Good afternoon, everyone. I'm Sophia from Champion REIT. Today, welcome you all to our Champion REIT 2022 final results and analyst briefing. Today, we have our CEO, Ms. Christina Hau, and our Investment and Investor Relations Director, Amy, Ms. Amy Luk, to share the annual results with you all. May I pass the time to Christina, please?
Hi, everyone. This is Christina. Together with Amy, who is sitting next to me, we welcome you all to today's briefing. First of all, Amy will walk you through our 2022 annual results summary, and I'll continue with the property performance review and wrap up with the outlook of Champion REIT. Amy, please.
Okay. Thanks, Christina. Good afternoon, everyone. In 2022, the challenging global economy as well as the fifth wave of the pandemic locally in the first quarter last year actually brought considerable interactions to our business and also impacted our results. For the full year of 2022, total rental income dropped by 5.5% to HKD 2,359 million. The net property income recorded a drop of 7.6% to HKD 2,031 million. The decline was mainly due to negative rental reversion of our properties. Distributable income fell by 13.6% year-on-year to HKD 1,298 million. Our DPU dropped by 14% to HKD 0.1956.
Although our result was impacted by the continued COVID-19, the local market sentiment actually has improved thanks to the stabilized pandemic situation and also the border reopening. Tenant sales of Langham Place Mall recorded decent growth, especially in the second half of 2022, and overall for the full year outperformed the market. Despite the continuing impact of the operating environment during the pandemic, we are pleased to make achievement in our sustainability with Three Garden Road achieving BEAM Plus Platinum rating with the highest score in Hong Kong. We will talk more about this later on.
Looking at the rental income breakdown, among the three properties in Hong Kong, Three Garden Road recorded the largest decline in rental income, decreasing by 7.8% year-over-year, mainly due to average lower occupancy and the negative rental reversion. For Langham Place Office, it's relatively more stable in terms of rental income. For Langham Place Mall, as we have briefly touched on, the tenant sales was very encouraging last year, and that contributed to the increase in turnover rent by over 200% increase to HKD 117 million. The proportion of turnover rent also increased to 5% in 2022. Looking at the property valuation, there is a mild decline of 2.7% to HKD 63.6 billion.
Cap rate for valuing the properties remaining unchanged with Three Garden Road, cap rate at 3.7%, Langham Place Office at 4.1%, and Langham Place Mall at 4%. For the NAV of Champion REIT at the end of last year, it was HKD 7.91. Looking at the financial position of Champion REIT, it remains stable under the challenging market condition. For the debt maturing in 2023, the MTN due in January, that is last month, has already redeemed. The existing undrawn committed credit facilities is around HKD 2.8 billion after this MTN redemption. Outstanding debt for refinancing this year is around HKD 700 million, and so it's more than sufficient to cover the refinancing for this year.
After the redemption of MTN, the fixed rate debt portion has turned to 54.4%, which is in a balanced position to mitigate the market volatility in interest rate. Because of interest rate increase last year, our average interest rate was 2.8% in 2022 comparing with 2.4% in 2021. The gearing ratio maintained at comfortable level of 22.5% as at December 31st last year. Now, I will pass to Christina to go over the performance of each of our properties.
Thanks, Amy. On Three Garden Road. Central office market remained subdued in 2022 under local economic downturn and anti-pandemic controls. Abundant office supply in the CBD intensified the competitive landscape. Downsizing and relocation of tenants in the financial industry constitute to a fall in occupancy to 82.7. Banking and asset management sectors continue to be taking up significant portion of the property. Regardless of the loosening travel restriction and lifting of compulsory quarantine requirements, leasing momentum remained quiet. Market rent continued to be under pressure, and the passing rent of the property went down to HKD 99.7 per square foot. For the lease expiry, the 28% representing tenants under rent revealed where their leases will expire in later years.
For Langham Place Office, though certain tenants are required to close operations temporarily during the fifth wave, we saw some bounce back in business operating and ex-expansion activity among beauty and medical segment over these days. A take-up by these tenants was not sufficient to fill up the vacated areas by traditional office tenants, leading to a drop of occupancy 93.3%. This lifestyle hub will still maintain its attraction with lifestyle-related tenants remaining a mainstay, representing 71% of the property area. The rental income of Langham Place Office remained at stable level and passing rent slightly dropped to HKD 46 per square foot. We are in close discussion with tenants with their leases expiring this year.
For the Langham Place Mall, government consumption voucher scheme proved to be powerful leverage to boost domestic spending while the retail market was still impacted by the pandemic and inbound travel requirements in 2022, as seen by our rebound of tenants' business and the mall. Full year tenant sales saw up to 8% over the year, outperforming the city's overall retail sales, which dropped by 0.9%. Since the border reopened, we are seeing encouraging growth in visitors arriving from the mainland. As seen by visitors' arrival data from the Immigration Department on the right-hand side, the mainland visitors are flocking back to Hong Kong, especially after Chinese New Year, with last Saturday's inflow reaching close to 70,000, close to 60% of the daily average pre-pandemic. This demonstrate a high thriving potential for Hong Kong's retail market.
