Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the full year 2024 results briefing of CapitaLand Ascendas REIT, or CLAR for short. We thank you for joining us in person and online today. As always, this briefing will start with a presentation by management on CLAR's financial and operational performance for 2024. After which, there will be a question and answer segment. For those in the audience, you may raise your hand and I will call out your name or identify you by your company, and a microphone will be brought to you by one of my colleagues. If you are attending this briefing online, you can submit your questions via the Q&A function on Zoom anytime during this briefing, then we will address any questions that have not been asked by the audience after.
Before we begin the session proper, let me introduce the management on the panel. First, we have Mr. William Tay, CEO of CLAR. Good evening. Second, we have Ms. Koo Lee Sze, CFO of CLAR. Next, we have Ms. Yeow Kit Peng, Head of Capital Markets and Investor Relations. Finally, we have Mr. James Goh, Head of Portfolio Management. With that, I will hand the time over to Kit Peng, who will begin the presentation. Thank you.
Thanks, Andrea. Happy New Year, everyone. I believe last year, 2024, has been a very interesting year for all of us. There were uncertainties around inflation trend, geopolitical tensions, and changes in administration. Despite all of this, we are pleased to present a resilient set of results for FY 2024, which will enable CLAR to start this year in a strong position. Key highlights. Distributable income increased 2.2% to SGD 668.8 million. DPU increased 0.3% to SGD 0.15205. Investment properties held steady at SGD 16.76 billion. The portfolio occupancy remained high at 92.8%, and we achieved high rental reversion of 11.6% for leases renewed during the year. Gearing is healthy at 37.7%, and the cost of debt is stable at 3.7%. On the sustainability front, CLAR is now included in 2 more indices, that is the FTSE4Good Developed Index and FTSE4Good ASEAN Index.
Let's take a closer look at the details. Full year 2024 versus full year 2023, gross revenue increased by 2.9% to SGD 1.5 billion, and this is mainly due to the full year contribution from properties that were acquired in 2023. The properties are the Chess Building in the U.K., the Stuttgart in Singapore. The completion of MQX4, which is a development in Sydney, Australia, and also this convert-to-suit property in LaSalle Boulevard in the U.S. As a result, NPI increased by 2.6% to SGD 1 billion, and distributable income increased by 2.2% to SGD 668.8 million. DPU increased 0.3% to SGD 0.15305, due to the issuance of some new units for base management fees.
When we compare second half of 2024 versus the first half of the same year, 2024, gross revenue declined 2.2%, this is mainly due to the divestment of four properties in Brisbane and Singapore, as well as lower utilities income. NPI decreased in tandem with the decrease in revenue, partially offset by lower operating expenses. Distributable income increased 2.2% to SGD 338 million due to lower interest expense. DPU increased 2.1% in tandem with the increase in the distributable income. When we compare second half of 2024 versus the second half the year before, 2023, gross revenue declined 1.1% to SGD 753 million due mainly to the decommission of Welwyn Garden City and the divestment of the four properties in Brisbane and Singapore. However, NPI increased by 1.4% due to lower operating expenses.
Distributable income increased by a higher 3.4%, this was boosted due to the lower interest expense. DPU increased 3.2% to SGD 0.07681. We adopt a semiannual distribution frequency. For the second half period of July 1 to December 31 of 2024, a distribution of SGD 0.07681 will be made. You'll be receiving the dividends on March 11. Moving on to investments. This year, we put more investments into U.S. and focusing on the logistics sector. We acquired Summerville Logistics Center and DHL Indianapolis Logistics Center for about $248 million at very attractive NPI yields of 7.2%-7.4%. These two modern properties and very strategically located properties will complement what we already have in the U.S., and they're all basically located in major logistics hub.
Our investment strategy focuses on established industrial markets in the key growth cities, which are expected to see increasing demand for quality logistics assets driven by onshoring and reshoring trends in the U.S. Following these two acquisitions, our logistics footprint in the U.S. will expand to 20 properties in four cities that you see in the map. It's Kansas City, Chicago, Indianapolis, Charleston. AUM is now SGD 570 million, and the GFA is sizable at 475,000 sq m. By the way, our existing U.S. logistics property are doing well. The occupancy rate is 100%. We continue to optimize returns from our existing properties by repositioning or upgrading them.
