TLGF’s Q3 Results – increased income and profit growth To pay return of 0.1795 baht/unit
Bangkok, 20 January 2014: Tesco Lotus Retail Growth Freehold and Leasehold Property Fund (TLGF) announced its income and net profit growth for Q3 2013/2014. TLGF’s total income in Q3 2013/2014 was 604,910,820 baht or a 39.32% increase year-on-year. The fund’s net investment income was 404,463,933 baht, increased by 40.33% year-on-year. It was noted that the high growth over the same period of last year was because of a different basis of calculation - TLGF had 17 properties in the fund in Q3 2012/13 while it currently has 22 properties.
TLGF will pay dividend of the Q3 2013/2014 at 0.1630 baht/unit on 17 February 2014, and will pay capital reduction of 0.0165 baht/unit on 18 February 2014. The total return for Q3 2013/2014, including capital reduction, will be 0.1795 baht/unit.
Somchai Boonnamsiri, CEO of Krung Thai Asset Management PCL (KTAM), TLGF fund manager, said, “In the first nine months of 2013/2014, TLGF performed well, generating stable returns to unitholders. The net investment income of the period was almost 1.220 billion baht with the 9-month total return of 0.5618 baht.”
Sompong Rungnirattisai, Property Director of Tesco Lotus said “The growth of half year performance was in line with our projections. TLGF’s occupancy rate remained almost full at 99.44 % and our optimum balance of tenant mix helps generate stable income. Moreover, the refresh projects for TLGF’s two malls, namely Srinakarin and Phuket, are making progress as planned. They are expected to be complete by the first half of 2014 and we expect an increase in footfall as a result of better shopping trip and new products and services. Also, the upgrade of the Tesco Lotus sales floor at the two stores to be the Extra format was completed in December 2013 and was well accepted by customers.”
Since its establishment and flagship IPO in 2012, TLGF has invested in 22 Tesco Lotus hypermarket-anchored shopping malls in prime locations across Thailand. Recently, TLGF’s Unitholder Meeting approved the additional investment in another Tesco Lotus- anchored mall in Navanakorn area. TLGF is one of the largest listed property funds in Thailand with a market capitalization of over 28 billion baht (information as of 17 January 2014).