The encouraging sales growth of the beauty segment is not only contributing to the outperformance of the mall, but also contributing to over 200% growth in turnover rent portion to HKD 117 billion. Base rent continued to be under pressure and the average passing rent dropped to 157.1 sq ft. More tenants are willing to pay base rent as the retail market sentiment improved, and hence the proportion of tenants paying turnover rent from 12% dropped to 9%. During the pandemic, we have been maintaining flexible leasing strategies and entering into short-term leases. The lease expiry in this year offering upside potential and flexibility to further diversify our tenant portfolio. Despite the tight market conditions, the mall still demonstrate its resilience by welcoming new concept into the premises to maintain its attractiveness.
Among 30 new tenants joined our mall family in 2022, some pioneer operators, for example, CAMPSITE, the first glamping-inspired restaurant in Hong Kong. Good Moment took us into a retailtainment journey, an immersive transformation to transform ordinary retail sales point to a place of entertainment through contemporary Disney movie scenes with AR technology. The mall remained fully occupied in this year with similar proportion of lifestyle retail, including entertainment, F&B, fashion, and accessories. All rounded marketing campaigns and strategies remain in place to stimulate the mall sales and footfall. We took an example of our Christmas. We are building a 6-meter tall fluffy ball Christmas tree made up of Disney and Pixar family. For the Chinese New Year, we are using the character Mofusand to replicate the Japanese folklore culture.
These marketing events draw large crowds to the mall and also helped the tenant sales. Last but not least, Langham Beauty Fest, along with other sales-driven promotions like lucky draw, sales rebate, and shopping coupons, proved to be a success with shoppers with overwhelming responses received. Amy, please continue on the sustainability part, please.
Yeah, sure. For last year, actually throughout recent years, we have been working hard and are putting our effort in sustainability, and there are some remarkable performance that we would like to share with you today. First of all is regarding Three Garden Road. Years back, we obtained WELL Platinum certification of Three Garden Road, which is the first existing building in Hong Kong to get this certification. In 2022, we obtained the BEAM Plus existing building certification for Three Garden Road, and it is the highest score in Hong Kong for the BEAM Plus certification. Our five out of seven categories in this certification got full mark, like green innovation and optimized energy use measures.
These double platinum actually reinforce Three Garden Road positioning as a green and wellness hub. We also established our 2045 net zero target and commitment, which we will continue to work on climate resilience. On sustainability financing, we continue our effort to increase this proportion. In 2022, we obtained another HKD 1 billion of sustainability-linked loan, where there will be interest saving if the KPIs are met. At the community level, we have set up urban farm in the Langham Place Mall on Level 4, which is called a Love Play Farm project, which provides a farming area and space for multi-party collaboration, including staff, tenants, visitors, and the community, including planting and also painting.
We got some groundbreaking means laminate that we can actually put ways to farm-to-table concept in action. For the music fund, our classical music concert series, Musica del Cuore, which is held here at Three Garden Road, resumed as the pandemic situation stabilized. The new season, in other words, which was launched earlier this month, was receiving overwhelming response with full help of guests. Now I'll pass back to Christina to share the outlook and of course our effort on sustainability receive awards and recognitions, which you can see in the screen here.
I continue to the outlook of 2023. The gradual relaxation of pandemic measures and the resumption of cross-border travel has helped to provide a boost to the Hong Kong economy and retail market. However 2023 remains a challenging year for the trust, given the general negative outlook for the office market and uncertain economic prospect. We expect the downward trend on rental income and DPU to stay, though we do see the rebound of retail segment. About liability management, the volatility of interest rate may drive up interest exposure. Under the turbulence period, we keep taking a prudent approach on liability and treasury management to identify new enhancing opportunities. For M&A, we continue to stay cautiously optimistic on reviewing the potential acquisition opportunities. That's the end of our presentation, and we can start the Q&A session. Thank you.
Yeah. Thank you, management. This is Mark from UBS. I have about two questions. I think the first question is regarding on the retail side. After the border reopen, not sure if you can share more colors on the tenant sales recovery. Secondly, it's also on the retail. What is the latest rent to sales ratio for the tenants? Thank you.
Thank you for your question. We do see the encouraging sales after the border reopened, especially after the Chinese New Year, because from the figures that presented just now from the Immigration Department, the tourists has not been back in the January until now. You see the daily traffic can come up to around 50,000 daily. It is close to 40% of the pre-pandemic level. We do see a on week, on week basis, we do see the traffic road. This is very encouraging. From the retail side, we do see immediately we can see the sales of our self-operated Langham Beauty. This has been a solid growth since after the Chinese New Year.
We do see the proportion of tourism spending increase and also our sales also is catching up and it's in a good upward trend. Regarding to the rent to sales ratio. 2022, you did see there are some rents reversion in terms of our base rent. The tenant sales rent to sales ratio has become healthier, I would say, in 2022. It's we hope it's will be getting better and better with the increasing number of tourists arriving Hong Kong and the retail sentiment has been improved quite a lot in terms of local spending as well. Thank you.