SGD 3.9 million worth of AEIs were completed during the year at Pacific Tech Centre, which is industrial property located in Jalan Bukit Merah, vicinity in Singapore, as well as one at Changi City, which is a business park property in Changi Business Park, which is located just next to the Expo MRT. Occupancy rates for both properties have increased to 89.5% and 99.5% respectively in December. On divestment. On divestment, altogether four properties were divested in Australia and in Singapore. Total amount is about SGD 177 million. They were divested at about 38% premium to the total valuation. Exit yields very attractive at 3%-4%. Moving on to capital markets. Gearing remains healthy at 37.7%. For debt maturity profile, it continues to be very well spread out.
If I can refer you to the first three or four bars, you can see that about 13% or 14% will only come due in each of the year. This is a summary of our financial ratios. Just want to highlight a few items here. The ICR, the interest cover ratio, is healthy at 3.6 times. Fixed rate debt is high at 83%. The weighted borrowing cost is stable at 3.7% despite the high interest rates environment. We secured very tight spreads for some of our loans and bonds, right, to manage the interest expense. The A3 Moody's credit rating is maintained, and this is important. It provides us with a lot more financial flexibility and strong access to capital. This time, we added a new sensitivity table, which is at the bottom. This is the ICR sensitivity table.
You can see here that the ICR remains very robust even under stress scenario. A 10% decrease in EBITDA, the ICR will be about 3.3 times, assuming 100 basis points increase in interest rates, ICR is 2.8 times, and both these numbers are clearly above the threshold of 1.5 times. Okay. To minimize the effects of any adverse exchange rate fluctuations We have a high level of natural hedge of 76% for our overseas investment, which totals about almost SGD 6 billion. Okay? NAV will be safeguarded against any adverse exchange rate movement. Assuming hypothetically, all the currencies, all these overseas currencies, say, decline by 15% all together at the same time, the impact on NAV is less than 3%. Okay? Okay, valuation. Very interesting slide. The total valuation for our 225 properties in the four geographies, the developed markets, was SGD 16.8 billion.
On the same store basis, the valuation was stable at SGD 16.76 billion. The stable portfolio valuation was mainly due to the increase for Singapore, which offset some decrease in the U.S. and in Australia. Okay? There was some adjustment in the capital values in U.S. and Australia due to the higher cap rate applied by the independent valuers. That is by geography. Now by segment, for the business space and life science segment, same, the valuation was stable at SGD 7.7 billion. For the industrial and data center segment, valuation was higher by 1.3% at SGD 4.82 billion. For the logistics property, stable at SGD 4.24 billion. Okay. Occupancy. The portfolio occupancy remained high at 92.8%. Improvement were actually achieved, right, with Singapore rising to 92.5%, the U.S. increasing to 88.9%, Australia also improving to 92.5%, and the U.K., Europe region remain high at 99.3%, almost full house.
Okay? I will then give some color on the new demand that we saw in the fourth Q. In Singapore, the largest sources of new demand by gross rented income were the engineering sector, the electronics, as well as the distribution and trading sectors. For the overseas market, it's the IT and data center, the lifestyle retail, and the biomed sectors that were the largest sources of demand. Okay. Rental reversions. A positive rental reversion of 11.6% was achieved for leases that were renewed in multi-tenant buildings in FY 2024. I suppose, this met our guidance, right, for the high single-digit positive rental reversion. Okay, the average rental reversions were 11% for Singapore, 21% in the U.S., 13% in Australia, and about 11% in the U.K. and Europe. All the geographies achieved positive rental reversion.
Looking ahead for FY 2025, we expect rental reversion to be in the positive mid-single digit range. WALE continues to be stable at 3.7 years. This is the portfolio, all the geographies put together, the lease expiry for this coming year. This coming year, we have about 17% of our rental revenue that will be due for renewal. 80% of it will be in Singapore, the balance in Australia, U.S., U.K., Europe. We have come to my last two very important slides on redevelopment and development plans. We will embark on a new redevelopment project for LogisHub @ Clementi. This logistics property is strategically located in Clementi Loop, well-connected to the major expressways, right, as in the AYE and the PIE. Very short driving distance to the CBD part of Singapore and Tuas Second Link.
What we are going to do here is to maximize the plot ratio. By maximizing the plot ratio to 2.5 times, the GFA doubles to 58,820 sq m. The new property, we have modern features. It'll be seven-story high with the ramp access facility, and there will be 106 loading bays, power extension, provision for cold storage. Large floor plates, good ceiling heights of up to 12 m. We are also targeting to obtain a Green Mark GoldPLUS certification for the new property. Now, with the addition of LogisHub, we have SGD 800 million worth of projects on-hand. This financial year, we'll be completing about SGD 500 million of project. They are Summerville, the first row in the U.S., 1 Science Park Drive, and 5 Toh Guan East.
