Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Joyce Kwock, and I'm the General Manager of Investor Relations at Hang Lung. Welcome to the analyst presentation for FY 2026 interim results announcement that were made earlier today for both Hang Lung Properties, 101.HK, and Hang Lung Group, 10.HK. We welcome the audience who are at our Hong Kong headquarter and also the audience who are on our live webcast now. Please scan the QR code for our presentation pack. There are version of English and simplified Chinese here for you to choose from. Today, our senior management team is all here to join the presentation. They include Mr. Adriel Chan, our Chair, Mr. Weber Lo, our Chief Executive Officer, and Mr. Kenneth Chiu, our Chief Financial Officer.
Our Chair, Adriel, may start with some remarks, and our CEO, Weber, CFO Kenneth, will also walk through the results, including development projects and our financial management. After that, we can take the question from the audience. Adriel, please. Thank you.
Thanks, Joyce. I think you've all seen the numbers by now. I hope you'll agree that it's a healthy set of first half figures. Consumption in China is continuing to hold. I think first quarter, if you break it down, was better than second quarter, but second quarter was still, all things considered, not bad. First quarter was strong enough to really lift the whole first half for us. If you talk to some of the partners, I'm sure you've seen the LVMH numbers, the Kering numbers. Everybody, a little bit of a mixed bag. There's a little bit of pressure in Q2. I think overall, the trajectory for the whole year is still relatively positive, and I think we would probably concur with that. That being said, sentiment is still somewhat low.
If you look at the National Bureau of Statistics of China sentiment score, it's still quite low. At the same time, this is not the first half nor the first year where we've seen our sales sort of working against sentiment, to the upside, of course. Sentiment, as you know, has been bad for quite a few years, but our numbers have sort of outperformed that for some time. I think the trend in that respect is also holding. Hong Kong has been okay. I think we've definitely found the bottom, probably found it a while back, but we're now starting to see the bottom in both office and resi as well.
I think retail continues to be a little bit challenging, if you dig into our numbers a little bit more, which Weber and Kenneth will do, you will see that actually, despite having a headline negative figure, we are actually like-for-like positive, which I think is also healthy even though it is low single-digit. We have a lot to talk about. Very interested to hear your questions, what you are focusing on. Maybe I will pass it on to Weber first to give you a brief overview.
It will be my last time, bear with me. This will be very enjoyable as well because I wear the same tie as my first interim result. Eight years, no change. At least I did not find anything on the tie. Just maybe I quickly go through the numbers, we will discuss more. Of course, I think a lot of us doesn't want to look at the optics that we have a negative ten, which because we make a provision, the loan cash provision for the DP, actually specifically in Wuhan, which we will talk about it. Without the underlying net profit provision, that impact our HLP underlying net profit was down by 2% and our group was up by 1%. Of course, I will explain later.
If you look at our core business, leasing, revenue up by 5%, operating profit up by 4%. Underlying profit is flat mainly because the capitalized interest is less. The interest cost was up. The core interest expenses is down, but it is because of the capitalization. That is really our core business, account for over 100%. Hotel we lose less, performing, + 14%, + 15%, +7% in underlying profit. The only optics creation is coming from the sales because I think we made HKD 1 billion revenue in both Hong Kong and Mainland. There is some money-losing sales happen mostly in the second half of 2025 when the market was still unclear at that time, that is why we make some transaction with a loss.
Actually it is not loss, because we do the amalgamation at that time in Amoy, that actually value up the price. The actual margin is at 26%, 27%, because of the valuation up, that will be a loss, a little bit from The Aperture. I think the most important thing is we make CNY 124 million provision in Wuhan service apartment that actually skewed the number from negative maybe 50 something to 187. That actually make the loss in the underlying. I explain a little bit more later on this one. In terms of the revenue mix, most of the time we do not have DP. Therefore, overall, maybe 95%, 96% our leasing business. This time with DP over CNY 1 billion, the Mainland rental revenue account for 56%, and Hong Kong rental revenue account for 24%. Add together, 80%.
Hotel account for 3%. Property sales account for 17%. Rental revenue in Mainland, after -4% in 2024, flat in 2025. 2026, it is up by 3%. In the 3%, you can see a divergence of story. Retail, very positive, 6% up. Office, down by 12%. The supply issues, the competition issue continues. Service apartment, because it is very small numbers in Wuhan, and that actually make huge numbers, but at the end of the day, it is only RMB 4 million. Altogether, it is 3% in Mainland in terms of RMB. Sales. If you look at the trend also, 2024, -3%, 2025, +1%. This first half, +6%. If you look at the +6%, almost across the board, except the younger brothers at the bottom. Heartland 66, we will talk about it. Forum, we will talk about it.
