasing at the moment, and have you been able to convert more on a permanent basis over the last six months in the improved trading conditions?
Yeah, Grant, just the way that we measure occupancy, we don't include temp leasing. Essentially it's all holdovers and it's all permanent leasing, but it doesn't include temp leasing.
Okay, great. Then just final one, just on luxury precincts, obviously you've had a very strong period. Is there any sort of? Are you able to call out, is there an abnormally high period, income from turnover sales this period that we should be considering?
It's not abnormal, but clearly luxury is a really important category for us and we're pretty proud to be a good partner of luxury retail. We're growing with them at Chatswood and Queens Plaza and the materially progressed luxury discussions around Chatswood Chase as well. For us, the luxury stores are getting larger in their stores. They're having a full range offer coming in. Their sales performance has been exceptional and there is percentage rent that's flowing through. There has been some percentage rents flowing through the numbers relative to luxury. Maybe we will deal with that number sort of offline, but there is some percentage rent flowing through from luxury into the numbers that were reported for FY 2022.
Excellent. Thank you.
Next question comes from Simon Chan with Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.
Hi, good morning, guys. Hey, Grant, in your opening remarks, you mentioned about David McNamara joining to bolster your funds management aspirations. Can you perhaps give us a bit of an update as to your aspirations there and how it's all tracking and what initiatives you may be working on?
Yeah. Simon, thanks. Look, we won't give specific comments regarding any specific opportunities, as we typically would not. I think David's made a very strong start. As you've mentioned, we've been very clear for probably about four years now on our appetite to rebuild that capability, and david's one of the very best people in that industry. That was, I think, an enormous benefit to us. To date, a lot of his energies have been focused on, in particular the roughly one-third of our AUM, which is spoken for by our joint venture partners, and he's done a wonderful job on that.
As I mentioned, there are other opportunities that we actively look at periodically, but we won't make any further comment on those at this point.
Okay, that's fine. On leasing spreads, negative 4.8%, just wondering if, Peter, you could give us some insight as to what's a range of numbers you were getting? Like, how are CBDs coming in and how were DFOs coming in, et cetera?
Yeah. Hi, Simon. I think part of the negative leasing spread. Part of the result of the leasing spread is pretty much influenced by the apparel category. Really strong apparel sales, particularly in the H 1 of this calendar year, and that's really driven a positive leasing spread for apparel across the portfolio. Considering the amount of weight that apparel has across all categories in the portfolio, that led to a better outcome. The DFO, as a category in itself, has positive leasing spreads. We're about 1.5% across the DFO portfolio. That's also driven positive leasing spreads. It's probably also driven, 'cause there's less capital goes into the DFO portfolio, probably a lower leasing capital incentive for the total year.
In terms of the CBDs, the CBDs isn't too bad. We're negative. We're around about 2.5%-3% negative on the CBDs for leasing spread. Primarily it reflects, and we mentioned this in the commentary, is a lot of retailers are looking to position themselves in the CBDs. We're writing longer-term leases, making sure we get those flagship tenancies in our CBD locations. Queens Plaza in particular has been a huge growth opportunity for luxury. The spreads have been better in CBDs than the average.
Okay, that's great. Thanks, guys.
Thanks, Simon.
The next question comes from Richard Jones with J.P. Morgan. Please go ahead.
Hi. Just wondering, Grant or Adrian, if you could just clarify just in terms of the assumptions the valuers are using in relation to stabilized income relative to your own expectations.
Yeah, I'm happy to take that one. Look, I would say for the majority of valuations now, particularly the non-CBD valuations, what valuers have in their assumptions going forward is a stabilized view. With the CBD assets, that's where there's probably a bit of allowance there still in the valuations of about AUD 30 million-AUD 40 million, which will roll off, I think, when those assets stabilize. I think their assumptions are similar to ours around a you know two-three year ramp up in CBDs, so 2024, 2025. But that's probably the only adjustment. Probably the minor piece which I mentioned earlier is around ancillary income, but that's spread across all the assets, and that's pretty minor in the scheme of things.
