Ascendas India Trust's Q3 net property income rises 8%
BUSINESS park landlord Ascendas India Trust posted an 8 per cent increase in net property income to S$39.9 million for the third quarter ended Sep 30, 2021.
Total property income rose 4 per cent to S$48.9 million after income contribution from the Anchor Annex building in Bangalore and the aVance 6 building in Hyderabad. Both are in the trust's portfolio of tech parks.
This was, however, offset by lower occupancy and lower utilities and carpark income due to the impact of Covid-19.
Portfolio weighted average lease expiry was 3.9 years as at end-Sep, with committed portfolio occupancy of 89 per cent.
The manager has leased and renewed 2.2 million square feet of leasable area across the portfolio for the year to Sep 30.
Leasing discussions restarted after India was hit by the second wave of Covid-19 infections in March. As the pandemic situation improves, the manager expects leasing activity to pick up further in early 2022.
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The manager said in a business update on Wednesday (Oct 27): "The IT services companies have seen strong customer demand arising from Covid-19, and are hiring large numbers of new employees and fresh IT graduates in particular. We remain confident in the long-term resilience of our IT parks asset class and growth in logistics/industrial/data centres."
The trust's gearing was 35 per cent as at end-September, with available debt headroom of S$892 million. Cash and equivalents stood at S$164 million.
Ascendas India Trust has a portfolio of seven tech parks in the cities of Bengaluru, Chennai, Hyderabad and Pune, and a logistics park in Panvel, near Mumbai.
The counter ended unchanged at S$1.40 on Oct 27.
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