Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, friends from the media, analysts, bankers, investors, and fellow CDL colleagues. My name is Belinda, and I am the Head of Investor Relations and Corporate Communications at CDL. As we are still within the Chinese New Year celebration period, I take this opportunity to wish everyone in this room a happy, healthy, and prosperous year ahead [Non-English content]. On behalf of the CDL management, welcome to CDL's briefing on its unaudited financial results for the full year ended 31st December 2025. This is a hybrid briefing format with both in-person here at the M Hotel Singapore, and those joining us live on webcast and joining us virtually. Thank you all for being here with us this morning. For today's briefing, in line with CDL's environmental sustainability conviction, we will not be providing printed materials.
Instead, please scan the QR code on the screen to download or view the following documents that were uploaded to SGXNet, as well as our website before trading this morning. On this website, you will find a copy of the detailed financial statement, a press release summarizing the key highlights of our FY 2025 performance, a presentation deck that the management team will be using in a very short while. For all our guests joining us live on webcast, you will similarly be able to download these documents which are available on CDL website. I would like to introduce to you our CDL management panel. In the center, we have our Executive Chairman, Mr. Kwek Leng Beng. On his right, we have Mr. Sherman Kwek, our Group CEO. On Chairman's left is Mr. Kwek Eik Sheng, our Group Chief Operating Officer.
On his left, Mr. Chia Ngiang Hong, our Group General Manager. Nearest to me, Ms. Yiong Yim Ming, Group Chief Financial Officer. The format of today's briefing will be in two parts. We will kick off with a presentation of some of the key highlights of our performance, followed later by a Q&A session with our panelists. Without further ado, I would like to invite Mr. Sherman Kwek, our Group CEO, to kick start the presentation. Sherman, please.
G ood morning, everyone. Good to see you here again. Feels like the last analyst briefing was a long time ago, but really it is every six months. Yeah, happy to be here, albeit every year I see you, I have less hair. Good to see you all. This year, obviously, we are going to have more positive and upbeat results to report. We started off with a slide that shows you, I think, the key achievements that we did last year. As we committed to everyone, we were going to accelerate our capital recycling. We are happy to announce that we have achieved SGD 2 billion in divestments. We were very selective in our acquisitions. Really what we invested were in three GLS sites in Singapore, as well as a hotel in London, in Kensington.
At the same time, you can see that last year was a very strong year for us in the Singapore local market. In terms of residential sales value, we achieved SGD 4.35 billion, which is the highest in our group's 63-year history. We are really pleased with that. The 1,657 number includes ECs as well. If we use the corresponding number released by the URA including ECs, it is about a 13% market share. Actually, it would be higher if we excluded ECs, because last year we sold more non-ECs. Last year was good to see that the market came back with more stability and strength. Last year the total developer new home sales was about 10,800, with a modest price increase of 3.3%. This has really outpaced the three years preceding that, where annual volume is about 6,000-7,000.
Of course, the high was in 2021, when we saw about 13,000 new home sales, and a price growth of close to 11%. Actually, we like that. We think that that is a sign of a more stable, healthy market where moderate price growth, but the volumes have really come back. We have also seen that the core central region, the CCR, has also come back in favor. There were a couple of years where really the RCR and the OCR were getting all of the action. But last year it was good to see that the CCR was finding favor again. I think it is a change in lifestyle. Of course, whichever region you are talking about, the bulk of the buyers tend to be Singaporeans, majority Singaporeans or PRs. So there is a very small percentage of foreigners buying.
The same with Newport Residences as well, which I will profile later. Across our commercial portfolio, you can see that Singapore office, Singapore retail, and of course our also sizable U.K. commercial, which is the three commercial buildings we have there, are all showing very stable and strong occupancies. Our hotels managed to eke out a slightly higher RevPAR, even though globally the performance was quite mixed last year. In terms of our FY 2025 financial highlights, we have revenue of SGD 3.6 billion, which was a 9.7% increase from the year before. Obviously, we have a really nice PATMI of around SGD 630 million, up over 200%. PATMI would have been higher, so-called even closer to SGD 800 million, if not for the fact that we thought it would be a prudent time to do some impairments.
We did SGD 155 million of impairments and foreseeable losses, mainly for our two China commercial properties. One was Shenzhen, which is a business park, and business parks are primarily office in nature. So the commercial market is really struggling very badly in China, which should not come as any surprise to all of you. The other one is also for a commercial complex in Shanghai. So that was a bit of a pity. Otherwise, we really could have reported an even stronger set of results. Nonetheless, we are still happy at where we have arrived at. You will see that actually the gap between our NAV and our, well, I will use the RRNAV, the one where you fair value IPs and hotels, is narrowing. Despite the fact that we did a lot of capital recycling last year and had contracted divestments of SGD 2 billion.
NAV has gone up because as we sell, and especially above book value, we are really crystallizing a lot of value. Obviously, that goes into retained earnings, which drives up the NAV. We are really glad to see us narrowing this gap and unlocking the value. As some of you would have seen this morning when we released our results, hopefully the dividend comes as a welcome news to our shareholders. We proposed a final ordinary dividend of SGD 0.25. Added to the three that we paid in the interim, it is SGD 0.28, which is a 40% payout ratio. At the same time, we have also committed to a new dividend policy. In the past it was while as management, we had always articulated that we would try to pay out a third every year, but it was really never formalized in our policy.
We thought, I think it would be a good thing to really show our commitment to sustainable shareholder returns. We will pay a minimum of 35% of reported PATMI every year. Share price last year really has rebounded nicely. Of course, we had some of our own internal issues earlier part of the last year, but we are glad that we managed to get them resolved. Despite the macroeconomic challenges, we pushed forward. Global portfolio. Obviously, the one worth looking at is the bottom line, because that is where we fair value. You get a full sense of our assets line. Singapore as always makes up around half of our asset base, with the rest spread towards U.K., China, and others.
As mentioned earlier, we really strove hard to ensure that we recycle capital at a higher pace, especially since we wanted to try to bring our gearing down. Gearing did go up in the end because we ended up winning more GLS in Singapore than we expected. Of course, we had that hotel acquisition. All in all, gearing is at a manageable level. We will target in the midterm towards bringing it down in a very significant manner. Just to give you a snapshot of the last couple of years, from 2023 to 2025, what our capital recycling focus has been like. Most years, the blue bar, the investments acquisitions will usually surpass the yellow bar. Last year we were fortunate, where the gold bar actually was higher. Again, that was because of our efforts to accelerate our recycling.
Two things I want to mention here. One, some of you would have heard me say this before, is that the gold bar includes all the land we buy in Singapore. Obviously, when we develop into residential and sell the individual units, that is not in the blue bar. Okay? It is a bit of a mismatch, and it works against us in a way, but it is a way to be very disciplined. Okay? The second thing to mention is that sometimes you will see in our results financially, in our accounting, there may be some difference in terms of when the acquisitions or the divestments happen, but we do not double count. An example is Xintiandi, right? We signed the land tender with the government and were awarded the land in December 2024, but we only made payment in January. Right?