Okay. Thanks, Adrian. That's all from me.
Thanks, Richard.
Your next question comes from Sholto Maconochie with Jefferies.
Oh, hi, Grant. Just if you look at the results, it was a beat to your guidance. It looks like you released about AUD 11 million of provisions in the H2 to get that beat. Then just on the outlook, the guidance, if you look at it at the midpoint, is a bit soft, but it's sort of in line at the high point. What are the swing factors? You've talked to the sort of the rent relief, AUD 30 million for CBDs, the leasing spread improving. Is it. It seems like your cost to debt's pretty conservative at the BBSW 3.25 for the full years. What are the sort of swing factors that you include in guidance to sort of. If you could elaborate on, please?
Yeah, sure, Sholto. Look, just on the discussion regarding the writebacks I think we're fairly clear on the AUD 63 million that was written back, and obviously we called that out in the ASX press release.
Mm.
in particular the 10%-15% growth. hopefully that was relatively straightforward in terms of FY 2022. In terms of FY 2023, look, overall we've assumed really a continuation of retail sector resilience in a nutshell. What that translates to is, as Peter described, the buoyancy of leasing from the H2 continues. The cash collections are that strong low- to mid-90% continues.
The waivers and provisions, as Adrian talked about earlier, are approximately AUD 30 million, but that does not connote or anticipate rebate. That's actually I think an exercise in prudence. As we talked about continued recovery of ancillary income and fees. Look on WACD, it's a really good point. I think we have borne the upside and downside of being among the more hedged books, certainly in the AREIT and probably more broad in the ASX. You know, that is a very deliberate choice.
That 4% is in fact a number that is incredibly robust because it actually is 95% hedging ratio at the end of the financial year and 80% this coming financial year if we were to make no further interest rate swaps. That number is, we think, incredibly robust. I'd contrast that to an approach whereby you go unhedged. You have guidance around a WACD that's maybe a little more appealing perhaps in terms of the headline number, but actually is not as concrete as our 85% hedged number. Hopefully that clarifies. I don't know if there's any follow-up on any of those points, but happy to go into any of them.
No, that makes sense. Just sort of gets conservative on the BBSW there on your guidance. Then just on the sort of outlook, I think you're talking to strong H2, which you'd expect given the momentum you're carrying in from the H2 2022. If you look at the consumer, we haven't really seen a big impact from rising rates.
Right.
You know, negative effect straight from house prices. The H2 could be a bit softer from both the sales and leasing spread perspective because you're already seeing some retailers, I think Super Retail Group calling out today, expecting softer conditions in the H2 2023. Is that sort of baked into your guidance too? Why such a wide range?
Yeah. I mean, we forecast from a granular bottom up level category by category, as Peter talked about earlier. Look, what I've noticed that leaving aside our internal forecasting if you advert to the ABS numbers which came out last week, you had an interesting sort of sales volume number of that 1.4% seasonally adjusted. What was most interesting to me was the categories were almost exactly the same as what we described today, in terms of their increase. You know, cafes and restaurants, I think we're between 8%-9%, and clothing and apparel about 4%.
I think what you're probably seeing is a transition to the living with COVID economy, if you will, in which direct-to-consumer products are once again in vogue. There is significant consumption around the categories that we have highlighted in terms of our summary today.
You got the CBD assistance you're providing, which is good. I mean, if you look at office occupancy, it's the norm is probably three to four days a week, and we're five days at Jefferies here. It's sort of three to four days is sort of the new norm, and there's peaks and troughs and an extra weekend. If you look, one of your peers had op costs of a CBD asset of around 47% and productivity had halved and sales, and it was a transport-related asset. Does it mean longer term that the rents in particularly cafes and some of those service-based ones will have to come down on a longer-term basis?
