Operator
Thank you for standing by, and welcome to the GDI annual results telco. All participants are in a listen-only mode.
There'll be a presentation, followed by a question-and-answer session. If you would like to ask a question, you'll need to press the star key followed by the number one on your telephone keypad.
I'd now like to hand the conference over to Mr. Stephen Burns, Managing Director and CEO.
Please go ahead.
Stephen Burns
Good afternoon, everybody, and thanks for joining the GDI call. I'm joined by David Williams, our CFO, and I'd like to start on page three of the presentation for you to follow.
It's been a good year. We continue to drive the FFO growth, most notably 25% overall, in terms of total FFO, to $44.5 million.
Strong growth in the property FFO of 14.8%, and co-living, the business that we seeded along with our partner, has provided strong growth this year, which was facilitated by the addition of Moranbah, but 46% increase on last year. I think, importantly, we've delivered strong results over a 3-year period by really paying attention to executing on our strategy, and it's very important to us.
What we say we're going to do, we want to deliver on. The NTA has had a marginal increase per security, not many assets revalued in the period.
We've had strong leasing results, with over 20,000 square meters of leasing achieved, which puts together three very solid years of leasing, noting that post-balance date, WS1 and WS2 moved to 100% leased. We closed over $150 million of asset sales at good prices, I'd note, in the funds business.
We're focused on continuing non-core asset sales, and just a reminder that's at least $330 million since December '24 that we've been able to get away at good prices. The co-living business is contributing meaningful profits now and still meeting our in excess of 20% return hurdle, noting the big increase over last year.
The business is now a really stable platform upon which we expect to eke out further growth at the operating level. Gearing at 33%, with a $21 million reduction in drawn debt.
Post-balance date, the car yard sales completed, and we're sitting there with about $90 million of liquidity, and today we have announced a 5% buyback. Turning to the next page and speaking of strategy, the important thing has been to lease up the core properties, which is where the bulk of the value sits.
Both WS1 and WS2 are now 100% leased, including a recent heads of agreement for level 10 on WS2, reflecting both an improving Perth office market and our expert leasing team, as well as utilizing our targeted spec fitout strategy, which has been a feature of previous discussions that we've had with the market. There's no doubt that the Perth office market is improving, and GDI has outperformed the market in terms of overall leasing.
The strength is going to continue, and it's going to be driven by supply shortages on the office side, expanding tenants and demand—we'll get to that later on—but also the improving rent dynamic. All of it is underpinned by a strong WA economy, as well, which gives us further benefit.
WS2 was a new build without a tenant pre-commit. The FY '26 FFO increased by some 42% as the property stabilized to $6.1 million.
WS1 involved basically the letting of most of the building a few years back, and over the past 4 years, with government leasing half of the building and the balance multi-let to corporates, it has a 6-year WALE. In the FY '26 year, FFO increased by 9.7% to $29.3 million.
If we look at the repositioning of the core properties, which specifically relates to the three on the Mill Green site, it's been a very busy period at Mill Green completing over 31 leasing transactions, and again utilizing our spec fitout strategy. At 197 St Georges Terrace, we've lifted the occupancy from 87% to 92% over the year, and we only have one full floor of office remaining, plus a few suites.
The vacancy sits mainly within retail. The FFO increased for the building from 29% to $16 million.
At 5 Mill, we've dealt with just under 3,000 m² of NLA, lifting the occupancy from 86% to 93%. As mentioned in previous reports, we're working on a master-plan DA for the entire site, which encompasses three buildings.
The initial stage is to focus on 197 St Georges Terrace ground-level amenity. Longer-term, the site will benefit from the improving dynamics for a mixed-use approach, with flexibility between uses.
Turning the page onto some of the other assets, the car parks: they've been steady, generating around $4.5 million of FFO for the year, notwithstanding petrol prices. They like driving to work in Perth, it's been robust.
We like the car parks because cash equals profit and because they represent income-paying development sites that we can build on top of, which is similar to the approach we took with WS2. The only differential would be that it's most likely to be for living use.
We're very focused on optimizing the car park uses for prospective development or sale, but also for partnering with an appropriate operator. Murray Street has benefited effectively from increased designer retail in the area, together with dining and entertainment.
