Back when CapitaLand India Trust (SGX: CY6U) was listed on the Singapore Exchange in August 2007, it was the first Indian property trust in Asia.

CapitaLand India Trust (CLINT) invests in income-producing real estate used primarily as business space in the country. Additionally, it may also develop and acquire land or uncompleted developments to be primarily used as business space, with the objective of holding the properties upon their completion.

Currently, its portfolio comprises 10 IT business parks, 1 logistics park, 3 industrial facilities, and 4 data centre developments in India, with a total assets under management of S$3.7 billion.

The business trust is also among the 3 out of 5 CapitaLand REITs and business trust I have in my investment portfolio currently (with the other 2 being CapitaLand Ascendas REIT and CapitaLand Integrated Commercial Trust; you can check out my entire portfolio here).

Earlier this evening (27 January), CLINT released its results for the 4th quarter, as well as for the full year ended 31 December 2024 (i.e., FY2024), and in this post, you will find my review of the its latest financial figures, portfolio occupancy and debt profile, as well as its distribution payout to unitholders:

Financial Figures (4Q FY2023 vs. 4Q FY2024, and FY2023 vs. FY2024)

In this section, you’ll find a review of CLINT’s financial figures reported for the 4th quarter, as well as for FY2024, compared against the figures reported in the respective time periods a year ago:

4Q FY2023 vs. 4Q FY2024:

CLINT did not provide any financial figures for the 4th quarter. The following are self-computed based on the figures reported for the 3rd quarter, as well as for the 2nd half of the respective financial years:

4Q FY20234Q FY2024% Variance
Total Property
Income (S$’mil)
$62.6m$73.0m+16.6%
Total Property
Expenses (S$’mil)
$15.3m$23.9m+56.2%
Net Property
Income (S$’mil)
$47.3m$49.1m+3.8%

My Observations: A pretty robust set of results in my opinion, with its total property income up by a double-digit percentage.

However, with a 56.2% year-on-year jump in its total property expenses (incurred by the newly acquired properties), CLINT’s net property income saw a low single-digit percentage improvement.

One of the things to note about CLINT is that, over the last 4 quarters, both its total property income and net property income saw year-on-year increases.

FY2023 vs. FY2024:

FY2023FY2024% Variance
Total Property
Income (S$’mil)
$234.1m$277.9m+18.7%
Total Property
Expenses (S$’mil)
$54.4m$72.3m+32.9%
Net Property
Income (S$’mil)
$179.6m$205.6m+14.5%
Distributable Income
to Unitholders (S$’mil)
$85.2m$91.3m+7.2%

My Observations: As a result of improvements recorded by the business trust in all 4 quarters of the current financial year under review compared to the respective time periods a year ago, for the full year, CLINT’s financial results was also comparatively better compared to last year.

Particularly, the 18.7% year on year increase in its total property income to S$277.9 million can be attributed to higher rental income from existing properties, income from ITPH Block A which was completed in January 2023, along with newly acquired properties, including ITPP-H (acquired in May 2023), Industrial Facility 2 & 3 (acquired in December 2023), aVance II in Pune (acquired in March 2024), as well as Building Q2 (acquired in July 2024).

However, due to a 32.9% year-on-year surge in its total property expenses to S$72.3 million (from higher operating expenses incurred by the existing and newly acquired properties), its net property income went up by 14.5% in the same time period to S$205.6 million.

Portfolio Occupancy Profile (3Q FY2024 vs. 4Q FY2024)

CLINT has recorded a pretty strong portfolio occupancy over the quarters, at above 90%, with lease expiries well-spread out (meaning there’s no one single year where there’s a huge percentage of leases due for renewal).

In the table below, you’ll find a comparison of CLINT’s portfolio occupancy recorded for the current quarter under review (i.e., 4Q FY2024 ended 31 December 2024) compared against that recorded in the previous quarter 3 months ago (i.e., 3Q FY2024 ended 30 September 2024) to find out it has continued to remain strong:

3Q FY20244Q FY2024
Portfolio Occupancy
(%)
94.0%95.0%
Portfolio WALE
(years)
3.5 years3.5 years

My Observations: The slight improvement (by 0.1 percentage point) in CLINT’s portfolio occupancy can be attributed to improvements in the occupancy of ITPC (up from 85% in 3Q FY2024 to 91% in 4Q FY2024).

Portfolio WALE remained stable at 3.5 years, with lease expiries well-spread out – in FY2025, only 8% of the leases will be expiring (of which, more than 50% are either renewed or highly likely to be renewed). Between FY2026 and FY2028 (a period of 3 financial year), about 14% to 25% of the leases will be expiring each year, with the remaining 34% of the leases expiring only in FY2029 or later.

In terms of rental reversion, apart from aVance Hyderabad (at -1%), all the leases (both new as well as renewed) are at positive rental reversions of between 1% and 9%.