There's only so much assistance you can keep kicking the can down the road to provide. Does that sort of worry you later that the CBD assets will have to be marked down in rents if traffic never recovers?
Maybe I'll ask Pete to answer that, just in terms of the specific tenancies, and then I might have a quick, couple of quick comments on the office sector and CBDs. Pete, do you wanna handle the question on the specific tenancies?
Sure.
Yeah.
Firstly, I'm glad Sholto, you're there five days a week.
Thanks.
It's clearly a watching point. I think what's occurring in the CBDs and how we've positioned the CBDs for the last couple of years is making sure that our assets are the premier assets in the CBDs. There is some vacancy in the CBDs. If you look at all the agency reports, a lot of the vacancies is in the street frontages. What we've been focused on is retailers are looking to consolidate. They might have multiple stores in the CBD. They wanna go back to flagship stores. From our point of view, there is a structural change occurring within the CBD Officeworks. That's our personal
That's Vicinity's view, and that we wanna be in a position that we have those targeted flagship retailers or first-to-market retailers that can't be found necessarily in the suburbs, and they're looking to consolidate in the CBDs, and we're looking to sign them on longer-term leases. What occurs in CBDs in three,four,five years, I think is still requires a bit of a crystal ball, to be honest, but that's our approach. It may not have answered your question 100%, but
No, it's another tough one.
Yeah. Yeah. Maybe just to that summary on the retail side. I mean, I think in terms of our mixed-use pipeline, Sholto, it's quite deliberate. You saw this at the development showcase that we've targeted essentially you know distributed, if you will, suburban locations for our office build out. The pre-commits have been fantastic as you saw with Officeworks at Chadstone and Hub at Box Hill. So yeah, we do have a single relatively small floor plate that we will be converting to offices as we described to you at Emporium in Melbourne in the coming 12-24 months.
That aside, the vast majority of our office build out is in distributed locations, which will take advantage of the work near home trend that we think is quite possibly a strong
A trend line that we need to flex into. The other quick comment I'd make is if we're wrong on this, the beauty of our business model is that we actually, as Peter pointed out, own the land. So we have the ability to actually flex out of something that may appear to be not attractive to the market at a given point despite the best planning. I think that's a massive upside for us versus others, is our mixed-use pipeline has an ability through essentially our capital structure and our ownership of the land and the air rights to respond dynamically to market changes.
Yep. Thanks so much for your time. That's it from me.
Great. Thanks, Sholto.
The next question comes from Ben Braysh with Barrenjoey. Please go ahead.
Oh, hi, Grant. I just have a question in relation to Chadstone. I was wondering if you could talk broadly, perhaps it's a question for Peter, just around visitation levels and high-level observations about how total sales compare with pre-pandemic. Finally, just around specialty occupancy costs, any high-level observations you could share around how close that asset is to being stabilized?
Hey, Ben. Yeah. Now, Chadstone has been really interesting. I mean, clearly significantly impacted by the pandemic over multiple different financial years now, including the one that's just passed with the Victorian lockdown. From a traffic point of view across the entire year, Chadstone basically was in the low 70s in terms of 2019 traffic, but you've got to take into consideration that it was materially impacted for 3 months as a result of that. Despite it being in the low 70s, it almost returned to 2019 MAT numbers, which was quite an extraordinary outcome. Some of that is obviously driven by the really strong performance of luxury sales at Chadstone by getting essentially we finished the year close to AUD 2.1 billion in sales, which is close to where it was in 2019.
From an occupancy cost number, we actually don't report it. We don't. We think it essentially confuses the market because occupancy of a full year over a three-quarter year sales is hard to trend or make sense. We actually don't move that into the marketplace from a reporting point of view. When we get to a position where we have a full normalized year of occupancy, again, we'll revert back to normal practices.
Okay. Thank you.
Thanks, Ben.
Your next question comes from Alex Prineas with Morningstar. Please go ahead.