Wellington Street is likely to benefit from the Perth hospital expansion, which we've estimated adds an additional 920 trips per day, and also the student accommodation in the precinct. If we turn the page again and just looking at the co-living JV, there's been a very strong year with FFO up 44% to $9.5 million.
The Moranbah acquisition in Queensland for $18.3 million with circa 196 rooms is being bedded down, and there's more growth to accrue from that once we get that working from an operational viewpoint. The Norseman expansion: basically, Pantoro's growth has led to an additional 140 rooms for Pantoro, with more to follow.
As mentioned before, we're generating in excess of our 20% return hurdle. We remain very focused on the targeted expansion at the existing villages and acquiring villages where we can get operational improvements.
The purchases are to be funded within the JV or external capital, and we'll retain that discipline in terms of how much balance sheet exposure we have. We now believe we have in place a very strong platform that can deliver additional operational gains and accommodate further selective growth.
Turning to the next page and reverting to our strategy, which calls for asset sales, and this year we sold the remaining car yards and an industrial property, generating over $150 million. We delivered very strong returns to our investors in the two funds.
Our balance sheet currently has over $100 million of non-core assets, and we're focused on continuing our sales strategy. Perth is starting to see some office sales, albeit some of the campaigns that we mentioned last results haven't come to fruition, which was probably anticipated.
Subsequent to that, we've seen the sale of WorkZone East for $79.4 million and Kings Square 3 for $83 million. They just actually give us the feeling that there is some liquidity in the market.
The increased focus on this supply gap, the only market in Australia—office market in Australia where there's no supply for the next three years—is adding to that story, and we feel quite comfortable that we're moving to an environment where asset sales of good office properties will become viable over the next few years. I'd like to hand over to Dave just to talk through the financial snapshot.
David Williams
Afternoon, everyone. I think Stephen actually mentioned most of the headlines, but to reiterate, FFO for the year was $44.5 million.
Looking back to FY '23, it was $28.1. It's been over a 16.5% CAGR growth since that time, which we're very proud about.
FFO per security of 8.24 cents. Maintained the distribution at 5 cents, and confirming FY '27 intention to pay a cash distribution of 5 cents, as well.
All our assets, other than a small one, 180 Hay, were revalued during the year, either at December or June. The cap rate environment has been pretty stable, in the lack of any transactional evidence of note other than the ones Stephen mentioned, but they were a little bit more fringe, not the core prime-grade stuff that we have.
Note: so no real change in val, and there hasn't been any change in the cap rate on our assets. In fact, actually Westralia Square went out slightly in December.
With the sale of the dealerships, which we co-own—we've got 47% of—we were able to reduce our debt by $21 million, and as Stephen also mentioned, that liquidity increases post-balance date with the final settlement of the five dealerships that has now happened. Gearing is reduced to 33%.
Stephen will talk more around the leasing, and the portfolio occupancy is at 90% with a 4.2-year WALE. The contributors: Westralia Square, up nearly 10%.
It's basis of full income now, and the car park performance does generate quite a bit from the car park, which is non-contracted, the public car park there. Westralia Square, obviously, increasing and will continue to increase, not at that rate, but it is now at full occupancy.
197: really pleasing. We've lifted that.
There's very few suites left in that. There's one one full floor and that's not much else.
Car parks were stable, and there's the opportunity to continue to grow through incremental at 197 as the market improves; 5 Mill Street still got a little bit of vacancy; and obviously tackling something like 180 Hay. The funds management division, in FY '25, had IKEA for the full year, then a big disposal fee.
That generated in total over $4.3 million of fees that weren't in this year, there was a reduction in the funds management division FFO. FY '27 will benefit from the performance fees that will be paid on the dealerships that were just settled.
Stephen already spoken about co-living JV. One of the things I would like to highlight, if you go back a couple of pages, which we're particularly proud about: at South Hedland, we've got very strong earnings, but importantly, we've been able to put in place some take-or-pays, which haven't been there, there's a little bit more consistency in forward-looking income in that for a chunk of those rooms, which is pleasing.
Turning to debt: this time last year, we had just announced an extension and increase to the facility. In June, we extended Tranche A from a February expiry to a February '27 to a February '29 expiry.
