Sabana Reit renews 58% of leases expiring in 2020

SABANA Shari'ah Compliant Industrial Reit's (Sabana Reit) manager on Friday said 58 per cent of leases by gross rental income expiring in fiscal 2020 have been renewed.

The manager also expects rental contributions from the New Tech Park's asset enhancement initiative (AEI) to start from Q2 next year, it said in a bourse filing on Friday.

In the third quarter ended Sept 30, 2020, the Reit signed 304,622 square feet (sq ft) of new leases. It renewed 586,043 sq ft after the "circuit-breaker" period.

The Reit's portfolio occupancy rose to 80.2 per cent in the quarter, from 77.3 per cent as at June 30, 2020.

Donald Han, chief executive of Sabana Reit's manager, said: "We signed close to 900,000 sq ft in leases having improved our portfolio occupancy while continuing to achieve positive rental reversion. However, going into 2021, Covid-19 will continue to be a challenge."

The manager also said that the first and second phase of its AEI at New Tech Park will achieve temporary occupation permit in the first quarter of 2021, barring unforeseen circumstances. The new mall will be called NTP+.

The manager expects rental contributions from NTP+ to start from the second quarter of 2021. It added that more than half of the retail units available at the new mall have been leased to a mix of established and "new-to-the-market" retail and food and beverage tenants.

Tenants include Collins, Wine Connection and Dutch Colony Coffee.

On Covid-19 tenant support measures, the manager said it will pass government rental reliefs on to tenants by Q4 2020 and assess and provide additional rental relief to eligible tenants. It is also working with tenants to right-size their space.

Units of Sabana Reit closed down 2.8 per cent or one Singapore cent to 34.5 cents on Thursday.