I count that in our acquisitions in 2024. Cash-wise, the cash only left our balance sheet, and therefore financially P&L-wise, it is shown in 2025. Likewise, last year, as you know, we announced a bevy of divestments. All were completed in 2025 except for Quayside Isle in Sentosa. When the deal goes hard, when I sign and it goes hard, we show it as a divestment. That was in December last year, just three months ago. We actually completed in February. Again, a bit of this accounting mismatch, but as I said, we do not double count. We show that strictly in the year that we announce it, that that is the year that it gets shown at, but sometimes on a P&L it may be a bit different. This is our Singapore residential launch pipeline.
I am really happy that we have a launch pipeline of 1,820. We look forward to hopefully replenishing a little bit more land this year, even though we are very fortunate to have won one of the first few GLS tenders of the year, which is Tanjong Rhu, which is an amazing location, and we are very excited to unveil our project there. That is a 90/10 JV with our main contractor, Woh Hup. As you all know, the other sites were acquired last year, which is Woodlands Drive 17, Senja Close, and Lakeside. Lakeside will be launching in the second half of this year. You can also see some of the launches on the right-hand side that we had launched two last year, one this year, one was The Orie in Toa Payoh, and that has done really well above our expectations.
There is Zyon Grand, which also did really well. I was very relieved and pleased to see that. Of course, Newport, which thankfully has also done well, which we launched in January. This is Newport Residences. This is part of a mixed-use complex. It used to be the Fuji Xerox Towers, so revamping it into residential at the top, service apartments in the middle, and office in the lower third of it. It is freehold, and really glad that I think we have achieved good sales. The average pricing that we have achieved so far, I know there has been a bit of confusion in market, because the SGD 3,370 psf was actually what we have priced it at and target to achieve for the whole project. Currently, it is around SGD 3,200, thereabout. That is the actual pricing.
I am sorry if there was a bit of confusion in the way we wrote the news release. I am really excited about this project. We really designed it to be a super luxury, ultra-luxury residence. Of course, I am still waiting for that unique buyer to contact us to buy that very special penthouse unit, that 13,000 sq ft, single-story penthouse unit with dedicated lift just for that unit and dedicated car parks as well. Hopefully we will secure that buyer in the course of the next few months. Then there is our commercial property, which our commercial properties in Singapore have been very resilient. The last couple of years, the office and retail markets have been very stable, both from a rental and occupancy perspective. So good to see that our buildings are doing well as well.
One big news was the strong pre-leasing commitment that we did at Union Square Central, which is the former Central Mall. We bought Central Square next door from Far East Hospitality Trust, amalgamated. It was total of three sites, amalgamated it together, and developing this new mixed-use development that is going to be very exciting when it is done. The office component, we have leased out 52% to a single tenant, a government agency. Really happy with it for a very long lease. The project will only complete in around 2029, so a couple more years to go. We have also driven AEIs. As you all remember, in 2018, we did the AEI for Republic Plaza Tower 1. Including the lobby and everything, that was really big works. That took us 18 months, and around SGD 60 million to get that AEI done.
That was a very tough effort. Really happy. We have seen very positive rental reversions after doing that. We thought we cannot leave out its smaller sibling, which is Republic Plaza Tower 2. We have done that now and more or less completed the AEI, just progressively doing the lift modernization. Really happy with that too and committed occupancy is 100%. There is City Square Mall, where we also went through a big AEI. I hope some of you have been to see it since we have completed. Very excited with the mall and how it looks now, and it seems to have received a very positive feedback from all the visitors. Global hotel portfolio, and we continue, I think to look towards refurbishing some of our hotels that are located in strong locations, so that we can continue to optimize our portfolio.
We have M Social Resort Penang as well as M Social Hotel New York Downtown, both of which used to be branded Millennium. These are the hotels. Of course, we have an ongoing development in Sunnyvale, which is in California, and that is for a 263-room hotel as well as we are currently undergoing the AEI for this Millennium Hotel that we have in Knightsbridge on Sloane Street. Global living sector portfolio, it has gone down slightly because we did sell off our Sunnyvale PRS. The Sunnyvale multifamily asset. It is around SGD 3.7 billion now versus SGD 3.9 billion before in Singaporean dollars. It is still a sizable portfolio. I have to admit, we have not monetized it as fast as we should have. Really, us building up this was firstly, a diversification for CDL other than doing our usual residential for sale and offices and retail for lease.
The living sector is something that we really believe in, and it is something that plays up to our expertise of development, property development, asset management, as well as hospitality service. We really focused on investing in this sector over the last couple of years and have built it to, actually, I would say a very good scale. There are many assets in there that are performing very well. We did this not only to enhance recurring income and diverse asset class, but really was also to seed our fund management. I have to admit, the fund management efforts have been slower than we would have liked. We are very focused on that. This year, I hope to really accelerate that, so I can come back with good news to you by the time the half-year results swing around.
But it is a very good and nice portfolio for us. Lots in there that we can play around with from a private and a public markets perspective. I thought I would just put up this slide also because I realized that in reading the analyst research reports many of you occasionally will write about these sites. Yes, this is what we call legacy. It is not super old, but it is from acquired between 2013 - 2017. Okay? There is an external development manager that is managing all these projects. We have to say that this portfolio has underperformed, therefore we endeavor to recycle this as quickly as we can. You will see that we have sold Ransomes Wharf. We did that at the end of 2024. We are happy. That was sold for about GBP 70 million.
Then, of course, Sydney Street was a development where it is nine units. We have gradually sold that. All those nine units are sold out. But there are all these other sites that we have to clear out, right? There is Pavilion Road, which is currently operating as a car park. That one should give us very strong gains because we are receiving a lot of very outsized offers for that property. It is very near to Harrods. Then there is Stag Brewery, which is a 1 million square feet of land development in Richmond, in London. Stag Brewery is formerly the site of this brewery operations, hence it is called Stag Brewery. It is in Mortlake, Richmond. This one, as you all would have seen in the news as well, last year in 2025, we finally got planning approval after 10 years.
Now that we got the planning approval, definitely we do not want to build it out, so we are going to move to see how we can monetize this as quickly as we can. Development House is actually an office building that has permits for redevelopment. But we are assessing again how best to unlock value there. Teddington Riverside is a bit sad. It was a land that we bought, then we actually have built out and completed the buildings with a total of 224 residential units, but unfortunately, 148 remain unsold. So it is something that we really have to accelerate more. Some things we are looking at are potential bulk sales of the units to buyers that may be interested. Then there is lastly is Chesham.
Chesham Street is a very upmarket place in Belgravia, but it is six units but again, took a very long time and we only sold half of it. Again, all this with Ransomes, it was almost close to a billion. Now it is about Singaporean dollars, it is about SGD 800 million that is sitting on our balance sheet. So this is something that we are very committed to unlocking the value there and monetizing it. I just wanted to flash this up, since I know it has been mentioned quite a few times. I will not spend too much time here. But last year, we were also grateful to have received industry accolades. We did make a sizable donation, us in partnership with our chairman, Kwek Leng Beng. Together, we donated to Singapore Institute of Technology, and there is an administrative building there named in favor of him, in honor of him.