The good news I would like to also highlight to you that even though it is a -18%, you compare the second half of 2025, it is only -3%. That means we are almost at the bottom now. Hopefully, we can turn back into positive soon. Forum also is a negative single- digit. I think overall, if you look at the sales across the board, basically we benefit across from all the trades. Not only to mention luxury, but also the non-luxury and also the F&B are doing really well. Okay, this number, I think, really interesting. When we announced our last year full- year result in end of January, we see a strong January. We also said if the January is not that bad, February will be even better because the year-on-year difference in terms of Chinese New Year.
The first quarter was 24% up. Very strong. The second quarter come down, but still, +9%. I think it is more or less normalized. It is still doing well, but not as good as the 24% in first quarter. Across the board also, you see, look at the shopping mall. Shanghai, very strong. Center , Olympia, Spring City , Parc, Palace, they are very strong. Again, the two, three brothers at the bottom. Westlake is new, so that is why there is no comparison. Worth to mention, out of the 10 operating malls, excluding Westlake , because Westlake is a new mall, seven of them record high sales. Seven out of 10. Right? I think this is really not only one trade or two doing well.
It is across the board that we managed to get the traffic up, we managed to get the occupancy up, we also managed to get across the board sales increase in seven out of 10 record sales in Mainland. This is not new, but I think very positive. We got more valid customer. Valid commerce customer means they were active in the last three months, up by 25%. New members up by 41%. Member sales up by 18% compared to the 17% sales up, which is very important because their penetration is 71% to our overall mall. That means the member sales still carrying and also driving the sales for our shopping mall. The penetration basically keep more or less the same level. That means we engage the customer, at least 70% of our customers in our shopping center. As I mentioned, record high foot traffic.
We just plot the chart without Westlake 66. You see that we are now higher than 2024, higher than 2025 in terms of traffic. Look at also the mall occupancy. Most of them are above 90%, except Westlake 66 because new, only two months old, and also Forum because 88%. Otherwise, every mall are at 90% or above. Worth to mention the net LFA change. We have some decrease in luxury. It's because there are some close in Heartland and Forum. Lifestyle, maybe you ask me what lifestyle means. Like the gadgets, like Huawei, like Xiaomi, like DJI, and some of those. Or Miniso or Pop Mart or Muji, some of those actually increase a lot, which help us to differentiate and provide or offer experiential experience to the customers. F&B increased by four, and jewelry and watches increased by 8%.
The number of first in town, I think this is something we are very proud of. First half already doing more than the last year, six months. Two year, six months. We achieve 103 already. We will be able to achieve over 200 in 2026. Opening of Westlake 66, we will welcome you to join us in October, right? In our roadshow. This is something we would like to present to you all, but I think it's important to look at, we achieved very high traffic in this new mall. In the May Golden Week, on average, 120,000 daily footfall in the mall. Which our mall is not the biggest in our portfolio, but we can be able to attract over 120,000. Now, even stabilized, they are at 40,000, 50,000 level.
The good news is, if you look at the occupancy rate as of end of June is 89%, but the commitment rate is already 98%. Some of the stores they took over, but they take a longer time to renovate and/or do the fit-out, so the 98% already there. Number of stores, 250. First to the market is 100 of them. In terms of office, we lease the B and E first. The B and E occupancy rate already 47%. We just hand over the C and D, and if you look at the total number excluding the A, we are already 45% commitment in B, C, D, E. If you look at even together with the Tower A and E, we are already at 22%.
I just look at the numbers compared to our Heartland office, our Spring City office, they are more or less the same pace, even in an even tougher environment today. We believe that by the time of end of 2027, we will be able to achieve 70% of occupancy in the office in the Westlake. This one I think is important. We talk about pavilion. This is only one of the puzzle. What we are trying to do is upgrade Plaza 66 again. This year is our 25th anniversary. If you recall, seven or eight years ago, we do the renovation, and now we will do it, redefine luxury once again.
We will add a pavilion in the second half, which add another 4,300 sq m and 1,725 sq m are pavilion outdoor area, and the rooftop garden that we will add different trays and make it very vibrant. We will launch a brand new VIC lounge on the fifth floor, and also to elevate the customer experience, as well as we are now adding a lot more F&B in Plaza 66 in order to really provide not only a luxury for a thing, but a luxury for an experience. This is really something we want to keep the customer longer, to keep the customer with a, I would say, more stickiness, and therefore they will be spending more time with our shopping center. Key opening in the next 18 months for our hotel.
