Mapletree Commercial Trust posts stronger income in Q2

MAPLETREE Commercial Trust (MCT), which owns the mall VivoCity, on Wednesday reported a 25.4 per cent jump in income available for distribution for its fiscal second quarter compared to a year ago.

MCT said that its income available for distribution for the three months ended Sept 30, 2016 stood at S$53.7 million, compared to S$42.8 million a year ago. This was mainly due to a fresh revenue contribution from Mapletree Business City I (MBC I), which it bought in August.

It posted a distribution per unit (DPU) of 2.05 Singapore cents for the quarter. This includes an advance distribution of 0.74 cents paid out on Aug 29, 2016. The advance distribution was related to the private placement to raise S$529 million to partly finance the acquisition of MBC I.

The next distribution will comprise MCT's distributable income for the period Aug 4, 2016 to Sept 30, 2016, and regular distributions on a quarterly basis will resume from there on.

In the year-ago Q2 period, MCT posted a DPU of 2.02 Singapore cents.