SINGAPORE (May 10): The manager of Ascendas Hospitality Trust reported a distribution per stapled security (DPS) of 1.72 cents for the 4Q18 ended March, 25.5% higher than the DPS of 1.37 cents declared a year ago in 4Q17.
On a full year basis, A-HTRUST posted a growth of 3.2% y-o-y in DPS to 5.86 cents.
Gross revenue fell 4.6% to $54.7 million in 4Q18 and net profit income fell 8% to $23.7 million. However, income available for distribution less income retained for working capital grew by 26.3% to $19.5 million largely due to the inclusion of look fee received in connection with the divestment of the two hotels in Beijing, China.
Its Australian saw revenue per available room (RevPAR) of A$154 million ($154 million) down 3.1% from a year ago. This was mainly due to lower contribution from the hotels in Melbourne and Brisbane. Melbourne city saw increased competition for conferences and events (C&E) business as the International Convention Centre Sydney (Sydney ICC) drew such business away from the city, while oversupply situation persisted in Brisbane.
The group’s China portfolio was able to benefit from healthy public and corporate demand coupled with limited new supply in the city centre to drive performance. RevPAR increased 12.5% to RMB333 ($70.3 million).
As at March 31, A-HTRUST’s balance sheet remained healthy with gearing ratio of 30.8%. About 77% of the borrowings are on fixed rates to mitigate against volatile interest rate environment.
In its outlook, the manager says competition in the Melbourne and suburban Sydney hotel markets are expected to stiffen, the Osaka hotel market is expected to remain stable with moderate growth in the near term while competition in the Singapore hotel market is expected to ease.
Units in A-HTRUST closed at 80 cents on Thursday.