We also launched the CDL EcoTrain at City Square Mall, which has been very popular with a lot of visitors, especially those with interest in sustainability. The rest of the accolades are on the right. As mentioned earlier, we endeavor to give sustainable shareholder returns. These are some of the feedback that we have gotten from investors, which is why is there no clear dividend policy articulated? I think we really discussed it as a management and a board, and we decided that, look, let's really commit to paying minimally 35% based on our reported PATMI. Of course, this year for 2025, we have decided to do 40% payout ratio. I think, yes, there are some companies out there that probably have more aggressive dividend payout ratios, but I think we also need to ensure that we leave some flexibility.
There's always a balancing act between us using the cash to pay down debt or to deploy for new acquisitions and investments. We thought it would give us some flexibility, but at least it's a floor and it's a commitment to our shareholders, and it's something that's sustainable. If I go out announcing some super high number, it may come back to trip me up in the future. We're happy to announce a total dividend of SGD 0.28 for the year, and a record TSR of last year, 62%. Last slide from me before I pass to Yim Ming. We continue to look towards our value creation and our value unlocking. We have to continue to drive forward with our capital recycling. As I've mentioned to you all before, this is not a one-off that we're going to do for one year or two years.
From now on, capital recycling is to be as much a part of our business as property development and asset management. We don't just develop properties to sell or manage our office and retail portfolio. We're also in the business of investment. Things like our Osaka hotel. We buy it, and two years later we sell it for 60%- 70% above valuation. That's a sign of a good investor. We will not hesitate to monetize opportunities like that. Capital recycling is business as usual for us and to me, it's core. Okay? Because it's part of what we do. In portfolio optimization, we continue to optimize and see where are the geographies and asset classes we need to be in. Fund management, as I mentioned earlier, is something we do need to pay more attention to and put in more effort into accelerating.
We need to continue to keep our eyes focused on the ROE, although that's more of a mid-term thing, because I need all the other pieces to fall in place and then ROE will take care of itself. Capital management, we are still prudent about managing our cash, our gearing, recurring income. We continue to drive that, and that's been helped also by our living sector portfolio. Diversification is still important. Singapore is an important market to us. It will always remain probably our biggest market, but, we do need to have diversification across geographies and asset classes and of course, sustainability. Something we have to do our part for the world.
I guess before I hand it over to Yim Ming also, I may as well just mention this, since people in the market have gotten wind of it, is that sometime in around September last year, we engaged a global advisory firm to help us do a strategic review of our entire strategy and operations. We are still in the process. The first step that they did was do an investor perception audit, so reached out to a slew of buy side and sell side in order to really get feedback for us. How are we viewed by the market, by shareholders, by investors, by analysts? Where are there perception gaps? This feedback has been extremely helpful and has allowed us to then journey on together with them.
For management and the board to really go on this journey where we want to come up with something that will close this perception gap, and that will give you even better guidance as to where CDL is heading towards and allow you to measure us, and hold us more accountable for what we say we're going to do. We're still in the process, so I cannot talk too much about it. But in terms of timeline, I hope that by no later than the middle of the year, by June. No later than June, I hope we will be able to announce something to everyone. Okay. Thank you very much. On to Yim Ming, and I will field your questions at Q&A later.
Thank you, Sherman. Morning, ladies and gentlemen. I will start off with this chart. So pleased to report there is growth in all three operating segments across all three key metrics, revenue, EBITDA, and PBT, and three is my favorite number. Okay. For revenue, the group reported a 9.7% increase in revenue for FY 2025. This slide shows revenue by each segment. While PD contributes 33% to total revenue in FY 2025, the increase in revenue is actually attributable to this segment, which increased by 24%. The steadfast execution and successful sale launches are commendable, and our Singapore PD segment delivered a stellar performance. Projects that contributed included The Myst, Norwood Grand, and Union Square Residences, as well as the sale of Ransomes Wharf and the office component of Hong Leong City Center in Suzhou.
DPs that are joint ventures are equity accounted for, and the revenue do not include these JV projects. On a like for like basis, the revenue from these JV projects would have contributed SGD 1.8 billion to 2025 revenue. Hotel operations takes up 46% of total revenue and increased 1.7% in FY 2025, following a 1.3% increase in RevPAR. The increase in RevPAR is due to Australia and New Zealand portfolio, New York hotels, rest of Europe with the acquisitions of Hilton Paris Opera in May 2024, and Holiday Inn London-Kensington High Street in December 2025. One outstanding hotel is also in U.K., which is our The Biltmore Mayfair. Please go visit there if you visit the U.K. This more than covers the poorer performance in Singapore, where RevPAR decreased 5.5% due to fewer large-scale events, higher room supply, which intensified price competition.
One of the other hotels that we didn't do as well is our Beijing Hotel, which has weaker performance because of the China economy slowdown. For investment properties, the revenue is driven by higher contribution from City Square Mall, as well as Jungceylon Shopping Center in Phuket, following reaping the benefits of our AEI programs. On EBITDA stands at SGD 1.5 billion for FY 2025, 43% higher than 2024. EBITDA demonstrates strong cash generation and is one focus area we look at very closely. Our target is typically a SGD 1 billion annual EBITDA for healthy cash generation. This outperformance SGD 1.5 billion EBITDA was due to our capital recycling gains. PD, property development EBITDA increased 81% to SGD 261 million for 2025.
Other than the projects earlier mentioned for revenue contributors, the other JV projects that contributed to EBITDA included the fully sold EC Copen Grand, which obtained TOP this year, Canninghill Piers, The Orie, Kassia, as well as Tembusu Grand. For FY 2025, Sherman mentioned we made SGD 80.5 million of foreseeable losses. For hotel operations, EBITDA increased 35% for FY 2025. This EBITDA included capital recycling gains from JW Marriott and Comfort Inn. Excluding such capital recycling gains and impairment write-backs, hotel operations EBITDA dropped slightly by about 5% with cost pressures as GOP margins fell 1.4% due to weaker performance, largely in Singapore and rest of Asia. For investment properties, they are the biggest contributor to EBITDA, contributing 46% of total EBITDA.
This segment saw substantial capital recycling gains offset by impairment losses relating to two commercial properties in China, one of which is slated for sale and has been transferred to asset held for sale. Notwithstanding, our resilient performance of our commercial properties and the growing living sector reflected about 8% of performance in this asset performance. Next, we'll move on to PBT by segment. The explanations are largely similar to EBITDA earlier. PBT more than doubled to SGD 772 million. Once again, investment properties is the biggest contributor, and all three segments reported improvements in PBT versus FY 2024. This jump is big. For hotel and investment properties, they improved by 33% and 145% respectively. Property development improved multiple folds. This is due to the fact that profits from property development is lumpy in nature.