On a stabilized basis, they are expected to generate additional income of about SGD 30 million-40 million per annum. This is an ongoing process to rejuvenate and revitalize our portfolio and to generate more income stream. This comes to the end of my presentation. We look forward to 2025. Thank you very much.
Thank you, Kit Peng. Now we will move to the Q&A segment of this briefing. May I have the first question from the audience, please? Dale from DBS.
Thanks, Andrea, hi, William and team. Thank you for the presentation. Just a few quick questions from me. I think, with regards to this LogisHub, sounds exciting. What is the estimated ROI here, and are there any in-place tenants or commitments?
We're expecting yield on cost for 8%. No tenants as yet, we believe that given that the strong demand for logistics space, you look at our portfolio is mostly full, and there's strong demand out there in the logistics space. We believe that even a speculative build will be taken up quite well.
Okay. Got it. Onto your other 1 Science Park Drive redevelopment, how's that coming along? Expected to be completed this quarter, right? What about pre-commitments there as well?
Same answer to you, Dale. TOP will be soon. If it's not this month, it'll be next month. Once after TOP, it will come along with information with regards to the occupancy. Rest assured, it will not be zero. Also don't put your hopes too high that it'll be 100% on day one. Given that this is a million sq ft, we are comfortable with what is started off, and we have very strong demand for the rest of the year. If you remember, we had mentioned that the overall stabilization period we project for such a big project is between 3 to 4 years. At this point, looking at the pipeline and the discussions that we have, we believe that we are likely to do better than that.
Okay. Got it. Can I take one more question? Okay. Just wanted to talk on the valuations part. You're saying that there's a bit of cap rate movements for the overseas portfolio. Can you talk us through that? As in, has there been a change in valuers or has there been a cap rate expansion?
Okay. Cap rate expansion mainly in Australia and U.S. We see compression here in Singapore. The reason given is that if you look at compared to 2023, the cap rate expansion has been very moderate. A year ago, we see up to 100 to 200 basis points of expansion. Now, for example, in U.S., Australia, it's around 50 basis points. We believe that this is also a strong showing of the performance as well. The performance will actually lead the valuation, not just the cap rate. In Singapore, we've had compression. You probably know that last year there was a huge number of transactions in the market. Despite us divesting 21 Jalan Buruh, our valuation has gone up. It's very healthy here in Singapore.
This also will lead us to our belief that if there's a right time, I think we can consider divestment as one strategy going forward, to make sure that this is the right time in terms of the market cap rate. Our performance is strong. We've delivered some divestment last year, and we continue to see some interest in our properties.
Okay. Thank you.
Okay. Thank you, Dale. We will move to Derek from DBS.
Sorry, I sit next to Dale. Two questions from me. William, I was looking at your vacancy rate. I noticed there is some in U.S. and Australia. I am just wondering whether you reckon those are sticky, stubborn vacancies, or is there opportunity for you to close that gap towards a more higher level? Maybe that is my first question. My second question is on rental reversions. I think the team has done a great job, and I am just wondering whether what has been done over the past year was also because you renewed COVID leases. Going forward, do you reckon that there is more pressure? If you look across your countries, while mid-single digit is a nice number, which countries do you think you need to have a bit more work? Those are my two broad thoughts around 2025. Right.
You are right in terms of the occupancy challenges in U.S. and Australia. U.S. logistics, a quarter ago, we had some vacancies and we have backfilled them. Now they are 100% in the two portfolios that we have in Chicago and Kansas. Business Park continue to be a challenge. There are some uptick in terms of certain assets. General trend, we are seeing negative absorption. We are losing tenants because of downsizing, and we are not refilling them as fast. If you compare us to the general market, I think a 80% occupancy is fairly healthy and strong compared to what we see in the market. In relation to Australia, Business Park has been doing fairly well. To be honest, I think I also mentioned that over the quarters, we have seen rental reversion as well as occupancy.
Primary reason is because their suburban location, much better than where we see the challenges. The real challenge is in CBD as the most depressing one is probably the most fringe offices. Given the fact that if there are supply availability in central area and the rentals are well below COVID, I think it is just encouraging for tenants to move to the central CBD area, especially the grade A ones. Suburban location, nearer to amenities, nearer to where employees are living, especially for example, Macquarie is near university and other ecosystem. We see healthy demand in that location. The surprising bit is Australia logistics. We now have two vacant unit. It is surprising that the backfilling is not as fast enough. If you look around the market, it is probably not a sign of a market that is softening to a level that is critical. I think it is just transition.