Our Curio Collection by Hilton in Wuxi will be open, I think, in the next 45 days. We just got the license. They have to gone through some of the final touch, hopefully we will be able to launch in early September. Mandarin Oriental, our target is still in Q1 2027. The fit-out will be complete by Q4, then we will get the OP by Q4, hopefully everything will be ready to launch in Q1. Kimpton Xujiahui, the renovation continues, is on track, hopefully we will continue to be targeting this second half of 2027. We three, not much update except the Nanjing Xi Lu, the internal fit-out and the upgrade already happening. If you pass by Nanjing Xi Lu today, the whole thing is already on and internal construction is already doing.
I think this one is 100% responsible by the landlord, we don't need to do anything. They are really making ready for us. We are doing the design. We are actually just formed the JV company with the partner already. Center 66, we are doing the design and also form the JV company. The Westlake 66 expansion, we are doing the design because this will be 100% with us, there is no JV partner company to form. Office. This is really a tough challenge. If you see, from a +5% in 2023 and suddenly turn into very chill weather and now into a very cold weather, -12% in first half of 2026. You see across, I will not mention particular cities, but in Shanghai, the competition is very, very keen, right?
The reason why I say we are the existing buildings having all the top clients. Everyone tried to steal your tenant, and offered them half of the price with the fit-out. It's a news now, is in public domain. LV will go to CR Land building. We keep all the other LVMH brands staying with us. The LV brand will go there because they subsidize everything. They give them a rooftop, they give them a garden. Then they pay only 40% of the price. I think this is the market today. That's why the good news is our occupancies is Almost everyone over 80%. We are doing our best to retain the best tenant. The good news is we lose LV, but we get Tiffany. We lose some, but we got Patek Philippe.
We are trying our best to retain the best tenant in our mix. The market is very tough. Like in Wuxi, you cannot believe someone offer HKD 1. We are charging HKD 2.8. Someone offer HKD 1, we fit out. I think the market is brutal, but I think the team are trying very hard, to retain the best tenant, but at the same time offering the best service to them.
If I can just cut in very quickly on that. If you look at our occupancy for the offices, I think it's actually still very decent. We've been forced to reduce prices, because the market is the market. The fact that we're able to keep our occupancy at a high level means that we still are competitive in the market and we're doing everything that we can. I think that is something that's worth mentioning.
Hong Kong, from a - 9% 2024, - 2% last year, now to flat. I don't want to repeat, but seems like we find the bottom of offices, we show 1% up. Residential is going strong. Retail - 2% is because of a huge brand leaving in Causeway Bay and now we are swapping in. We are doing landlord provision now. It takes a few months. That's why it's a void for three, four months. Hopefully with the new tenant coming in, we already identify, we already confirm when they come in, the negative will become positive. I just want to exclude if we exclude that particular whole, our rest of the business is + 1%. That means the others are okay except that one, but that one hopefully will be done in Q4.
Our sales is up by 3%. That's why we do not have luxury in Hong Kong. We are more or less a label with more. The good news is, Amoy is doing well. Kornhill is doing well. Amoy will do better hopefully because we just complete a bridge to link with the Kowloon CC. That will help people to walk, without the rain and with the cover, from the MTR station, go back straight to Amoy. That will help us to improve traffic, that will help us to improve the leasing progress as well. Hopefully that will have positive rent reversion to us. Same thing in Kornhill. We make a decision to swap out the cinema and change into a kids area called Adventures. Very good. The business doing well. We have sales rents and then we turn into experiential.
I think some of those we just need to act fast and then try to meet the customer need, especially now finally we heard from some verbatim, Oh, now I don't need to go to Shenzhen. You have something similar. I can stay in Kowloon, Hong Kong East to enjoy some of the kids' activities, especially in the summer. Property sales, maybe I pass to Kenneth to have a few words on that.
Thank you, Weber. I think this first half was a very fruitful six months for our property sales. If you look at this chart upper part actually, it represent the sales revenue that we have booked. We have handover quite a lot of unit at The Aperture as well, one house at Blue Pool Road. I think substantially this HKD 1 billion revenue book come from our Hong Kong property sales. If you look at the lower part, it summarize the contract sales that we have achieved in the first six months. Total contract sales, if we include the sales of The Summit, which is a investment property, the total sales proceeds account for HKD 1.5 billion. If you look at our whole year contract sale last year, it was around HKD 1.6 billion. This six months, I would say it was a very fruitful period.
I think we took the advantage of this time window when the market is good. We speed up the property sales. For information, only in July we have further sales in The Summit, three units, which are not included in the first half result. Those sales will be recorded. One will be recorded in second half, and the other two will be recorded in the earlier next year. I think.