In last year, there was no EC TOP, there was high financing cost, and there was construction delays. 2025, we have a TOP for one of the EC, as well as very good construction progress and a softer financing environment. PBT is impacted by financing costs. On financing costs, our gross interest expense has decreased by 12% to SGD 520 million. We hope to see this trend further down in 2026. Sounds like broken record. We depreciate our investment properties. In challenging circumstances like today, where we encounter valuation headwinds, I think this conservative accounting policy of depreciating does manifest in its benefits. On capital management, continue to be, have strong and robust fundamentals. We have a balanced debt expiry and currency profiles. For bonds that expiry in 2026, we will look to issue new bonds. Gearing at 71%, vis-a-vis last year at 69%.
So we mentioned other than the SGD 1.7 billion acquisitions for three GLS and the hotel, we also paid for Singapore Institute of Technology site, as well as CapEx on our investment properties. This is offset by our recycling efforts of SGD 2 billion that Sherman mentioned earlier. Cash of SGD 2.1 billion with uncommitted, undrawn credit facilities of SGD 4.2 billion. Very, very strong position. But if you wonder why is the cash drop from SGD 3.1 billion to SGD 2.1 billion, it is because we have set aside money in December 2025 to pay for Singapore Institute of Technology. So interest cover also improved to 3.6 x on the back of stronger EBITDA. So for fixed debt, we are at 44% down. 70% of Singapore debt is actually fixed, and 11% of GBP debt is fixed. So this puts us in an advantageous position. We are able to seize better opportunities or rate cuts by the Bank of England.
Average borrowing cost went down nicely to 3.7%. My last slide for FX risk. We do not take speculative position. We do a lot of natural hedging, so we are very comfortable with a 77% natural hedge. I think if one were to ask, why is the renminbi hedge a little bit low? We all know that we cannot borrow for land in China, which is why there is a slightly bigger exposure for renminbi. Other than that, we acknowledge there are challenges in USD currency. There is volatility, but we are managing it. It is definitely within our risk tolerance levels as well. With that, I hand over back to Belinda.
Thank you very much, Sherman and Yim Ming for the presentation. We would like to move to the second part of today's briefing, which is on the Q&A. Please feel free to ask your questions, and my colleagues are standing around the room with microphones, and if you have any queries, I see a hand. Please raise your hands and they will come to you. But for those who are joining us on webcast, you may pose your questions by clicking on the question tab. Before asking your questions, may we please request that you introduce yourself and the organization that you represent. Okay. I am going to just go straight into opening up the floor. Okay. Wow. Okay, I have everybody here first. I will just go down to the first row first, and I will go to the second row. Maybe we will take with Mervin first. Yeah.
Hi. Mervin from JP Morgan. Congrats on the strong results and strong share price performance, which I think reflects the market's confidence in your leadership, Sherman. Two questions from me. Obviously, I am sure you receive a lot of feedback from investors in terms of how we can maximize value, improve operations. Is there any particular feedback that resonates with you the most? Where is the main perception gaps? Second question is on cost of debt. Significant drop to 3.7%. Any guidance for this year? If you were to sell your U.K. assets, the SGD 800 million, how much is the current U.K. debt at this point in time? Thanks.
Thank you, Mervin, and appreciate the kind and encouraging comments. We received a lot of very detailed feedback, which was extremely helpful and some from the analysts seated in this room, those whom the firm picked. There were many more gaps, perception gaps than we realized. I think certainly one of the things we look towards doing is right-sizing our portfolio as well as ensuring that we retweak our so-called capital allocation priorities from a geography and an asset class perspective. That's something we're still in discussion. There may be some changes that may be coming up. Also, of course, I think one of the things that came through very strongly from this exercise was on the disclosure side.
While I think I've traditionally viewed us as a company with pretty good disclosure, I think we've been pretty open and transparent about all of our activities and our results and the things we are doing and our strategic priorities. Certainly one thing that we could do better, I think, is to provide more signposts, more way finding for investors to show them how we're going to progress forward in the next couple of years, so that they can really figure out for themselves if CDL executes on everything that they have laid out. Okay, what will the CDL of three years or five years from now, what would that look like? Do I like what that looks like, right? So that can also form part of an investor's so-called determination of whether to invest in our stock.
I think that's the fair thing to do, is to provide a stronger guidance and more concrete numbers behind it. So these are the things that we got out from it. Yes, on a more micro level on strategy side, there are also quite a few things of feedback that I think we take very seriously. Obviously, we can't talk too much about it right now, but it will probably involve rebalancing some of our portfolio too. Second one, I think Yim Ming you can take. You want to use mine?
Sorry. For cost of debt guidance, I don't expect anything more than 3.5%, and that's probably conservative. For U.K. debt portfolio, we do central treasury, as you have said many times. We will obviously, unless we have some good investments, we'll obviously go towards reducing that in entirety.
Okay, on the first row, maybe [Derek] take yours and then I'll move to second row.
Thanks for your opportunity. I guess just on the results itself, there's good record PATMI, but just a bit of noise over there. If you strip out all the one-offs investments, impairments, et cetera, what is the core PATMI that we are looking at? That's the first question.
Okay. [Derek], good morning. Before I let Yim Ming answer that, I just want to emphasize again, which I had mentioned just now. I don't think it's appropriate to look at these so-called capital recycling activities as a one-off, because firstly, as I mentioned, it's going to be business as usual for us going forward. So aside from developing property and managing our office and retail, if I invest well in something and I sell it two years later for a big profit, that doesn't count towards my earnings. As I said, CDL is also an astute investor. Yes, we've had some missteps over the years, but generally, I think we've done well on our investment. So I think we really shouldn't keep seeing that as non-core. Likewise, on the flip side, right?
If I invest in a commercial property in China and it does really badly, and I take impairments and write-downs, that should be held against me. We should be held as a management team accountable for what we've done, right? If we keep stripping off all these one-offs, right? Then it'll be very easy. I'll just focus on doing property development and everything else is non-core, right? Again, I would be careful about how we use that term, but I get where you're coming from. So maybe I'll let Yim Ming answer that.
Sorry. It does not like the question, clearly. Yeah. Having said that, yeah. We report about over SGD 630 million of PATMI. If I were to exclude the investments as well as impairment losses, which we have made substantially, it is probably in the range of 100. As we mentioned, from a management perspective, we do not look at that as a key performance measure. We really look at EBITDA, and we look at reported PATMI and ROE. I guess that probably contextualizes how we look at things as well.
Yeah, that is fair enough. To your point as well, you are going to link dividend payouts through reported PATMI also. I guess with you going forward, you alluded to more corporate governance as well. Would you, I guess, formalize the divestment targets in your outlook?
Yeah.
Both of them.
Capital allocation as well as divestment targets are part of this internal strategic review that management and the board is going through with this advisory firm. Therefore, we are excited by mid-year to hopefully announce something that will be well-received by shareholders and investors.