As previously said, we've increased the undrawn limit by $21 million by reducing the drawn debt. Swaps and interest rates: we've got a cap and collar at 3.75%, 2.65% that expires in December for $100 million.
That's been replaced, forward-looking for 12 months, with a cap at 4.5%, and then we've got callable swaps on $175 million.
Stephen Burns
If we look at the macro backdrop to office within the Perth WA region, we're feeling pretty good about it. There's obviously strong investment, export growth, robust employment, and population growth, and strong spending seems to be a bit of a characteristic to the WA statistics, but it shouldn't be underestimated, and I think WA is well-placed to benefit from structural forces driving demand for commodities, particularly the latest themes of A1 AI capital and expenditure boom, and the global electrification impacting, obviously, copper, aluminum, uranium, nickel, and rare earths.
We don't think WA is going into a hole, quite the contrary. All our indicators are from the growing tenants, which we're about to get to in a minute.
You'll see that we're quite strong on that theme. We're feeling it very much in the micro dynamic of when we're negotiating with tenants, and we feel that the macro backdrop is very strong.
Turning on to the next page and looking at some of those key office trends, I guess, it's really important to stress that the market is continuing to strengthen. This is not going to be short-lived.
The supply gap is on the minds of tenants. They're trying to pull negotiations forward.
It's quite common now to look at briefs in the market and for us to say we simply don't have the space. The other thing is if they want more than one floor together, particularly if they start, they're looking in premium, they're going to have a problem.
There's definitely a sharp reduction in contiguous space in premium category. The leasing activity is very strong in A-grade, which accounted for nearly 49% of the activity.
Overall, leasing deals are up some 96% for the half, and represented just under 67,000 m². That tells you that there's been a bit of a key point reached where the demand for leasing deals has gone up so quickly over that period, is fairly important in terms of defining where we are.
Quite often, the tenant reps are not getting their fees anymore. There's quite a bit of tension around incentives.
They're still there, like the Brisbane market, but it doesn't impact Brisbane from being able to sell office buildings. The tenants are continuing to grow, with over 63% of the relocating tenants expanding.
From a GDI perspective, we're being very tactical around renewals to ensure, one, we optimize the rental growth in the forecast in the strong years, which will sort of be between '27 and '30, and reducing incentives and targeting high rents. If we turn to the next page, you would have seen this supply gap chart that we've shown, and reemphasizing no supply in the next 2 to 3 years.
Rio has popped up again, heads of agreement may have been signed for 15 The Esplanade in the 2030 year. Then on the chart, you'll see two bars, basically reflecting the backfill space from Rio, should they decide to move.
What will be interesting there is seeing what sort of a rent Rio was able to justify for a move, if in fact it does. Our view is still that construction rents are some way off.
If we used a break-even construction rent of around $1,260, we need growth of around 43% from where they currently sit. It's worth keeping in mind that in 2004 to 2009, the last 5-year supply gap, the rents grew by about 290%, there is a tendency to undershoot.
It's worth noting, too, the Perth rents have pushed through the $1,000/m² mark, not that we're calling for 290% increase, but it does give you some context. Most will remember the tailwinds that Sydney office got from withdrawals caused by the metro.
Perth really is the only national market with zero new supply on the horizons in years '27, '28, and '29, and they're starting to use that word withdrawals in Perth, as well. Interesting times.
We believe very positive times. If we turn on to the next page, there's good leasing activity, which is obviously a precursor to demand.
The tenants are expanding. We're seeing the likes of the defense sector with mooted inquiries circa 15,000 m² in the market.
We're seeing inbound suburban tenants. One mooted to be taking 4,000 m² in QV1.
QV1 was the building that basically had half the premium vacancy, which is now being reduced to only a few thousand. That has come right in.
The lithium players are coming back, particularly in West Perth. Large, active briefs in the market ranging between 4,000 to 6,000—there's at least half a dozen of those at the moment.
It's getting harder to find the contiguous space, particularly in the premium and the A-plus space. Still, we're seeing that the demand for fitted space is important, and involving around 74% of deals, which plays right into our hands.
Incentives are tightening, albeit that's a varied discussion because it depends on whether the space is refurbished, or whether it's a spec fitout, or whether it's an existing or a new-generation fitout. Basically, the trend is the same: it's in the right direction for our economics.