I thought
Sorry. Yeah. For financial management, I think the key highlight is that our debt portfolio right now, as you can see, around half of our debt are RMB denominated and the average debt maturity is around three years. We have sufficient available facilities and use around RMB 18 billion. If you look at the bottom right-hand corner, you can see that for those debt mature more than two years account for 69%, which has lengthened compared to the previous period. I think I show this page as well. For the net gearing
You can see that it came down from 33% in first half last year, to 31.6% by end of June this year. Our average borrowing cost further came down to 3.7%. We benefit from a relatively low HIBOR in the first half this year. Also, my treasury team managed to get better refinancing terms in the past six months. Overall, we have achieved savings. I think as you may know, we have already completed a lot of projects. The biggest one is Westlake 66, and we have already opened it on 28th of April. Because of this, the capitalization ratio of our finance costs came down from around 50% last year to this first half, 40%. Going forward, we believe this capitalization ratio will continue to go down. We expect overall for 2026, the capitalization ratio will be around 30%. Okay, next page.
Okay, I pass it to Weber to share with you guys. Yeah.
I think just wrap up a lot of things going on for ESG. We published the Bending the Curve report to really set the Sorry. Forgot. I have two things. To really set the tone and also set our goal for 2030. Renewable energy, very proud to present 10 out of 11 of our mainland projects are powered by renewable energy. The last one will be Tianjin, and then we are working very hard to get this 100% renewable energy breakthrough. The public engagement as well as the community engagement continues, ESG benchmark rating and everything improved over the year, and that helps our finance cost, that helps our other achievements. I think overall, I think we have a very fruitful year for the sustainability as well. I will stop it here and then maybe go for Q&A.
I think there is a slide that somehow was skipped, which is this slide that we have new development on Shouson Hill.
Oh, okay. Maybe we just quickly talk about Shouson Hill. We finally get the green light from the government, we will get more area by paying a little bit more, 50% more area, we can build more houses. Instead from the five, we can get more houses. We can really do a much better product for our customers. All right?
Okay, cool. Thank you very much, Adriel, Weber, Kenneth, for the presentation. We now start the Q&A. Please feel free to raise your questions by raising your hand here or typing the questions in the box on the webcast page. From the floor, I see Karl from JPMorgan, please.
Thank you. First of all, I just want to take this opportunity to thank Weber for the past eight years. Happy retirement, we will stay in touch. Okay, I guess my first question is about the CEO, right? Today we saw the announcement, we saw there's no name from the announcement. Just curious, can you give us a sneak peek on how the new CEO is like? For example, what make him a tick? What make you feel very impressed by this new CEO? Maybe a bit of a background on the new CEO. Maybe that's the first question. The second question is on mainland China retail. For the first half, I think we saw pretty outstanding results.
For these, starting in around May or June, I think there have been more commentaries about how tenant sales or retail sales in China further slow down. Just curious, can you give us a breakdown on the tenant sales trend by month, roughly? Say, for June and July so far, how is it compared to April and May? For the second half of this year, what's your expectations for tenant sales in Mainland China? That would be my second question. Thank you.
Thanks. I think more details on the new CEO will come in due course. You won't have to wait too long, don't worry. It's probably a week or two, a couple of weeks. We just want to be as transparent as possible. Weber's retirement was announced quite some time ago, and I think that the least we could do is explain that we have actually found somebody with a name to be announced. On the second question, which I think is much more interesting. The retail, I alluded to this earlier in my opening comments. I think that second half is shaping up decently. We're all relatively optimistic, cautiously optimistic. As you've seen, there's a little bit of a divergence in some of what the brands are reporting and some of what we have just reported. That's for many reasons.
Partly we've been increasing our exposure to luxury. Also, as the luxury brands close stores, it's not closing per se, it's consolidating. Their GFA might be increased, but the number of stores may have decreased, which means that the existing stores have either gotten bigger, which it has in some cases for us. That also means that sales are consolidating into those fewer number of stores. We've been a bit of a beneficiary from that, although it cuts both ways. In some cases, we've been on the opposite side, but net-net, it's balanced out in the positive for us. I think the brands are still conservative. There is concern over sentiment, but there's been concern over sentiment for the past several years. At some point, I think that will go one way or the other.