Okay. Just one last question, if I may, on the U.K. development, U.K. legacy platform, SGD 800 million. Mortlake Stag Brewery is in there as well. Can we just take it that you are planning to divest it entirely?
Short answer, yes, [Derek]. The intention is to divest that whole portfolio. We are working on it. Some of that stuff, as I said, one has already divested the site for GBP 70 million, Ransomes Wharf. We will accelerate the so-called monetization of this portfolio this year. Certainly, we want to accelerate this faster.
Okay. Let me just move to second row. Xuan, maybe you go first, and then I will move down. Thank you.
Hi, this is Xuan from Goldman. Just to follow up on dividends. The SGD 0.25 is seen as ordinary, and is that the absolute level that you will keep going forward? That actually implies SGD 220 million, which is above your core PATMI. The second question is then on divestment. Is that also your underwriting assumption, that there will be a minimum level of divestment gain going forward?
Morning, Xuan. Sorry, what was asking about? Just for a second blacked out. It was about the dividend. Sorry. Sorry, Xuan. I was thinking about your second question, and then I suddenly forgot the first one.
The second dividend of SGD 0.25.
Yeah. Okay. So the final dividend is SGD 0.25, but added to the interim is three, right? So it is SGD 0.28 for the year. So a 40% payout ratio. And you are asking?
Most companies will keep the ordinary flat.
Right.
That means if, let's say my model is SGD 0.25—
Okay. Got it. Sorry, Xuan. I went through one of those moments where I was thinking about something else. In the past, CDL had this habit of declaring a lot of so-called special dividends. Our interim is special. There is a special final and an ordinary final. I think we discussed it at length at the board yesterday, and management's recommendation is to probably do away with this terminology of special. It is really not that special. We have committed to it now in our dividend policy of a minimum of 35% or more. I think anything within that range should not be considered special. It is something that we have committed to doing, so it is an ordinary dividend. If we were to do some outsized dividends, we will call it special then. But that remains to be seen.
It depends how we execute, how well and how fast we execute our activities. Unlike another developer who has made a bold announcement, I will not be pegging our dividend to the gross divestment value or something. But again, our reported PATMI captures all that in. So I think that is a very fair metric to use when we have pegged our dividend policy to it. The second part was, since I was still in twilight zone just now. So I have answered that as well, right? Okay.
Okay. Sorry. My second question is on NAV and RNAV. If I compare these two number against 2019 number, NAV has declined 9%, but RNAV is up, I think about 9% against 2019. Can you help us to reconcile this number? What are the assets that has been revalued up so significantly? Just one last question on net gearing. If I look at your net gearing, it is actually trending up. This goes against what you mentioned earlier about mid-term de-leveraging plans. So can you share what are the near-term goals over the next 12 months? Thank you.
Okay. I will take the gearing question, then I will pass it to Yim Ming. Thank you, Xuan. For the gearing, as mentioned earlier, we were fortunate to have won more GLS sites than we expected. Three last year, and land is not exactly cheap in Singapore. The good thing is that all this gearing is on your balance sheet for a finite time. As you develop, this gearing will start to progressively go down anyway. We do not see it as something alarming. Yes, that hotel acquisition at the end of last year, about SGD 480 million, that certainly pushed up our gearing by quite a bit, around 3 percentage points. Putting that aside, as you yourself mentioned, Xuan, it is a mid-term target.
I know I did say that we want to get the gearing down, but ultimately, I also do not want us to be too fixated on the gearing, because I think every property developer is different. Yes, there are Hong Kong property developers where gearing is in the teens or the twenties. But different strokes for different folks, I suppose. For us, our mid-term target is to get the gearing down to at least around 60%. In the interim, I do not want to just because of gearing, then okay, let us not tender for land in Singapore. Let us not buy anything else. We will just keep divesting. I think that will do a great disservice to our growth strategy because no matter what, we still need to keep growing. The gearing will come down over the next few years. That is certainly a commitment I have made.
Yes, it did actually track up. I do understand the rationale for your question. Yeah, thankfully not by a lot. It will start to trickle down as we progress further with our capital recycling and continue to be selective about the acquisitions we make. Yim Ming, you want to address the NAV?
You are really sharp. The NAV for IP, if you notice, right? The NAV for IP has just gone up slightly, largely because of our China portfolio. If you look at valuations wise for our two China portfolios, for our China commercial properties, valuation has actually come in probably in the range about at least 10% lower than the previous year. That probably accounted for that. Overall, our NAV has gone up, I think largely also because of South Beach. Very frankly, that has improved our base NAV for one, and our hotels valuations are actually coming also a little bit better this year versus last year. If I can just add on the NAV, I know it is a key focus that many people look at, whether this number is real.
I just wanted to assure the audience that for these NAV calculations, firstly, for the IP portions, they are mostly externally valued. While we do not announce all the valuation reports because we are not a REIT, they are either, for the Singapore properties, they are actually mostly external value. All overseas properties are actually also externally valued. We use people like Cushman, et cetera. As for the hotels, after we privatized M&C in 2019, we had the ability to value all the hotels. While the hotels valuations are not the most recent, in 2020, we did do a cleanup, about 90% of our hotel portfolio. Progressively we just keep doing valuations. Suffice to say that I think the valuations number, we stand by it. Basically it is supported by mostly external valuations.
Thank you. Congrats. Joy from HSBC. Just following up on Xuan's question on dividend. Given that the PATMI can be quite volatile depending on recognition and divestment, how much would you want to keep your dividend more volatile, or you want dividend to be a bit more stable? How should we think about the linkage to PATMI itself? Second question, just in terms of divestment targets. You singled out U.K. portfolio for potential divestment. Is there any other obvious segments that you want to divest? Thank you.
On your first question, Joy, good morning, by the way. Welcome. On your first question, because the dividend policy is pegged to reported PATMI, it is something that we will have to endeavor to try to keep it as stable as possible. Yes, last year, 2025, was a record year. We are going to have to work very hard to try to keep the levels up. That is why I said this capital recycling has to be part of our business as usual, and it cannot just be a one-off. The good thing is that we have a sizable portfolio, and we continue to invest as well, right? As I said, the Osaka is one example. The hotel, Bespoke Hotel Shinsaibashi, that was two years ago, and now we have monetized that. It is something that we will have to continue doing.
There are various levers we can pull to get this done. Yes, it is work in progress for us. You will see that at the end of my presentation, I have that slide with all the nice bubbles around it. One of them is recurring income, right? It is also a key focus for us, and that is why the living sector has played a strong role too, albeit it is also a seed for fund management ambitions. Because property development is very lumpy, right? With the exception of Singapore where it is progressive, and other than ECs. All of our overseas development revenue comes as a one-shot at the end, just like ECs, right? This causes a lot of lumpiness in our earnings, and therefore, we do need a lot of strong recurring income to hold that up too.