If we turn the next page and we look at the market, there's several large deals that occurred in the first half of '26 that are tightening the market. We basically saw Western Power, which was 20,000 m²; Allens for 3,200; NAB for 4.5; and Lavan, which is a legal firm, for just under 5,000, all representing a flight to quality.
Then, of course, if the pre-commitment by Rio for 57,000 m² comes through, which was currently believed to be a heads of agreement for Lot 5, then that represents a consolidation. One of the things we look at, and it's referred to on this page, we look at the CBRE Vacancy Tracker, which points to a lower vacancy than the PCA numbers.
The second quarter of 2026 showed a sharp reduction, circa 21%, for the total market over the first quarter. That's quite marked, and most of the movement or reduction is in the premium and the A-grade space, as you'll see in the table there.
If we turn on to the next page, it's really just looking at the impact of the absorption scenarios. Not shown on this chart, but we are going to remind you that the commodity prices look robust across most of the areas that impact WA.
If we turn on to the property page, which is page 19, there's one noticeable difference between this and prior results, and that is that we've got 7.6% exposure to car parks apart from office, having sold the car yards. There's no more car yards in the portfolio.
The valuations that we had for the half related to 197 St Georges Terrace came in at $234 million, 7%. It's up $8 million, same cap rate, reflects the increased growth and leasing.
Now leased, as you've seen, over 92%, and the WALE's moved out to 3.3 years, which sits very well with our thesis on the market, because we'd love those tenants when they expire in three years to be paying the higher rents. That's good from our perspective.
5 Mill came in at $54 million. The cap rate basically the same at 7.25%, and the value was up $1.5 million.
The vacancy there's around 93% and the WALE 2.3, again giving us access to the market growth when it hits its most desperate phase. The reality is that we're more focused, probably, on divesting than acquiring, in terms of the balance sheet positioning, particularly on non-core, as we've emphasized, or joint venturing good assets with the right parties.
Of course, we're always looking for assets, particularly for the funds management business, and that's not necessarily in the unlisted syndicate side. There's other forms of investment, particularly with institutions and not just in office.
We're very cognizant of the fact that we need to invest in our existing assets very carefully. Turning on to our strategy page, which is basically page 25, really want to emphasize that we're focused on doing what we say we will do and executing in line with strategy.
It's very important to us, and I think we've demonstrated that over three years. I think, as Dave mentioned earlier, we've increased the FFO over the past three years from $44.5 million, from $28.1, up some 58%.
We're very focused on the lease-up and positioning for rent increases with the strengthening market, and we do believe we have the best leasing team in the Perth market. Balance our liquidity needs with between growth and investment in the portfolio, and improving returns for shareholders.
Targeted asset sales and partnering, noting that $330 million has been achieved since December '24, and we have in excess of $100 million of non-core assets to deal with. Our businesses are in good shape, have a solid liquidity, and the outlook is very strong in our minds.
If we turn on to the next page, which relates to our additional focus, it's very much around the property division long-term returns, evolving the funds management product, moving away from the unlisted syndicate style, which doesn't suit office funding requirements. We're targeting operationally led growth improvements in the co-living business and meeting our 20% return hurdle.
Maintaining the 5-cent distribution per security is really important. As mentioned today, executing a 5% buyback that we've announced.
That's basically it from me, Operator. If you'd like, I'd hand it back for Q&A, if that's all right.
Operator
Thank you. If you would like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced.
If you would like to cancel your request, please press star two. If you are on a speakerphone, please pick up the handset to ask your question.
Your first question today comes from Andy MacFarlane from Bell Potter. Please go ahead.
Andy MacFarlane
Good afternoon, Steve, David. Thanks for your time.
First question for me, just on the HoA you've signed at WS2, just interested in a little bit of color on rents achieved, when it comes online there?
Stephen Burns
Yeah. WS2, it's a heads, got to be a bit careful there, Andy.
I would say high-8s, 5 years, and an incentive of about a low incentive.
Andy MacFarlane
Okay. Potentially comes online end of this year, you
Stephen Burns
say? When we've completed the fitout, which is probably in January.
Andy MacFarlane
Got it. Makes sense.