For the time being, sales are still strong, and so we feel quite comfortable with the direction that that's moving in. If you look at Westlake in Hangzhou as a proxy, it's been quite some time since a new project has opened with so much fanfare. Foot traffic of over 120,000 a day is really quite extreme, especially since it's not such a big project, and that really shows the vibrancy and the hunger for Chinese consumers for compelling spaces, for good malls, for good offerings, and that's what we've provided. I actually feel quite comfortable with the direction that retail sales in China are moving in, even though sentiment and what you hear on the street may not sound as positive.
To answer strictly your question about bimonthly, maybe I would not do it bimonthly, but bi-quarterly. Q1, if you really zoom in, everyone benefit, doing really well. The gold rush make a difference, which I am sure you all know. Second quarter, without the gold rush. Also, the luxury brands somehow weakening a little bit, but we still achieve 9%. That means the F&B, the non-luxury are doing really well. In the future, I would suggest, yes, we are one of the proxy for luxury. Doesn't mean that we are only doing luxury. You should also take into account of ANTA, how they are doing, Pop Mart, how they are doing, because we are a lot of friends with them as well.
Overall, if I look at the numbers in first half, luxury including the top gold one are growing at 15%, but the general are growing at 20%. We are a lot more diversified compared to the past. Because of the higher traffic, because of higher occupancy, our F&B grew 16%. 16% compared to the 17% means they are more or less the same. Our non-luxury F&A, the fashion and accessories, are up by 25%. Those have leisure, or those other brands are doing pretty well. The non-luxury jewelry and watches are up by 30% something. That means first half across the board is doing well. Second quarter, non-luxury continues to do well, but the gold rush and luxury is a little bit slow down. That doesn't mean that the whole engine has gone.
F&B, the people still need to come out to eat. They still need to come out to hang out. That is why I would say we are still believing in the second half. It will be high single- digit up in terms of sales. This is really our expectation based on what we see. The good thing is the luxury brand seems like the tone and is a little bit more positive now. They are still very cautious. That is why I will not say suddenly they will change their strategy by opening a lot more store. I think in our shopping center, in our retail business, we need all trades to do well. If we can do that, hopefully that diversify the concentration risk.
Cindy from Citi. Thank you.
Thank you. I have two questions. The first is on dividends. It's great to see a resumption for cash dividend. I think it might be still early, but what matrix will guide the potential dividend uplift in the future? Do we need to actually wait for the Hangzhou Mall phase II to open, or is there any other operational trigger that you might be able to flag? Second is more specifically on Westlake 66. You mentioned foot traffic is amazing, but how about tenant sales performance? How is it tracking, say, against your internal target? What's some key improvements that might be planned in the, say, coming 12 months to further lift the mall's competitiveness ahead of the phase II opening?
Are you planning to bring in more luxury concepts in the mall, or how do you see the mall's overall tenant mixing in the mid-future? Thank you.
The first question, we do not have a policy to say by hitting whatever percentage, because we are paying at a very high payout now. What we believe that when all the headwind behind us, for example, the capitalized interest, which we know before we open Hangzhou. Some of the provision that we made, if some of those are behind us, is purely organic by looking at some of our business organically growing. We believe that this will not be too far away. We need to let Hangzhou to grow. Based on what we see, the mall should be itself break even in Q4. Office will be a little bit longer, by the end of 2027 because of the high RET. Otherwise, they track according to what we set for ourselves. In terms of sales, it was a surprise. It exceeded all our budget.
I asked the team why we exceeded all our budget, because maybe we set the budget too low. We still believe that more is to come because we will have luxury brands coming in in Q4. We will have three, four luxury brands coming in. Hopefully, we'll welcome more and more. With phase II coming in, we can accommodate everyone because that will be increasing our GFA to 150,000, which is exactly like Grand Gateway size. Hopefully then we could be able to attract everyone, not missing out anyone. I think it's a journey. Of course, it's not as quick as other malls, but I just want to remind also internally, I remind everyone that we opened Heartland the best way, with all the brands coming in on day one. Today, of course, I don't want to repeat.
Opening well in the first 12 months doesn't mean that you will end up well. We just need to get the best out of whatever you have today. The market today is that you get the traffic, you get the people used to coming to your mall, you upgrade yourself gradually. Maybe that will be a more sustainable way than competing with all your competition with the pricing. When you get and steal the tenant from the opposite side, the only thing they will do is to cut the price. You have to cut the price too, and then it will not be a benefit to anyone. I think maybe this is the better way. I don't know. Time will tell. We look at Westl ake. It did not disappoint us from the matrix-wise.
Of course, we would like to open some of the brands earlier. Therefore, we can really set the stage and really firm up our positioning. I think that takes a bit of one year or two. Hopefully, we can do that and show it to the market.
Thank you.