And of course, we have to be careful how we invest because impairments and provisions for foreseeable losses can also take a hit on the PATMI, right? So ultimately, it is a tough job for management, but we are committed to making this happen. And yes, in the medium term, we hope to really even out so that it's a stable and growing PATMI. So that's one. The second thing is in terms of divestments. You mentioned about the U.K. development legacy land bank. Of course, we also mentioned about the China commercial properties that we would hope to clear off our balance sheet. And aside from that, yes, there are many other divestments in the pipeline. We don't typically share our divestments, but I can only tell you that it's across geographies and across asset classes. And it would include Singapore as well.
So yeah, various initiatives that we're pushing forward with. Thank you, Joy.
Okay.
Glad I wasn't in the twilight zone for that question.
Okay. I'm just going to move down quickly this row first, and complete this row. Derek, then after that, Brandon, and after Terence. We'll see. Yeah. Okay.
Good morning. Derek from DBS. I got two questions. My first question is on the relationship with the board. As we look to focus on 2026, your strategies, divest, invest, could we assume that relationship between management and board, you are like hand in glove in terms of wanting to take the company forward? I just wanted to hear your thoughts on that. The second thing is on the land banking. We have been seeing how foreign developers coming in also in Singapore. I think while the group has been participating very actively, I am just wondering whether, are you sensing exuberance in the pricing in the market currently? If any, how should we think about you adding more land in 2026? That is all. Thanks.
Thanks, Derek. Went straight for the hitting the nail on the head with that first question. Yes, relationship is very cordial and very harmonious right now amongst management and together with the board. I do understand the basis for your question. Last year, we did have some internal issues and of course some kind of unsightly public disputes. But glad to say that is behind us now. As a management and board, we are trying to really move forward expeditiously so that we can really unlock more value from CDL at a quicker pace. That is one. In terms of land banking, the truth is, Derek, this is not the first time we are seeing it. Over the years, there have been some exuberant years where you see a lot of foreign developers come into the market as well.
There was a time when I remember all these Chinese developers, Vanke, or they were all coming into our market to also bid, right? Of course, many contractors have also now become developers themselves. It is nothing different from what we have seen, I would say, over the last decade or two. Land tenders are always competitive, especially if it is a nice plot of land. You are never going to escape with a very low or attractive land price. I think it is always going to be competitive. I think we have to be just disciplined in how we bid and put our best shot forward. Winning the Tanjong Rhu site does take some pressure off us, because at least we have already got one land replenishment done. We will certainly take part in more land tenders this year.
But, of course, I also have mentioned before that I do not want us to get to the point where we are overly burdened by a very huge pipeline in Singapore. Should something change, be it locally, i.e., property measures or in terms of the global macroeconomic conditions, that may severely change the market dynamics and may leave us struggling with a larger burden than we would like. I think we would like to just keep our land bank, we will replenish it in a prudent manner. But I think we would like to keep it at sustainable levels that will not put undue pressure on the company. But certainly, we are glad to have won Tanjong Rhu, and we will continue to participate in more tenders this year.
Sorry, Sherman. On that same topic, we have a question from [Gula] online. On that same topic, she was asking about capital allocation and dep forces. Would you say that your capital allocation will largely be with the Singapore land banking, or will it be other asset classes?
Yeah. Again, as the last two years, it was accidental initially. But since 2024 and 2025, I've kind of given out divestment targets. You'll notice that annual divestment targets, you notice I didn't do it today because, again, I'd like to have this strategic review properly done, and then we'll give out proper targets then. Not just for divestments, but also for capital allocation, for capital deployment. Yeah.
Okay. [Brandon].
Hey, morning, Sherman and team. Just three questions. The first one, are you able to share a bit more on your hotel strategy as of now? I think we have seen you divesting a pretty decent Japan hotel at very good premium. Subsequently, you bought something very nice in London. So is there a particular strategy? Are you looking at probably percentage that you're going to sell, percentage you're looking to manage under maybe Leng's and M&C, and percentage you're looking to manage under third party? Yeah, that's my first question. The second question will be a bit more on the U.K. development platform. So just to confirm, right? If you were to sell the entire GBP 800 million, will it be recognized under revenue? Or you would recognize sort of a divestment gain or slash loss below the gross profit level? Yeah, that's my second question.
The third one would also be a bit on divestment. We have seen you divesting very big number in FY 2022 and 2025 as well with MHS and South Beach. For this year, are there any really chunky stuff that we could see you divesting or maybe something like City Square Mall or even some decent hotels in U.K. or in New York? Yeah, thanks.
Why don't you take the U.K. development platform?
I'll do the easiest one, obviously. For the U.K. development platform, our original genesis of going in was actually for development sites. Yes, it's part of our development property will be recorded under revenue, not under other income.
Yes, can do the hotel.
I think on the hotel one, of course, we do have a review of that as well, ongoing. As you can see, it is not just non-core hotels that we are selling. Sometimes it is also about getting the right offer, and if we think it is attractive enough, we are open to divesting. We do have two hats. One is the operator, and the other, of course, is the asset owner. We do have a twin strategy, and I think as the operator, we ideally want to have more hotel contracts, especially in Gateway City Hotels. Today we are we are pleased with what we have in terms of where we are represented across different geographies, which is very useful in terms of having such a volatility in the markets.
One market is down, usually another market ticks up the spike as well. We definitely want to continue that kind of diversification. At the same time, I think where we are going is that it does not necessarily need to be an asset that we must hold ourselves. On the operator side, I think we are also trying to get ourselves structured for more hotel management contracts, and try to grow more through that route as well. If you ask me where we can split between the internal and external one, today, I think of course it is majority internal. We have a few external contracts, but those are quite significant ones.
We have external contracts with Grand Hyatt Taipei. In Singapore, the St. Regis Singapore and The Singapore EDITION. I am not able to give you a firm split as to how much we intend to keep in-house and external. Basically, every project we look at, we do decide, is it better managed in-house? Some of the considerations can be how many hotels do we already have in that city? We do take all that into account before we decide whether we want to go external, internal.
Morning, [Brandon]. Welcome, and thank you for your kind comments as well. Just to round up. As mentioned earlier, I cannot share too much about our divestments. Typically, we do not share specific divestment targets. It is interesting you mentioned City Square Mall and all this, so thank you for the ideas. We are taking a very rigorous look, and have been, at our entire portfolio globally, including in Singapore. We hope that the ability to surprise on the upside, after all, I do not think any of you expected us to sell South Beach last year. That does not mean you go and say, "Oh, they are going to sell Republic Plaza or something." That is not going to happen. We are looking, taking a hard look at our whole portfolio. As I mentioned, the divestments will spread across geographies, including Singapore as well as overseas.
So let's see what we come up with. South Beach is a hard act to beat, because it was a big asset. But we are thankful and fortunate to have a diverse portfolio.
Okay. Wilson, and then after that I'll go to Terence and then Vijay. Okay. Wilson.
[Yes. First on the fund management progress, which—]
Sorry.