Just in terms of the JV, you mentioned in your remarks just in terms of eking out some more gains, I guess, at the operating level. Just interested in some color on kind of what you're thinking there.
Stephen Burns
Really just business as usual on that front. We pick up assets like a Newman village or a Norseman, and look to increase the occupancy, which is what we've done, increase the occupancy, reducing the cost, improving the profitability.
It's really that sort of a focus, not just a pick up and switch it out. We're really looking to gain additional income out of the assets by improving them and bringing in the operational methodology, which is based around branding, ensuring that we can look after the staff of the resource companies in remote places, and get the right satisfaction.
It's not easy to do. You need remote staff, and you need proper teamwork, but that's the model.
In all cases, it's improved the earnings of the villages that we've acquired. That's really the model.
If we find a down-and-outer that's not too big, we'll have a stab at doing that, but before we did, we'd make sure we've got a very good plan. With the benefit out of our partners, we get to see all the assets that come up.
We would look at so many, it's ridiculous, but we only land on a few that we believe are worth our strategy.
Andy MacFarlane
Thank you. Just a final one.
You talked about construction costs, I guess, in terms of meaning there's not much coming through the pipeline, broadly for the office market. I guess just looking at Mill Green, a little bit slightly different, but just wondering if there's any timing, kind of thinking around submitting plans and yeah, what you've kind of yeah, thinking there at the moment.
Stephen Burns
We're looking to put one in fairly soon, and noting there's already been two on the site, right? It's nothing new to put a DA in, but what we're particularly looking at is something where we have the flexibility to do things in stages, right?
We've mentioned before, the first stage would be an extension of our spec fitout strategy with regard to 197. We've also mentioned that we would look to do an improvement on the retail component and target the available market there, and that particularly impacts 5 Mill.
Then the dream or the option value really relates to 1 Mill, which is, in fact, putting a mixed-use structure up on top of that, which, if you were able to get it right, for a hotel, it's very attractive. For office, it's becoming increasingly attractive.
It wouldn't work at the moment, it's a future forecasting component, but being able to flex between what is the best economic use is really key to it. If you think in terms of timing, we'd like to be available to deliver something into that strong market, say '31 is most likely the target date we'd use for something on 1 Mill, but that's way off yet.
Keep in mind that for something like that, it has to rely on improved building technology and break-even rents that give us some sort of a cost advantage, and as we demonstrated with WS2. It's not something we'll rush into, but through a planning process, we can forecast and look out.
If you have the right flexibility, you don't even have to build office if it turns out not to be right. That's the approach we're taking.
Andy MacFarlane
Thanks, Steve.
Operator
Thank you. Once again, if you would like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced.
Your next question comes from Murray Connellan from Moelis Australia. Please go ahead.
Murray Connellan
Afternoon, Steve, David. Just looking at your guidance, you've obviously kept the $0.05 distribution unchanged.
It seems like you've obviously done a fair amount of leasing in the last 6 months again. The payout ratio has now dropped to 60% this year.
I was just wondering how low you would like to see this number go before you look to start growing the divi again? I suppose, is there a mind towards marrying it up with AFFO on a smoothed-out basis?
Stephen Burns
The simple answer is no. We're not really an AFFO player, because we tend to pick up empty buildings and fill them, so that wreaks havoc with that methodology.
I think the important thing, Murray, that you're asking for is, will we increase the distribution? If we were to, we won't forecast it because we take a lot of mindshare out of being able to say that we're going to have a through-cycle distribution, and given the nature of a total return business, that the profitability can move around a lot.
If we were to get to a situation where we were very stabilized and like a normal stabilized REIT, yeah, we'd be happy to do that, but we're not. At the moment, it's very much in accordance with our strategy to maintain that five.
The price isn't too demanding. Doesn't really seem to reflect that we should pay a higher yield at the moment, we would definitely wait for some price improvement before we paid any more dividend away.
That's our true thoughts on the matter. Dave, did you have a comment on that?
David Williams
The other thing is looking at our uses of capital and what we've done today about a buyback, as an alternate security-holder-friendly action.
Murray Connellan
Got it. Thanks for the color.
Then maybe just following up and looking at the balance sheet, you obviously mentioned the buyback, but I imagine that, given the fact that you've probably done a big chunk of
Already premium?