Frasers Centrepoint Trust's portfolio Q3 occupancy dips to 94.6%

FRASERS Centrepoint Trust (FCT) announced on Thursday that its portfolio occupancy fell 2.2 percentage points year on year (y-o-y) to 94.6 per cent for the third quarter ended June 30.

This was due to "weakened leasing market conditions", with tenants monitoring the changing Covid-19 situation before committing to new leases, said the suburban retail Reit.

Leases that expired in June represented 7.8 per cent of gross rental income and 5.8 per cent of the total leased area, of which 4.8 per cent was left to be renewed in Q4 2020.

While more than 95 per cent of FCT's tenants resumed business on June 19 with the start of Phase 2, shopper traffic for its malls (Causeway Point, Northpoint City, Waterway Point, Changi City Point, YewTee Point, Bedok Point and Anchorpoint) fell 51.8 per cent from June the year before and 38.9 per cent y-o-y as of July 12.

FCT attributed the decline in July mainly to "safe-distancing and traffic-density measures still in place".

Since rolling out various tenant support packages in February, FCT has to date disbursed about S$25 million in landlord's rental rebates to its tenants.

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"The impact from Covid-19 and rental rebates for tenants will affect FCT's financial and operational performance for the second half of Financial Year 2020. Potential impact, if any, to the valuation of the investment properties going forward remains to be seen," it said.

FCT's units closed up S$0.05 or 2.1 per cent at S$2.42 on Thursday.

Amendment note: An earlier version of the article stated incorrectly that FCT's units rose 0.05 cents to close at 2.42 cents, when it should in fact be S$0.05 and S$2.42.