Hi. Morning. [Wilson] from Jefferies. Just two questions. The first on fund management progress, which Sherman mentioned earlier that he hopes to accelerate. Just, could you share any early thoughts on considerations you have in building out the fund management platform and whether you'd be considering new platforms, existing, public, private? The second question is back to the legacy U.K. development platform, the SGD 800 million worth of carrying value. Sounds like it's being prioritized to recycle as quickly as you can. Would you say it's fair to expect within the next 12- 24 months, this will be totally fully recycled? Thank you.
Somehow, I guess people really want us to commit to certain targets. The reason I am hesitant is because once I throw something out, I do not want to walk back from that. Okay, to address your second question first, Wilson, first of all, good morning. U.K. development platform. My aim is to monetize all of it this year. I will say it is not easy. That is our aim. Let us see if we can hit our own internal targets. For the fund management side, as I mentioned earlier, it is something I really wish we had paid a bit more attention to it and accelerated the efforts there. As you know, the last time we tried was to inject our U.K. properties and IPO it in a REIT list in Singapore. That was a big colossal effort.
When that did not go through, I think we kind of focused on other things, but really it is now time to monetize more of our, for instance, our living sector portfolio of SGD 3.7 billion that I put up earlier. I have to say that it will be mostly in private platforms, private formats. I do not think the capital markets are suitable for some of the assets that we have. For the ones that we wanted to list in a public format, like the three commercial buildings in the U.K., are now still not the right time. I think it will need a while more before the office sector and the capital markets come back in favor. Probably focusing more on the private side now. We do have a lot. We are in a lot of discussions on some of our assets.
Also, as I said, in addition to this, we thankfully do have two public platforms under fund management. One is obviously CDL Hospitality Trust. That we are also looking at how we can be a better sponsor to the REIT. The other is of course, IREIT, also listed on the exchange. These two REITs, we are also paying a lot closer attention to see how we can work better with the REITs.
Okay. I am mindful of time, so I just want to take two more here, and then I have got to move over to the media group. Yeah, maybe [Terence], you can go.
This is [Terence] from UBS. Just in the spirit of clarity, what is the timeline for midterm defined as for ROE and gearing? Relatedly on ROE, I think it is good that you are guiding for PATMI growth and the dividend policy is also welcome as well. But I think the equity denominator would still grow over time by a faster pace, making it harder to grow ROE. Is it fair for us to expect a capital reduction exercise? I mean, Sherman, you mentioned outsized dividend, and specifically also, is that a likely consideration to be in the same time frame as we think about the first question on ROE and net gearing? I have a last one, if I may. Residential, the margins on the consolidated projects look a bit low. I think it is 4.7% versus 10% last year.
The question is why, and perhaps a comment on the recognitions and margins outlook for 2026. Thank you.
I will address your question first, [Terence]. Again, because I want to wait till the proper juncture, when our internal strategic review is completed before I really give you a time frame. But I think you would have heard me in previous analyst briefings, I have thrown out a midterm ROE target of 8%. It is not easy for us to get there, as you have mentioned. The shareholder equity component is very big. Therefore it is something that we will really need to drive our fund management at a faster pace if we aim to get there. That is one way of really lifting our ROE. We do need to be more efficient. I cannot comment on capital reduction, all that at the moment. Margins, you want to talk about it, Yim Ming? No. Sorry.
Yeah, actually for the margins, if you exclude the foreseeable losses that we made for China properties, I need to give credit, our residential margins actually improved between the two years. When they calculated the 4%, I believe that has some factor in the foreseeable losses. That is actually the main reason. I think, in terms of margins, very healthy, I would say. Yeah.
Okay. Thank you. Vijay, the last one. I am going to move over to the media team.
Hi. Morning. Vijay here from RHB. Maybe just two quick questions. Firstly, on Delfi Orchard, there was a plan to unlock value via strategic developments. Maybe any update on that? My second question is, in terms of Singapore residential land banking, I see you are a bit more active in terms of EC sites. Maybe can you give a bit of an idea? Is it a de-risking strategy? Risk versus returns on EC versus private site, some color on that. Thank you.
Sorry. Vijay, did you say unlock strategic divestments?
No. Delfi Orchard, there was a-
Oh, Delfi Orchard. I see.
Oh.
Yeah, Delfi Orchard, Vijay, yeah.
Thank you. Good morning, Vijay. So in terms of your question, the first one about unlocking value, that is one way as well, is by really doing so-called our portfolio optimization. That is the enhancement part, right, of our GET strategy. It is really looking at our existing assets and seeing how we could really enhance and unlock the value there. So, we are doing two redevelopments at the moment. One is, as I mentioned earlier, Newport Plaza, which is the entire complex that used to be Fuji Xerox Towers. The other is Union Square. We will continue to drive forward with this. But at the same time, you also have to understand that I have got to keep our gearing and our cash in mind. If I started all the redevelopment projects at the same time, there is also like we could redevelop City House.
We could apply for a CBD Incentive Scheme of 25% bonus GFA and redevelop that. We can also, as you have mentioned, we unblocked Delfi. It was not a lot of money because we owned a substantial part of it. But if we amalgamated that with Claymore Connect behind Orchard Hotel, that would also become a very sizable mixed-use development. We have already gone some steps along the SDI, the Strategic Development Incentive scheme. But I do not want to start these projects anytime soon because then I will have four ongoing redevelopment projects. Already the existing two will finish in 2028 and 2029. If I top up another two, and I will have loss of income as well when I demolish those buildings, it will put a huge strain on the group.
I think that's something we need to pace out, and I cannot do it all at once. That's one. Sing-Resi, you asked about EC. Yes, EC has certainly been the flavor of the day for the last, I would say 24 months. All developers have gone very aggressive for EC, I think because EC has always been a very attractive product that allows upgraders to eventually get into the private residential market when the EC finishes its minimum occupation period, right, and becomes fully private. It's been great. Then the income ceiling was formally lifted, as you know, from SGD 14,000 to SGD 16,000, and there's been talk about potentially lifting it further.
ECs have really been a very attractive way for upgraders to enter the private market and it's been in high demand, which hence has driven very aggressive bidding in the last two years. We do participate in EC sites as well. We have been fortunate to win EC sites along the way, including two last year. That doesn't mean that's all we look at. As I said, Tanjong Rhu, was a nice win for us, and that's near Kallang and all that. It's a great area to be in. That's not easy. I think we will continue to look at sites that are well located and that have locational attributes that we feel will be very attractive to buyers.
Okay. I'm going to quickly move over to the other side of the room. I see Dexter. Dexter, why don't you take the question from the meeting.
Hi. Good morning, chairman. Dexter from Bloomberg News. Two parts. First question on the U.K. and China. I know you all took a markdown there as well. Can I clarify? If you guys are planning by hook or by crook to sell both the U.K. and China assets, how much discounting are you expecting if you all really want to sell? Because as you mentioned, the capital markets seem to be very soft in those two parts. The second one, you mentioned before you wanted to do a U.K. REIT, and I think you mentioned that just now as well. Is that plan on the shelf for now? In terms of private funds, are you talking about setting up a private fund within CDL?