Thank you. This is Vera from UBS. I have two questions. First is to just follow up on your previous question. You mentioned that for the second half, you expect high single digits for the sales up. Does that exclude Hangzhou or include Hangzhou Westlake 66?
Exclude or include doesn't make a difference. Maybe 1%, 2% difference.
Oh, okay.
It's still higher than 5%, lower than 10%. If you want to be having a single- digit-wise, maybe 1%, 2% is because of Westlake.
Oh, okay. Thank you. Also for the Westlake 66. We already recorded the rental income of RMB 37 million . If we annualize that, it's only around RMB 200 million or something. Can't do the math in that way. What is the normalized rentals that you expect to achieve for Westlake?
No, I think there is not. You can do the math this way to get the rough numbers, but when your trading and your opening rates going up, that will have a multiplier effect. Some brands will sell more, and therefore, they can afford to pay more rent. Every lease will be renewed in three years, so it will give us opportunities to rise up. I don't do a, in the bank, I always do it this way. If I divide it by two weeks times 52 weeks, then I can know what is the number. Unfortunately, our business is not that way. It will take a bit of the pacing up, but hopefully, this will be definitely more than RMB 200 million that you discussed in the long run.
Thank you. The second question is on our rental margin. We noticed that the rental margin has declined a bit for both our China and Hong Kong side. Can you elaborate more on this?
Hong Kong is 1% down, right?
Yeah.
Mainland is two factors. One is the office. Nothing you can do about it because when the revenue down, it goes straight into the bottom line because I can't cut the escalator and cut the aircon, right? That one, you should understand that. Mostly it's because of the opening effect of Westlake 66. When you launch a new mall, you need to put marketing money in. That will have a lead to loss. What I said to you is that hopefully by Q4 we will break even the mall, and by then you can see a sustainable way. I don't worry about that 1%, 2% margin down because you are opening some new mall. This is not BAU. With the office, that is a huge pressure, and if you're dropping 12% of revenue, that goes straight into the bottom line.
That actually has a huge effect to our margin for the Mainland business.
I'll give a chance to the questions raised through the webcast. A few questions related to dividend. For capitalized interest, isn't it a non-cash issue? Does that have to come into the consideration for future dividend hikes? Also, for the dividend payout, it looks high relative to property leasing. Do we have a risk of another dividend cut?
I think I'll answer the first question first because it's more technical. If you look at our capitalized interest, my answer is yes or no. When I think the board discusses the dividend payout, I think as mentioned by Weber, we don't keep a fixed ratio, right? We hope that we can adopt progressive dividend policies. If you do your own math, if you look at our leasing profit, including the hotel part, less the interest capitalized, basically our payout is 102%. Okay. Last year was the same. That means if we assume all the interest expense go to P&L, I have already paid out all the profit. The question is, going forward, when we have further growth, particularly for those younger projects, if we have more profit, what will be the payout?
I think it is subject to the board to further discuss, I think in the meantime, we have already tried our best to pay as much as we can. Of course, we also look at the underlying profit, particularly the recurring part. I hope that I answered your questions about the capitalized interest. About the dividend policy, maybe I'll let Adriel to-
Yeah.
Just make some comments.
A quick one. I cannot always speak for the whole board. Each time we announce our dividend, we have a very robust discussion as we did this morning. I will say that, the risk of a dividend cut in the near future is probably as likely as the risk of a dividend increase. We would not like another dividend cut if it can be avoided. I speak both for management and the main shareholder.
Just one point to supplement. I think we had five scrip dividend arrangement before. From time to time, analysts, investors keep asking us, Can you commit not to have another round? Again, it's not subject to management decision, it's subject to board decisions. I think right now, the board decided to not to arrange a scrip dividend for the dividend payment. I think this is a good signal that I think we are confident that we can maintain the current level of dividend, okay, unless there's some other things out of our expectation. This is something I would like to highlight.
The reason why we are accelerating the IDP sales, also part of that. Unfortunately, last year we made some loss. Think about it, if we can continue this momentum by selling more DP, that will go into the bottom line again. That will allow us to get a little bit headroom or get a little bit buffer for the payout. I think overall, on one hand, yes, we are almost at 100%, but doesn't mean that we cannot continue because a lot of other competitor, we always look at the numbers. I don't name them. A lot of them already overpay 100%. A lot of them only at 60%, a lot of them at 45%. Therefore, the time for them to progressively increase is always high. The key is whatever it is, it is.
We cut one third, two and a half years ago. We do scrip dividend for 5x , now we stop. Hopefully, that will also send you a signal that at least how confident, not only three of us, but the board about the future.
Simon from Goldman. Thank you.