Thank you, management. This is Junt ao from Citigroup. I have two questions as well. The first question is regarding the outlook. Can you share with us what's the outlook for the office and retail in 2023? What's the rental reversion trend here in Hong Kong and its outlook? The secondly, do you have any potential share buyback plan in this year? Thank you.
Thank you. for the outlook on the office portfolio and retail, as we have mentioned in the last slide, over the three years pandemic and the uncertainty in global economy, the demand have been shrink over the past years on the office market. Although the boundary has reopened and we do see a little bit more inquiry, but as you know, we don't have the crystal ball on when the demand is coming back. This is a market-driven scenario, I would say, on the office portfolio. On the retail side, since China has been fully reopened and visitors are keen to visit Hong Kong, and the consumption voucher is a powerful tool to boost the local spending as well.
In terms of 2022 retail outlook, we do see it's very positive. If we see the growing numbers of visitors coming to Hong Kong, and if the local spending, the sentiment is continued to be quite optimistic, okay, we do see the outlook for retail is much, much better in 2023 than 2022. For the next question. Okay.
Yeah. I will address the share buyback question. As you know, for REIT, we are paying out 90% of our distributable income. Like every year, like for this year, we are saving about 10%. We have also mentioned that we do got a CapEx plan in mind, like some enhancement work for Three Garden Road for the lift modernization and also in planning some upgrading in the washroom and that require CapEx. Also, you know, for like a very large scale of buyback, because the amount of cash that we can reserve each year is not a big amount.
For a big buyback plan, we may need to borrow, and that in an interest rate, like high interest rate environment, it may not be desirable for the unitholders.
Hi, management. This is Raymond from HSBC. I got two questions. Both of them are related to the retail segment. The first question is, can management remind us, like, the split of the, like, the domestic spending and the tourist spending, with in the Langham Place Mall pre-COVID level? And what do you expect in terms of breakdown in 2023? This is the first question. The second question is the outlook for the retail is improving, like more shoppers coming back from, especially for tourists. Do the management expect a rental reversion to turn positive, in 2023? Thank you.
Since we are not using a central POS, we are unable to track the local and tourist spending in terms of our general tenants. We do operate the Langham Beauty ourselves, and we do see the increasing amount of this UnionPay, WeChat, Alipay transaction very recently. There is a certain portion we see that there is increase from that, the mainlanders keep spending in our mall. In terms of the rental projection on the retail side, as you have seen in the slide that in 2023, we have a certain portion of tenant lease are going to expire. We will capture these opportunities to review their performance and reflect in the renewal rental subsequently.
Still there are some leases that were signed back in 2022.
Those leases may not be able to catch up with the sales trend right now. We foresee we are able to collect more turnover rent, even though some of those are base rent, we're not up to a very optimal level, I would say.
Thank you.
Thank you. Jason Tse from FountainCap. My first question is, can you share your view on your borrowing cost, and also the, are you comfortable with the current gearing level? Will we consider any equity raising? Like what one of your peers has recently done. My second question is, you mentioned about the downward trend on your DPU outlook this year. I'm just wondering, in terms of a driver, do you think it's mainly driven by the top line dragged by your office portfolio, or, it's dragged by a surging borrowing cost under the current high interest rate environment? Thank you.
Okay. For the borrowing costs are actually as you maybe turn back to the debt maturity profile slide. Overall, we average interest cost for last year was 2.8%. Say, for the credit spread for the new loan that we obtained last year is actually more or less of the previous debt that we obtained. What's the moving part is the HIBOR, as we are not 100% fixed-rate debt. The volatility here is for the remaining 46.6% of the floating rate debt portion, which is subject to the interest rate movement. Where, right now, if we are comparing the floating swapping to the fixed rate cost is maybe still around 100 pips of difference if we are swapping from floating to fixed.
Regarding like source of funding, we always evaluate different source of funding from time to time. Just one just kind of like our thought is we may not be preferred to issue equity at the discount. So far for the expiry profile, we have already arranged the credit facilities for the refinancing that's due this year.
Thank you, management. This is Mark from UBS. Again, I think I got two m ore questions. I think is first of all is on the office expiry for this year. Not sure how much we have already done for the lease negotiations. I think for both Langham Place and Three Garden Road. I think that's the first questions. Second question is, I recorded in the past few years we lowered the payout ratio to 90%. Going forward, because you mentioned the, maybe the, retail is recovering. Under what condition we will consider to increase the payout ratio again? Thank you.
Thanks for your questions. Regarding the renewal on the leases is going to expire in 2023. In fact, we have secure quite a lot renewal for Three Garden Road as we have kick-start the renewal process in 2022. Over half of the tenants are going to expire in 2023. It's going to stay. Regarding the Langham Place office, we are in close discussion and the deal will be closing very soon on the renewal tenants. Although they may impose some of the uncertainty, but majority of the spaces will be renewed and on the lifestyle and beauty segment. Thank you.
Regarding the payout policy, we have been following, you know, the record rules, and then, we consider, like market condition as well as our funding needs and some other factors when we decide. It will be, like up to the next review to decide whether we will maintain this and, or, have a different payout ratio.
Any other questions? If there's no further questions, let's conclude our analyst briefing today. Thank you very much.