We do see some RFPs as well as interest to acquire our assets. I think this is just transition. With regards to rental reversion, we have guided mid-single digit. Key reasons, as you have heard me mention a few times, like what you say is post-COVID, we do enjoy strong rental reversion, low base which is showing up in our numbers. Over time, we have improved our assets, also helps to get in the rental reversion. If you look at across the board, not just in Singapore, in U.S., we are also trying to do AEI in U.S., so that's also helpful for us. Why mid-single digit is not just a number that we feel that we can deliver, but I think that is a number where the market rents are. We've been asked whether we continue to see under-rented in our portfolio.
We still believe so. Even in Singapore, when our occupancy is fairly high right now, that will allow us to be able to push rental. I wouldn't go into detail which country give us, which require more work. I think it's all across that we still need to pay attention to leasing efforts, expanding our network, as well as improving our facility. More so in U.S., given the fact that when you improve our facility, it give confidence to our tenants that our assets are well managed as compared to many other landlords who may be tight on their budget and their CapEx. They do see that this landlord here, CLAR, is here to stay and have the capacity in the balance sheet to be able to improve the assets. You also heard us mention about white boxing, which helps tenants to make the decision faster.
There's a lot of movement out there. Decision may be slower, but at least when it's white box, they know they can move in almost as soon as they want to, and that's helpful for them to make a decision. We will continue all this effort. We will make sure that where we need to do AEI, we'll do the AEI. Where we need to be strategic in terms of getting our networks out, talking to different parties, we will do that as well. If there's any redevelop opportunities, especially locations or countries that we believe that it'll be helpful to introduce a new asset, we will do that to make sure that we can reposition our portfolio over time.
Okay. Thank you.
Thank you, Derek. Can I have the next question, please? Okay, Vijay from RHB.
Yeah. Hi. Congrats on a decent set of results. I think I have three questions. Maybe my first question is in terms of Changi Business Park. Maybe can you give some color in terms of where the occupancies are, valuation trends? Have you seen it bottomed or you still expect some impact from Punggol Digital District as it is? In the last quarter, you guided government is open for repurposing some of their asset in that area. Is there any progress on that front?
Thanks, Vijay. Changi Business Park, we are very pleased to say that we have crossed the 80%. A year ago, we were about 76%, and we have actually improved our overall occupancy across the various buildings that we own. It may be quite a different story as you go around Changi Business Park. We believe that what we have placed in terms of our response is to open up new channels, new industries. You have seen that we have brought in aviation engineering. We continue to work on education, and we brought education institutions into Science Park. We are also exploring medical. These are adjacent industries that we believe can be housed in the Business Park building without requiring too much of a change of use kind of application. That allow us to be able to bring in new industry, which are not the traditional business park user.
Having said that, we do see demands coming up or interest, not demand. Interest coming up from similar trades like semiconductor design, such companies. The question then is whether business park can meet their needs and how much of these changes to a business park building is required. Some companies may require not just design assembly, some require some kind of a light manufacturing. These are just boundaries that we hope to be able to obtain from the government. In relation to, just to add on, just now you asked for valuation. Across the board in terms of business park in Singapore, the valuation has been quite strong, driven by the transactions that we see in the market. I think you probably know which are the few ones that has been driving cap rates in the market that was transacted last year.
Overall, business park is healthy in terms of value. In terms of occupancy, I think we have done fairly well to push our occupancy. Competition with regards to Punggol, we believe that there are offerings that is very different. I think Punggol is one district that we do see that if it's able to grow, it probably be helpful for the entire country. Why so is because they are also not doing too much of speculative demand. It's all targeted. Just like one-north, if you remember, about 20 years ago when it first started, the government, like A*STAR, need to seed the Biopolis, and that's how it brought about a demand in other industries. I think what's important for us is to be able to tap on other industries beyond just a normal business park.
Allow me to just go on to other parks, like example, IBP. We continue to believe that with the infrastructure investments of the MRT, we believe that that will be a turnaround for IBP, and we are going to, as I mentioned, other than 27 IBP we are waiting for the opportunity to redevelop the other two buildings that we have right near the MRT.
Thank you. My second question is in terms of U.K. Welwyn Garden City, any updates in terms of power capacity or redevelopment plans? Have you formalized any CapEx requirements for this?
