Singapore CapitaMall Trust's DPU up 4.3 pct in Q1

CapitaMall Trust (CMT), Singapore's largest shopping mall landlord, announced Tuesday that it recorded a distribution per unit (DPU) for the first quarter ended March this year of 2.68 Singapore cents (1.97 U.S. cents) on year.

This was mainly due to increases in shopper traffic and tenants ' sales.

The distribution is 4.3 percent higher than the 2.57 Singapore cents (1.89 U.S. cents) for the same period in 2014.

Distributable income for the first quarter this year was 92.9 million Singapore dollars (68.3 million U.S. dollars), a 4.2- percent increase over 89.1 million Singapore dollars (65.5 million U.S. dollars) the same period last year.

"CMT started the year on a strong footing, registering year-on- year increases of 4.7 percent in shopper traffic and 2.5 percent in tenants' sales. Portfolio occupancy as of March 31, 2015 remained resilient at 97.2 percent," said Wilson Tan, CEO of CapitaMall Trust Management Limited, the manager of CMT.

CMT's gross revenue grew 1.6 percent year-on-year to 167.3 million Singapore dollars (123 million U.S. dollars) for the first quarter, mainly due to the completion of the second phase of the asset enhancement initiative at Bugis Junction in September last year.

Net property income increased 3.0 percent year-on-year to 117.7 million Singapore dollars (86.5 million U.S. dollars), the company said.

As of March, CMT's average cost of debt and aggregate leverage were 3.4 percent and 33.8 percent, respectively. Endi