The third one, in terms of strategic review, is everything on the table, including possible management changes and moving away from any of your core businesses?
Firstly, in terms of our divestments, we will go through meticulously right into our portfolio, especially for our non-core and underperforming assets across all asset classes. Be it residential, commercial, or hospitality, and we will divest assets that make sense. You all remember in 2024, I think we divested a hotel in Boulder, Colorado, right? Not even Denver. It is Boulder. I am not sure how many people even knew we had a hotel in Boulder. And that we divested at a gain of about SGD 80 million. So it is things like that. We look at it fairly and, in some cases, we try to always divest above, obviously, our book value. But it may not always be possible. So, the flip side is looking at if you keep holding onto the asset, how much are you hemorrhaging in terms of the cash?
I mean, is it loss-making? How much debt is on the asset? I mean, the U.K. development portfolio, the legacy portfolio I put up, before we sold Ransomes Wharf, that was around SGD 1 billion. And at the height of the interest rate environment in the U.K., we were paying 6% interest a year on that whole portfolio. So that is a lot of wasted money at SGD 60 million a year. So I think, Ransomes Wharf we divested, and Yim Ming is going to probably punch me once I say this, but that was at a slight loss. It was about GBP 10 million, I think. But you know what? You take the good and the bad. I am removing quite a bit of debt off my balance sheet as well. So as we go forward, we assess each asset on the individual basis. Same with China. Right now is a really bad time.
You have seen other developers that have exposed to China as well. We are still confident in our residential sites, especially our Xintiandi. That should do very, very well, exceptionally well. But, yes, commercial is uninvestable right now in China, so it is going to be challenging for us to divest these. We may have to take some haircuts on it. But if the haircut is too big, the good thing about group is that we do have some holding power as well. As I have always said to you all before, I do not want to divest just for the sake of meeting divestment targets that I have committed to, and leaving lots of money on the table. That is a poorer outcome for CDL if I do that. Secondly, on private funds, you are asking whether the funds would be within CDL.
Well, when I say private funds, I am referring to starting a private equity fund that would involve a third-party capital. CDL may be a part of that capital stack, maybe an investor as well, an LP in the fund, but it would be a small one. We would not exceed 10% or 20% of the fund. We may have to put our money where our mouth is, right, if we are going to start a fund. But it will be largely external funds that we would hope to attract because that is true monetization of the asset, right? If I sell the asset into a fund, and I am 80% of the fund, then what am I doing, right? That is my intention for the fund management side, private funds. Strategic review, does it include management? Thank you for trying to work me out of a job. I appreciate that, Dexter.
Kind soul. But I hope it does not include management. If it does, then I will accept whatever conclusions it comes to. But it does not include reviewing the board or management. This is really focused on our strategy, focused on our guidance, focused on our portfolio and asset base. So things that really matter to CDL. Yes, I understand board and management are important to CDL as well. But that is up to the shareholders to decide.
Okay. Quickly follow up on two things then. Obviously, you said last year was the year of reflection. Looking at the U.K. portfolio, what do you think went wrong there in the first place? Secondly, can I ask since the chairman does have strategic direction for the company, what do you think of the review, and do you have a vision of what the strategy will look like next?
Sorry. Your first question, you asked me what went wrong where?
In the U.K.
The U.K. portfolio.
Oh, the U.K. portfolio.
The high interest rates.
As in the legacy land bank? I think back then, it was before my time as well. It's understandable that we wanted to get into U.K. development market, but we had to get an external manager because we didn't have a team on the ground. That I understand. I think some of the things that went wrong are some of the sites were potentially acquired at above market values. As you know, it always starts with getting a good land price, right? If your land price is wrong, it's quite difficult to catch up subsequently. It's quite challenging to catch up. That's one of them. Secondly, I think some of them, the development manager underestimated the complexity of obtaining development permits as well, which is why the whole process has been so lengthy and drawn out.
I would say, those are some of the lessons learned for CDL as well. Going forward, obviously now we have our own U.K. development team. If we do undertake developments, at least we have our own team on top of it. Although our team is not involved in that, because that one is exclusively under the development of a third-party manager. Again, it's things like that we work towards resolving, and unlocking the value there. Or at least unlocking the capital there, so that we can put it to better use. As I said again, I can pass the mic to our esteemed chairman to answer, but I really don't think it's necessary because at this stage, none of us can comment much on the strategic review. In fact, I probably already said more than I should have said today.
If you want to ask him what does he think of the process, does he like it or not like it? I don't know how he's going to answer that considering we're not supposed to comment on it because it's going to be a very comprehensive review. But as I've answered your question earlier, suffice to say, board and management are not under the review. Yeah. Let us know if you would like us to be under the review as well. I'll put that out for consideration if you don't think we're doing a good job.
Okay, moving right along, because I know that some of you have to go to the REDAS lunch in a short while. Let me just move down to anybody in the-- friends from the media that is over on this side, if there's any questions pertaining to that. No? Then I had one also from [Gula] of The Edge online, which has to do with City Plaza. I'm not sure if Mr. Chia or [Mr. Ng] will want to comment, like what are the chances of that, and also whether you will be-- Given City Plaza recently secured the collective sales mandate, what is the expected proceeds from the potential sale if it does happen?
Well, actually, it is a collective site. I think we are a very small shareholder in the complex. They managed to get 80% this time around. I believe there is some interest from the potential investors, and I wish them good luck. Thank you.
Just to clarify, we do have about 16 units, right? 16 units at City Plaza. Catered strata units. Okay. If there are no Oh, there is a burning question. Okay, Mervin. I will just give this to the last one on the—
Can you give us a hint of what is the carrying value for U.K. office portfolio at this point in time?
Give me a minute, please.
The reason why I ask is if you add up the SGD 800 million for U.K. land bank, Moxy to be sold to CDLHT, SGD 475 million, your PRS, SGD 3.7 billion, that's already close to SGD 5 billion. Can we say we have in excess of SGD 5 billion to be sold the next three to five years?
You're very astute and very good, Mervin. As I said again, we won't comment on the targets, nor will we confirm what you just mentioned, but you're certainly a very astute analyst. Yim Ming?
The carrying value of the three properties that we have right now is about GBP 870 million.
Three?
[Three. 3 billion. Or gate 125.]
No, are you talking about the legacy land bank or the
No. The U.K. office.
The three combined.
It's GBP 870 million. Yeah.
Okay.
That's approaching SGD 6 billion.
Okay. I'm going to scan the room one more time. Is there any more burning questions from the room, the floor? If there's not, then is there any other comments from the panelists this morning? No? Okay. Then in that case, we will bring this briefing to a close. Thank you very much, everyone, for coming. There's also refreshments being served outside. For those that are joining us on webcast, thank you very much for taking your time this morning, and we hope to see all of you very soon again. Thank you very much and have a good year ahead.