Nothing has changed really. Power is there. We have been working on the customer, I think we have mentioned that we prefer to be on a built to suit kind of arrangement than to be a speculative build. We are concurrently working with the authorities. The planning permission has been there. We already have the schemes as approved. Now we are talking to some prospects to refine the design. At the right time, we will announce those actual CapEx and the customers that we have.
Any idea of what time it will be? Maybe by middle of this year?
Hopefully this year. I won't say it's middle of this year, but this year.
Sorry, one last follow-up. In terms of acquisitions, I think you have done a lot of redevelopments and you are also doing a forward purchase. Is this something the way which we should expect forward in terms of extracting yields by forward purchase and redevelopments and less of completed acquisitions?
Well, seems like it's not a surprise to you, right? Yes, I think last year we have been fairly quiet on investment front. Acquisitions for development is one area that we want to be able to leverage on, given the fact that we can introduce modern specs into our portfolio, as well as the yield on cost that is more attractive than a straight up investment of a income-producing asset. Just now, I think Kip Meng mentioned from the start that we are on a good footing for this year. Just riding on your question, just allow me to just explain a little. This year actually gave us a strong understanding of portfolio. We believe that our portfolio is very well managed and is attractive, continue to be attractive for tenants. We are shown in our occupancy, our rental reversion.
organically, we believe that this is the base that we can deliver. With this base, let me say that this is the foundation. With this as a key foundation, I think we can push the envelope and to build up capacity for redevelopment and to reposition our assets. Which is why we wanted to introduce the new development, LogisHub. This is just not a simple redevelopment of untapped plot ratio. The plot ratio is 1.6. It's a plan. You can check it up. We went to URA and asked for higher plot ratio, 2.5, we still got to do all the analysis, tracking, all this to be able to get additional plot ratio beyond the master plan approved.
We introduced this time around, we want to have a constant flow of redevelopment so that during this time, while investment is a bit tougher environment, we are refreshing our portfolio, repositioning our portfolio. I would say perhaps in the next 2 to 3 years, we will be looking at if time and the plans do turn out in our way, we will be targeting to about SGD 1.5 billion of redevelopment. As we turn on the assets, Kit Peng mentioned, we have SGD 800 million announced today for this year in terms of development. We will have SGD 500 million. Sprint project, Geneo, 5 Toh Guan, and Summerville for SGD 500 million will be turned on for income this year. We believe on a recurring basis, if we can develop SGD 1.5 billion, we should be able to achieve completion of SGD 1 billion within the next 2 to 3 years.
This will give us, based on our yield on cost, a good bump in terms of revenue, perhaps between 3%-4%. This is our second strategy in our key strategy, given our strong base to do more development work and to push our need to do repositioning of our asset. The third piece, in order to make sure that we have a stronger balance sheet. Our balance sheet is strong. Leverage is 37%, healthy all-in costs, and we are A3-rated. The third front is to, just I sort of mentioned it about divestment when answered Dale. We probably want to do more about divestment so that we can actually prepare our balance sheet for any acquisitions that may come along the way.
I think given a strong foundation, we can push our envelope to be more aggressive in terms of development, redevelopment, as well as preparing for acquisition that may come.
Thank you. Sounds good.
Thank you, Vijay, and thank you, William. For convenience, we will first move to Rachel from Macquarie. We move to Derek from Morgan Stanley. Finally, we move to Joy. Okay? Thank you very much.
Thank you. Happy New Year, William and team. Maybe just the first question, in terms of interest rates outlook, I think you have kept interest rate very flat this year. What's your outlook for FY 2025?
Short answer or you want her to answer? I think there was another question about interest rate just now. Okay. Is it? Yeah. 3.5 to 3.7, that's what we have done. We believe given the rates today, small increment, but likely to be below four for the end of the year. If there's any bright spark, there was another question about whether we receive Fed rates. I don't think we need to go into prediction. If we look at where we are today, it's quite clear the loans that we have compared to what is available, what the new refi loans, we are going to pay more. We're going to pay high interest.
I think in terms of recognizing the higher interest is granted, I think we believe that with our rental reversion occupancy and our fundamentals in terms of performance of our assets, we will be able to withstand all this interest. We have shown in our since this year, we don't have additional new investments to show up revenue. It was really more organic than anything, and we can improve our DPU. It does show that by doing the right things, controlling costs, and of course, it also help in a sense, positive for us. Utility rates, electricity rates, we have actually hedged, and it's coming down. We have done all our needs to improve or increase our service charges. We also look at all our cost aspect.