Thank you. Good morning. Thanks for the presentation. Just wondering, it's very interesting to see those strong spend per visit numbers about sort of holding about 30% above 2019 levels. I think you've sort of touched on it a bit, but can you comment further on how consistent that higher spend per visit is across different store categories and retail types? Is it fairly evenly spread?
Yeah. The short answer is yes, Alex. It's remarkably evenly spread by format. We have seen spikes in CBD, as Pete touched on earlier. You know, the trend line here that's the really relevant point, I suppose, is purposeful shopping. You know, the key metric from our perspective clearly is as a landlord the sales volume that our tenants derive. If they get there through essentially a higher average spend, that's okay with us. You know, obviously while we hope footfall will recover to pre-COVID levels and surpass them as we grow, the reality is that from a sales perspective, our numbers have remained extraordinarily robust, actually driven by this very high spend per visit.
Okay. Thanks for that.
No worries. Thank you.
The next question comes from Louise Sandberg with Bank of America. Please go ahead.
Morning. Just wondering, you have elevated retail sales across the centers, but obviously weak output for consumer confidence. How much visibility do you have on leasing trends? I mean, I assume the leasing for the H 1 would be more or less complete by now.
No. Essentially we typically commence those discussions about six months out from lease expiry, and it's normally a reasonably good negotiation. What I can say is we did carry good momentum through into July in terms of leasing activities. We've closed out July. We won't release today's numbers, but they're broadly similar to what we ended up in FY 2022. Hence the reason in our guidance is basically saying broadly similar leasing spreads for FY 2023 as FY 2022 would be our guide to that at this point, subject to. Again, like everything, it's subject to sort of a midterm forecast in terms of sales environment.
Are you seeing any change in the structure of leases? You mentioned longer leases in the CBD, but anything else? We've heard people mention caps on sort of rents or occupancy costs and things like that in leases. Are you seeing any of that?
Yeah. Louise, look, to be honest, I mean, it was a significant discussion at the start of the pandemic in terms of the structure of the leases. We've been really resolute to hold our triple net lease.
I think it's been the right decision. There is minimal capped rent deals in our 7,000 leases. It's less than 150. When they come up for expiry, we convert them to essentially triple net leases. Particularly our lease structure is a flat percentage increase. We've got 94% of leases above 4% annual growth on a net lease. In a rising inflation environment, we recover 50% of actual costs as passed through in outgoings. I think our lease structure is fit for purpose for the current environment.
Just in terms of recycling assets, as you did this year, what's the market like in terms of potential buyers for more assets? Is there still interest or has that slowed down a lot?
Look, Louise, I think it's Grant Kelley here. I think as we touched on in the valuation summary the comparable transactions pool has definitely slowed. Ironically, I don't think we're seeing that candidly in terms of the opportunities that are being brought to us from intermediaries such as banks and brokers and the like. But I think the absence of transaction evidence for the value is probably an interesting data point. Look, I think overall we obviously always stand ready to deploy capital in the best risk-adjusted fashion. consequently we will react opportunistically should we see really compelling opportunities such as we saw on the Gold Coast with Harbour Town.
We're also incredibly discerning about our cost of capital and ensuring that all acquisitions are both strategic and quickly accretive. I hope that answers that question for you.
Thank you. I guess on the other hand, just in terms of capital management, your discount to book has narrowed, although your book's grown now.
Yeah. Look, obviously the gap to NTA has hovered between 5% to sort of 15%, perhaps, say, in the last little while. I think we never obviously comment on the gap to NTA. That's a market decision. We obviously are focused day in, day out on maximizing return. Obviously we do look at NTA in terms of actually reflecting what we think fair value is.
Okay. Thank you.
Great. Thank you.
Thank you. There are no further questions at this time. I'll now hand back to Mr. Kelley for closing remarks.
Great. Thank you, Rachel. Look, just to thank everybody for their participation on the call today. We trust it was informative, and we'll look forward to seeing many of you in the coming days and weeks. Thank you once again for your time this morning.