Sorry, I have two questions. Just back to Westl ake. I think there's a lot of comments basically saying that your mall positioning is geared toward a bit more lifestyle and maybe not so much luxurious. Wondering whether you have any thought about maybe two, three years down the road, the positioning of the mall, then, recently, what sort of competition are you seeing from the adjacent mall, if any? That's the first one. Then the second one is back to the provisions. Would you be able to give us some more maybe comment about the provisions, whether there are going to be more to come? I think on your book there's a sellable resources number, which obviously is one thing that you can pay for dividend. If you can, maybe can you break it down into Hong Kong and China so we get a sense?
Thank you.
First, we will have four brands, which I think I can talk about because they are holding already. Moncler, D&G, and Brunello Cucinelli, and some more will open actually in September. Of course, some big names, we are working on it. Some will start with us with the pop-up. Some will still sitting on the fence and wait about the whole market, how it turns. Of course, our belief and also our objective is to do with luxury because we build the mall with that DNA. It happened the market doesn't allow us to get them on day one, doesn't mean that we don't continue. This is exactly like what we have launched, Wuxi. We did not have luxury to start with, and then now we own the market. It's exactly like Dalian. When we launched it, we did not have any luxury, and then now we have luxury.
Exactly like Grand Gateway. When we launched it, we did not have luxury, now we have luxury. I think this is really our belief and also our goal, right? Whether we see the competition, exactly because we are not doing exactly the same as them, they are not targeting us. This is exactly what I just said. When we launched Wuhan by saying that I need to eat your lunch, then of course we attract competition. Today, we are doing on our own. We are creating something they cannot offer. How they can compete? I think this is something we are working on. We will have a hotel. They have a hotel, but our hotel is a lot better. We will have relics. We will have historical building. They don't have any. We will have a very good VIC lounge.
We will have a lot of other experiential stuff they do not have. I think overall it's not exactly like discount come and kill you, that kind of competition. I think on the maybe SA part, I pass it on to Kenneth to talk about.
For the provisions, actually, it only comes from SA3 at Wuhan. In Hong Kong, as you may know, the Hong Kong residential market is in recovery. All the remaining inventory, actually based on the recent sales figure, are well above the book cost. I don't see any indications for impairment. Okay. For those who came from audit background, understand every balance sheet day, we need to do NRV assessment on all the inventory. For Wuhan, because in view of the slow-moving situations, we take a prudent approach to look at the projected cash flow of the projects and then see, based on the price list, what would be the NRV of the asset. I just give you one more data point, which is easier for you. Part of this building has been leased out through Frasers, and we have very, very good tenants, diplomats, senior management of MNC.
Previously, when we transferred those inventory into investment property, the unit price was around RMB 23,000 per square meter. Right now, when we mark down the inventory part, that means the property for sales part is a similar level. This is coincidentally, the unit price is similar. I think for the other two assets in Kunming and in Wuxi, the selling price are also well above the book value. I don't see any high risk for impairment. One final point on Wuhan. We are marking down because of this NRV assessment exercise. It doesn't mean we are cutting the price. In fact, our products are still very, very unique and on the high end in the market. This is only an accounting treatment for prudent sake.
I think the reason why we explain in that detail is part of it is not about whether if you want to cut the price, you can sell faster. In China today, unlike Hong Kong, when you drop the price by 5%, you can sell much faster in Hong Kong. Unfortunately in mainland, if you drop the price, you will attract all the problem. The existing one will call you and say, Why you don't cut the price for me? The new one, you might not be able to sell all. It's not about the price. Because we take a very prudent approach, if let's say if we need to take a few more years to sell and then go back to the present value, what would be the price that we should book today? I think that is the approach we have done.
The good news is the price that we adjust now is exactly like the leasing price from the income approach. That means in the future, what if the worst come to worst? I can lease them out. I don't need to do any adjustment anymore, right? Therefore, I can attack and defense any time when the market change. If I need to do more leasing in the future, I need to do provision, right? Now I don't need to do any more because they are more or less the same price. SA1 and SA2 is different. I want to be very clear because it's only bare shell. We have a cost of the bare shell.
If we can be able to manage by fitting out of them and having the same price as today marked down price, then we don't need to do provision also. Right? This is really the way how we look at the numbers. We are not playing a game here. We want to be as prudent as possible. I understand your point. I don't want to be cut for five more times. If you cut one time, hopefully that is our way. That is what we are trying to do. Of course, market is market. We can't dictate that. We are trying our best to project the market and also understand our balance sheet and try to do whatever we can to protect and well represent our financial to the investor.