I think this is one aspect that we are working on to make sure that our performance continues strong to withstand any uncertainty of interest rate movement.
Okay. Thank you. My next question is a follow-up from Vijay. I think you spoke a lot about organic redevelopment, divestments, what about acquisitions? Are you putting that in the pause? Last year you have done small acquisitions and mostly in U.S. logistics. What's your thoughts for this year? Is it still the same, or are you looking at bigger acquisitions this year?
Definitely, we hope to be able to do more investments and acquisitions. Given where the market is today, regardless of where we are in terms of ability to raise funds or our ability to get loans, I think this is not an issue really for us. What is out there in the market seems to be still quiet. There's still a lot of uncertainty. If you ask me two months ago, three months ago, we thought that this year will be a good year for us to restart our investments. At this point in time, we believe that this market will continue to be there except that we may not be in a position to acquire in terms of big portfolio.
If there are small ones that comes along, for example, we had opportunity to acquire DHL facility at above 7%, which is very rare. We'll continue to hunt deep and wide to make sure that we can source for the good acquisition targets for the trust. I think right in front of us, where there's more opportunities, development, we still like to be able to deploy capital in development because we can then look at the type of facility, the cities that we want, the type of facilities, as well as the tenants that we can bring in. Instead of just buying a portfolio or an asset, we then can determine exactly what kind of specs, where's the location. We can then look at development to supplement the existing portfolio.
While we may see that development give us higher yield, obviously because if you were to do development, there comes higher risk. What we've been trying to do is to be prudent, look at the developers that we work with, the locations that we are in, study the market to make sure that all these risks are well mitigated. If you look at the projects that we have announced are still mainly in Singapore. We want to be able to do more here in Singapore as well as U.S. where there's a lot more opportunities, and we hope to be able to do more of that in these two places.
In terms of target acquisitions, are you still looking at U.S. logs or would you be looking at some properties in Singapore?
We are open for business, to be honest, Singapore, U.S., Europe. I still think that Australia is tougher for us, given where interest cost is and the cap rates that's trading. You look at our numbers, we are probably at 5% or 6% in terms of cap rate for Australia portfolio. I think for acquisition in those market continue to be challenging. U.S., given it's a large market, continue to trade between 4% to 7%, we believe we still can find deals and hunt well if we can. Europe becomes more interesting right now. We do see some development opportunities and hope to be able to do some in Europe.
Okay. My last question is, any updates on your plans for the Singtel data center and, for FY 2025, do you need to do any top-up with the potential loss in income?
Okay. I think maybe we've addressed the Singtel. There's also another question about Singtel. 3 data center with us, I mentioned that expiry is between this year to 2030. I will just tell you right now, in a matter of one or two months, the Singtel DC in Tampines will be expired. Having said that, I think it's probably unknown to many, the underlying land use is commercial. We are fairly excited with this opportunity to explore developing it or redeveloping the commercial property. If you know location, you know our location. Location is Tampines Hub. It's exciting for us to relook at our plans there, obviously including other options like divestments or just finding another new tenant. Since underlying asset is commercial, we will definitely look hard into our options to extract more value from there.
Do you need to top up? If let's say you choose to do a redevelopment, do you need to do any income top-up to cover some of the income loss?
We will think about that, honestly. In terms of where we are, we haven't done any top-up, to be honest. We just want to be very clean in terms of our DPU. We will approach that and see where it goes. Having said that, the impact of that income is not that great. It's 3%, my number 1 tenant, 3%. Even with that loss of that 1 building, Singtel is still top 10 on our list. We believe that we should be able to explore, try to push our performance to see whether we can cover those.
Okay. Thank you so much.
Thank you. We move to Derek from Morgan Stanley.
Hello. Just a couple of follow-up questions. On the U.K. DC redevelopment opportunity, are we still looking at about 60 megawatts in terms of power capacity?
Yes, 60 megawatts.
60 MW. You are in the midst of securing, right? You haven't gotten that secured yet.
Technically, we have the power. It's the timing of delivery that we are still uncertain, and we still need a commitment before we can move on to development. You know how data center work, right? Even with the max power, it's phasing, because after you deliver the asset, the operator will need to phase out. They will not take 60 on day one. There is flexibility for both party. Both party, I mean, the delivery on the supply side, when the government got to make sure the network is delivered on site, as well as customer's business plan.
Yeah.
The contractual agreement is there. You have to confirm that.
Yeah, we have 60 MW. Right.
