KUALA LUMPUR: Axis Real Estate Investment Trust (Axis-Reit) posted a 7.8 per cent increase in total trust income to RM242.4 million in the year ended December 31, 2021 (FY21) from RM224.9 million in 2020.
Axis-Reit, in a statement today, said this was mainly attributed to the completion of five new acquisitions, commencement of new tenancies at Axis Industrial Facility @ Rawang and positive rental reversion in FY21.
In addition to the higher total trust income, Axis-Reit's net income was driven by higher gain in fair value of investment properties, which led to a 41.0 per cent increase in its net income to RM200.4 million from RM142.1 million in the preceding year.
The gain in fair value in FY21 was RM67.8 million in contrast to RM19.0 million in the preceding year.
For the fourth quarter (Q4), Axis-Reit recorded a total trust income of RM62.9 million and a realised net income of RM36.4 million, a year on year increase of 9.4 per cent and 13.3 per cent respectively, mainly due to contributions from newly acquired properties and positive rental reversion.
Axis-Reit's management company Axis REIT Managers Bhd has proposed to distribute 99 per cent of its realised income available for distribution, generated from operations for the period from December 16, 2021 to December 31, 2021 as FY21 final income distribution, giving a distribution per unit (DPU) of 0.38 sen.
Coupled with the dividend that was declared earlier on December 1, 2021, total DPU declared in Q4 FY21 was 2.41 sen, some 7.1 per cent higher than Q4 FY20's 2.25 sen.
This gives a total DPU of 9.49 sen for FY21, an increase of 8.5 per cent from FY20's 8.75 sen.
Based on the closing price of RM1.94 on December 31, 2021, this translates to a yield of 4.9 per cent, it said.
Axis Reit Managers chief executive officer and executive director Leong Kit May said the active acquisition strategy continued to be the key to the company's success today.
He said since its listing in 2005, Axis-Reit's portfolio had grown from five properties to 58 properties with the total asset value rising about 10-fold to RM3.8 billion currently.
"We will continue to pursue high quality accretive acquisitions with strong recurring rental income by leveraging on our healthy gearing level of 31 per cent, to deliver sustainable EPU (earnings per unit) and DPU payout to our unitholders," he said.