Debt Profile (3Q FY2024 vs. 4Q FY2024)

As far as CLINT’s debt profile is concerned, I understand that some are concerned by its high average cost of debt (which was at 6.0% in 3Q FY2024). However, this is pretty much in-line with the benchmark borrowing rates in the country, which has been at stable at 6.5% since February 2023 (data from TradingEconomics).

Just like how I reviewed CLINT’s portfolio occupancy profile in the previous section, I will also be reviewing its debt profile by comparing the statistics reported for the current quarter under review against that reported 3 months ago, as follows:

3Q FY20244Q FY2024
Aggregate Leverage
(%)
40.1%38.5%
Interest Coverage
Ratio (times)
2.6x2.6x
Average Cost of
Debt (%)
6.0%6.0%
% of Borrowings Hedged
to Fixed Rates (%)
80.3%73.3%

My Observations: CLINT has continued to maintain a healthy debt profile, with its aggregate leverage at just 38.5%.

In terms of the other statistics, they are more or less the same as the previous quarter, apart from a slight decline in its percentage of borrowings hedged to fixed rates (from 80.3% in 3Q FY2024 to 73.3% in 4Q FY2024).

Looking at its debt maturity ahead, in the coming FY2025, it has about 30.4% (or S$528.6 million) of borrowings due for refinancing. Between FY2026 and FY2028 (a period of 3 financial years), it has an average of about 16.5% of borrowings due for refinancing each year (which I consider to be quite well-staggered out), with the remaining 20.1% of borrowings due for refinancing only in FY2029 or later.

Distribution Payout to Unitholders

The management of CLINT declares a distribution to the unitholders on a half-yearly basis.

In the 2 tables below, you’ll find CLINT’s distribution payout declared for the 2nd half of FY2024 (for the period between 1 June and 31 December 2024), as well as for the full year 2024 (for the period between 1 January and 31 December 2024), compared against the distribution payouts declared in the respective periods last year:

2H FY2023 vs. 2H FY2024:

2H FY20232H FY2024% Variance
Distribution Per
Unit (S$’cents)
3.09 cents3.20 cents+3.6%

FY2023 vs. FY2024:

FY2023FY2024% Variance
Distribution Per
Unit (S$’cents)
6.45 cents6.84 cents+6.0%

If you are a unitholder of the business trust, do take note of the following dates on its distribution payout:

Ex-Date: 18 February 2025
Record Date: 19 February 2025
Payout Date: 27 February 2025

CEO Gauri Shankar Nagabhushanam’s Comments & Outlook (from the Business Trust’s Press Release)

“We delivered a strong performance in FY 2024, driven by income recognition from recent acquisitions, higher rental income from existing assets and positive rent reversion, resulting in a healthy NPI and DPU growth of 14% and 6% respectively. Our proactive customer engagement led to committed occupancy of our portfolio improving to 95%. CLINT’s net asset value per unit grew 19% year-on-year supported by strategic acquisitions and higher valuation of its properties.

We pre-leased 100% of MTB 6 at International Tech Park Bangalore, a 0.8 million sq ft building, to a large semi-conductor tenant. We also made significant progress on our data centre assets with the signing of an agreement with a leading global hyperscaler in January 2025. Revenue contribution from the hyperscaler will commence by 2Q 2025 and we are on track to divest a partial stake in the data centre portfolio to unlock greater value for unitholders. In addition, the otential divestments of two mature IT parks are progressing as planned. We remain positive on our growth prospects in India and will continue to enhance returns to unitholders.”

Closing Thoughts

I’m sure you’ll agree with me it is a resilient set of results reported by CLINT for both the 4th quarter, as well as for the full year ended 31 December 2024.

Financial results-wise, not only has its total property income and net property income reported year-on-year improvements, the same can also be said for its distribution payout to unitholders – I remembered during one of the presentations made by the management which I attended previously that they are cognisant of headwinds posed by the weaker Indian Rupee against the Singapore Dollar (to which its distributions are paid out in). To counter that, their goal is to make sure the growth in terms of its financial performance outstrips the weakness of the Indian Rupee – and results this time round have proven that once again (so personally as a unitholder, I’m satisfied).

Portfolio occupancy has continued to remain at a high level of 95.0%, where, apart from aVance Hyderabad (85%), aVance II in Pune (64%), the rest of its properties have an occupancy rate of above 90%.

Finally, in terms of debt profile, its aggregate leverage of 38.5% is also at a healthy level. I also note that in terms of its average cost of debt, it has been coming down gradually from 6.3% in 2Q FY2023 to 6.0% in 4Q FY2024. Of course, with the benchmark lending rates in the country at such a level, I do not foresee this to come down unless or otherwise the Reserve Bank of India announce any rate cuts.

With that, I have come to the end of my review of CLINT’s latest results for 4Q and FY2024. Please note that all the opinions above are purely mine which I’m sharing for educational purposes only. They do not constitute any buy or sell calls for the business trust’s units. You are strongly advised to do your own due diligence before you make any investment decisions.

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Disclaimer: At the time of writing, I am a unitholder of CapitaLand India Trust.

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