Okay, good. That is great. I guess on the tenant profile, has DeepSeek changed the way you approach potential tenants? Are you still looking at hyperscalers for BTS or, I guess, more smaller tenants? Has anything changed there?
The customers that we have been talking to has not changed. They continue to be on the table to discuss with us. Given that location, and the power, it is not your mega-scale data center customers. We believe that cloud players or whoever that needs about 60 MW continue to be our target market, and they are still there on the table for us to discuss.
Mm-hmm. Sweet. Yeah. Just one follow-up on the divestments that you mentioned. I think it seems just more U.S.-centric or did I get it wrong?
No. In terms of divestment, we explore all countries, U.S., Europe, Australia, and Singapore. Singapore, as I mentioned just now, there is cap rate compression and valuation is strong. Performance of asset is very well, give us some opportunity to look at divestment as well in Singapore.
Is there a number that you have in mind of a quantum for divestments this year?
Last year we delivered over SGD 100 million. I think typically that's about the size that we have been delivering. But if we were to be able to prepare our balance sheet, in terms of reducing our leverage, perhaps we need to look a bit bigger than that, maybe SGD 300 million, SGD 400 million.
SGD 400 million. That's prep for, I guess, the U.K.-
All in.
All in.
Yeah, all in. All the countries that we are in or any projects that we have received interest in.
Got it. Thank you.
Thank you, Derek. We'll move to Joy from HSBC.
Thanks. Just a few follow-ups. William, you mentioned about development. Could you just share a little bit about how we should think about return? Or how you think about return, the profile of these developments. We've seen most of your development being spec builds. Is that still the model going forward?
The returns, you probably also have seen that we have announced returns above 7%. That's where we want to be able to look at, to give us ability to, not just introduce modern specs, modern facilities, but we want to be able to deploy capital to cities or assets in terms of redevelopment that we can get the kind of returns. Why so? It is because we need those numbers, not just to make the numbers work in terms of returns, not just to make the numbers work, but we want to be very certain that we can deliver those. The primary reason because they are speculative in nature. It's not speculative risk that we are taking, that we are delivering, asking for 7% or more.
If you look at even our portfolio, it's not too far away given that our portfolio is probably a 5%, 6% overall 50 to 100 basis points increase to be able to deliver. I think it's still a fairly comfortable risk that we take. The profile has not changed. We have introduced another logistics. U.S., we have introduced logistics. If you think that going forward it's likely to continue to be logistics, you're probably not far from there. Okay. That is probably where we are heading. Of course, the other development includes the U.K. data center overall, where we want to be able to develop. It's likely to be more logistics and data centers.
Okay. My second question is, there's one slide on the tenant demand, right? It's very interesting that Singapore manufacturing is almost half of your demand. I think data center is about half of your overseas demand. Is this just a factor of your expiring leases, or this is actually a shift?
Not surprised. You got it almost there. James.
Yeah. Just to echo what William said. I think, which is your point that it really depends on the type of assets with leases expiring in that financial year and the concentration. It just so happened that the bulk of the expiries happen to be in those industries.
Okay. There is not something that is more like.
Yeah. We don't see it as a macro shift in the demand from our tenants.
Okay. Then just lastly on Singapore particular developments. We've seen a lot of foreign investments into the country, but we've not heard about Build-to-Suit for a long time. You talked.
I have talked too.
You talked about development and a lot of it is redevelopment. Is government willing to re-look at the underlying land use and redevelop instead of doing actual Build-to-Suit? Or where are these projects going?
Just let me try to understand. Build-to-Suit is a solution, right? What we are seeing right now while we are doing redevelopments, if there is a customer in mind that we can do the development for, just like we talk about UKDC, our preference is to work with a customer that we can Build-to-Suit for the customer. You are right, in Singapore, CLAR has built up a brand name to be able to do Build-to-Suit for customers. In today's context, that's why I say I haven't hear that as well. We do hear a lot of foreign investments contracting to build on their own which likely not to be the market that's open for us. I suppose when it comes to Build-to-Suit, it's our cost against their cost.
If they can get a better cost of funding, if their WACC is lower, or given the real estate could also be a smaller part of their entire investment, and they need to have a better control. Given the fact that some of the investments, especially if you see some of the investments are in fabs, semiconductor industries, they are very specialized, which we may also not want to get into unless we have a very long lease in those assets. It could also be a preference of the manufacturers, investors who have preferred to build on their own. Where we are building today, if you look at our announced projects, are still fairly industries that we feel comfortable to find tenants. Logistics, there are strong demand out there, and the occupancy overall in Singapore is still healthy.
