The financial position of Scentre, the country’s biggest shopping mall operator has improved so much from the depths of the pandemic in the June quarter that it now believes it will be able to resume payouts to security holders early in 2021.
The news seems to have taken investors by surprise by the news and the fact that the company’s operational metrics are moving closer to pre-pandemic levels at the end of 2019.
Scentre said that as a result of the improvement and subject to unforeseen events, it intends to pay a dividend in early 2021 from its surplus net operating cash flows received in 2020.
That news saw the securities up 2.1% to $2.38, still down 40% or so for the year though.
Scentre says its rent collection improved significantly in the September quarter with all its malls open, including Victoria, and 92% of tenants operating.
In its latest update, which also includes data to the end of October, the group said it collected $187 million and $203 million of gross rental billings in the months of September and October respectively.
That’s after monthly gross rental billings hit a low in April and May, falling as much as 28% and 35% respectively. For the September quarter, monthly gross rental billings averaged 85% or $542 million.
In terms of retailer in-store sales growth, comparable like-for-like specialty in-store sales (excluding Victoria) were down 1.9% for the September quarter while comparable majors in-store sales were up 1.0%.
Scentre owns and manages the Westfield shopping malls across Australia and New Zealand.
Customer visits during the September 2020 quarter were at levels 90% of the same time last year across the portfolio (excluding Victoria).
The company’s portfolio occupancy was 98.4% at the end of September 2020. The group said it has now struck agreements regarding COVID arrangements with a total of 3,187 retailers, representing 89% of the 3,600 retail brands in its malls.