Wait, are you talking about provision or dividends?
Provision.
Provision.
I know. I'm just joking. It's exactly the same story with the dividends.
We take the last questions before we finish the briefing. Okay. If there's no one from the floor, I'll take the last one from the webcast. What's your perspective on Hong Kong retail in terms of liquidity, yield, and the value and outlook? Is it simply going through one of the cycles or beyond that? Is it also through the structural change due to the leakage to online sales, northbound consumption, and consumption downgrade, et cetera?
I cannot say too much about overall Hong Kong, but I'm very positive about our portfolio. Retail, we see even today with a very long void period of our Causeway Bay, we are still registered 3% growth. Once we get occupied with our portfolio and also our work on reshuffling the trade mix, I have a high hope that we will be able to do better sales in our CBD area. Our neighborhood mall are very stable and very proactive, so we are doing a lot more than some other competitors by changing the mix, by making sure that they are relevant, and hopefully we can retain as many people as much as what we can in order not to go to north and stay in Hong Kong. I think going to north is already be around for quite a while.
I cannot say that the people will not go to north anymore. They will continue to go if they need to go. I think it's not new anymore. I just hope that we can improve our attraction in Hong Kong by retaining more sales in Hong Kong. I think that is your first question.
Yeah, that's the only question.
That is the only question, right?
I'll just add a few comments. I think broadly speaking, thank goodness that we're at a low base today because everything still looks good. My own observations would probably be that there are some structural elements. Are we going to go back to whatever the heady days of 2018? It may take some time. It may take more time than we like. I'm not saying we won't get there, but it may take some time. Probably across all the sectors. Even though it looks good today, we feel good about the resi sales, we feel much better about office in Hong Kong, but I think there are some structural issues which are going to manage the pace of this recovery, and also may even manage the top of this recovery. Those are just some observations and comments.
One more thing that I do want to say is on mainland China resi, it's obviously not very sexy right now. It's not been sexy for many, many years, and probably will not be sexy for the next few years. However, there's an interesting set of numbers which I think are publicly available on new starts for China residential and completions on China residential. If you look at the number, it's dropped dramatically because nobody's been building for the past few years. There's a question in my head, which is that what is the base load? What is the base demand, replacement demand in mainland China? Is that above or below today's rates of completion and new starts, or in particular, new starts?
In two or three years' time, when these hit the market, and if sentiment doesn't get worse, what will that match or mismatch be? Even though that's not really the market in which we play, it will have some knock-on effects to the broader economy, including the wealth effect. I would love to have sold out all of our SAs, service apartments by then, but we may not have. If we haven't, then who knows? There may be a window in a few years' time, but I know that's far beyond any timeline that any of you are looking at. It may be a few years. I think it's interesting to keep an eye on that.
Also I think, just last point. History repeat itself that two years ago, when we are sitting in the same room, everyone worrying about the office market in Hong Kong. Look at today. Now everyone's saying that all asset management company, everyone coming in Hong Kong. Now, okay, I hope they come. That means the rental will go up. Spending should go up. That is only two years ago. Basically everyone's saying that Central is dying. Now it's recovering quite well. I will say market like property development is a little bit funny. Sometimes it's countercyclical. I hope I'm right and most of the people wrong is that if the wealth effect, especially now asset management, I was told, I'm sure you guys know, right? The private equity guys, they don't need to pay tax for the carry. Wow.
Our house should be very good. Right? The IPO guy, when they come, they have a lot of money, they should not put in the bank. Buy a house. Right? I'm very positive about high-end residential. At the same time, those guys need to spend. I don't think they will all go back to Shenzhen. Some of them will stay. Some of them will buy good wine because wine is cheapest here. There will be lock on effect. I think Hong Kong is so dynamic. Never say never. Mainland, I would say SA need to take some time, we all know when no developer developing anything and suddenly it will become a shortage. There will be a moment, of course, we don't know when because there's still a lot of supply in the market.
I'm still waiting for that question on the office, when the oversupply will be diminished. Whenever the multinational come back to China, hopefully they will take up some of the occupancy. As of today, we can't see it. At the same time, luxury also. Today is cold and chill. Same as 2015, 2016 when the anti-bribery hit us. No one knows after the anti-bribery, suddenly we enjoy almost eight years of very rosy luxury growth. That's why I would say the market always in a cycle, we just need to do what we believe is right for the company, for the customers. Hopefully we will be reward by the things we have done.
This wraps up the earnings presentation for our FY 2026 interim results. This is going to be the last time Weber do the presentation here. We wish him the best. Thank you very much for the participation, we will see you next time. Thank you.