We believe that the two locations that we have introduced, Toh Guan and Jurong East, very prime location. In Logis Hub, we have power to even be able to find cold-store tenants. That actually opens up the opportunity for us to be a solution provider for some of these industries.
Thank you.
Thank you, Joy. Are there any questions from the floor? Okay, Dale.
Hi. Sorry, back to this LogisHub, right? I noticed you're saying that the decommissioning is only end of this year. It continues to generate income until end of this year?
Yes, it is. As we announced today, our next thing is to work with the tenants to move them out, then once the tenants are out, then we can decommission and start our construction. Typically, we require about five, six months to be able to work with tenants, which is why end of the year is the construction time.
Okay. Thanks, William. Another follow-up is back to the Singtel data centers, right? I get it that you're saying that it's at Tampines Mall and MRT there, isn't data centers something that is really hot right now then demand is really strong. There's a lack of supply. Wouldn't you want to keep it as a data center?
Timing is probably not on our side. For data center, number 1, I mentioned if it's additional or new power, we will have to work with the next CFA operators who have been given additional power. The first batch of CFAs has already landed their power, which we have actually sold our warehouse to one of the CFA awardee. If the government were to open up soon, it could be an area that we want to work with. We are not saying that this is closed. Rightly pointed out, it could be a site potentially to be reused as data center. Given the fact the underlying land use is commercial, we also do not want to just wait on it. We want to be able to explore and at least the path on the commercial side, there is no other restrictions.
It doesn't mean that given that it is existing data center, you continue to be able to use it as a data center with the power.
Yeah. In terms of any of this redevelopment, I think it's open to us, whether we want to develop as existing data center. To redevelop as a data center, now we have to work with operator.
Okay.
There's really no speculative element like what Joy was asking. If we develop into a data center and wait for customer, it's not possible right now here in this country. We got to work with operator. That's one way. Each of the site has underlying land uses. It's industrial or commercial, and we can explore other facilities. There's other uses for that site now.
Okay. Got it. Yeah. Thank you.
Okay, thank you, Dale. If there are no questions from the audience, perhaps we can just move to two questions online. We are almost on the hour. I think these are the final two questions. The first one is, what is our headroom for development or redevelopment in view of the development caps for REITs?
I'll take this question. Currently we are using about 5% of our development limit. I think once Juno achieve the TOP, that will drop to about less than 4%. There's definitely enough headroom for development opportunities.
Thank you, Lee Sze. How about we go to the final question, which is, how does CLAR see the Johor-Singapore SEZ as competition to Singapore's business parks and logistics assets? Will CLAR be looking for redevelopment opportunities in Johor?
Thank you for that question. I think we look at it as both. Yes, you see there is some competition. I think it's probably healthy for us as well. It opens up new opportunities for new FDIs. I think Singapore continue to be a high cost of investment for many investors and FDIs who are considering Singapore as a destination of their manufacturing. If we can have access into Johor SEZ, I think we can then look at investments, not just typically in your tier 1 in the industries, probably your top 3 or 5 in the industries. I believe the EDB will probably look at more than that. The EDB has delivered all the FDI targets in the past years. At a peak, they were delivering SGD 22 billion of investment into Singapore.
I think with this additional resource of SEZ, I think that will be beneficial for the country as well as Johor. Logistics, that actually is uncertain. Why I say that is because if the challenge, if it's seamless, I think companies or investors will look at whether logistics will be in Johor, will be alternative to Singapore. We do not know whether the movement of goods will be seamless. If it's so, it just allow maybe a reclassification or in terms of their trade flows or their cargo flows. In the past we have seen some of those that has been stored up in Johor, has been cargos that is not time sensitive. It has happened in the past. I think it will continue to be so. Less time sensitive will be in further location. Singapore is small, as we have mentioned previously.
We like last mile location. I think if that happens, Singapore will become a last mile, and because of access to ports, I think it will continue to be a prime location for logistics, and we think that that actually be helpful for us. Perhaps, with better asset, we can capture all this demand that can stay in Singapore. I think there is opportunity and competition. We will still continue to monitor and see where this bring us to.
Okay. With that, we have come to the end of the briefing. Thank you everyone for joining us online as well as physically. We wish you a good evening ahead.
Thank you. Happy New Year. I wish to thank the REIT managers, staff, asset managers, property managers, and our leasing staff, who have delivered this beautiful set of operational metrics. Thank you.