1H 2024 Financial Results Webcast Briefing

Good morning to everyone. Welcome to Phrases and Appoint Trust results presentation for the first half financial year 2024 and the 31st of March, 2024. We have uploaded the press release, the results deck as well as the financial statements on the SGS map this morning. And we are happy that we have attending our briefing. And let me invite Richard, the CEO to give us a run through of the presentation. Richard, please. Yeah, hi, thanks, thanks, Han-Ling, and good morning to all of you. Thanks for joining us again for this quarter update. I'm gonna dive straight into the summary of the result deck and I'm very happy to actually share a set of healthy performance that we have for this quarter. If you look at the financial aspect of it, revenue is at 172 million, MPI 124 million. And later on, when we go into the various slides that shows the charts and so on, you will also see two charts, right?

I think we want to distinguish it a little bit because if we were to exclude CCP, which is Chinese city point, which was divested last year at the end of last calendar year, but the first queue for our financial year and also the effect of AI T1, our gross revenue actually rose 2.9% and MPI HD was higher at 2.1%. DPU, relatively stable at over 6 cents. In terms of capital management, aggregate leverage is currently at about 38.5% which is pretty healthy. Average borrowing costs, slight improvement from 4.3% in first queue down to 4.2%. ICR over three times and currently for FY24, all our financing needs has been settled. Coming to the business operation side of things, we have seen a very robust set of numbers. Occupancy, committed occupancy at close to 100%.

Printer evasion at 7.5%. Travel traffic has gone up 8.1% year on year and talent sales has continued its trajectory of improvement and we saw an increase of 4.3% year on year. And if you just take a step back, if we compare to pre-COVID same period, we actually grew by over 20%. We also have some updates on AEI, which body we'll share with you later on and as well as some highlights on our ESG activities for the quarter which are something we share with you. Next slide, please. So just a quick recap of what we have done for this quarter. If you look at what we have started off the calendar year, we use our Q2. First off the block, we made an announcement 25th January on the acquisition of the additional 24.5% stake in next. We also launched our equity fundraising,

which we did raise 200 million, 2.5 times COVID. And also some other notable things that happened during this quarter including the FCT inclusion into the Straits Times Index on 18th of March. We did an EGM on 25th of March and also completed our transactions for the 24.5% stake in next on the 26th of March. So today we own 50% stake in next as a whole. Quick update on the market. I'm not gonna spend time on the wider macro perspective because you guys know as much as we do. Maybe a little bit on the sales. So if you look at retail sales index, it's a 3% year-on-year growth. If you exclude motor vehicles compared to hours it's actually stronger. FMB sales continue to be one of the key driver at 4% year-on-year.

From the rental perspective, similar trend. Suburban more you've seen a 2.7% year-on-year growth as compared to hours for 7.5% growth. But of course the constituents of their numbers are very different from ours. Updating on the supply side of things, again we're seeing a pretty muted supply that's coming on stream all the way to 2027. And we have also included some of the projects. This is actually extracted from the research report from CVRE. So some of the names that you could see some of the smaller malls. In fact, most of them are smaller malls that's gonna be completed between now to 2027. So very limited supply and that is, that underpins the strong demand that we continue to see from retailers, especially to our stronger malls. And this is the, so the other reason why we are seeing

such a robust rental reversion as well. If financial highlights, I'll pass on to Audrey to share about what has happened during the second quarter. Audrey over to you. Yeah, thanks Richard. So good morning to everyone. I run through the financial highlights for the first half. So first half we have registered higher gross revenue and also higher MPI if you were to exclude the Chinese city point, which was invested on 31st of October. And if you were a school, Tampanese one which undergoes asset enhancement work. The gross revenue was up 2.9% due to higher occupancy, staggered rents and higher passing rents for the portfolio. MPI was also up by 2.1% with higher gross trend offset by increase in property expenses.

We have a good MPI growth of 2.1%. Next slide. So distributions to unit holders is at 104.9 million. This is due to the higher MPI registered by the portfolio and also higher contributions from the investments offset by the higher financing costs. DPU at 6.022 cents for the first half of 2024.

So for this slide, I would like to bring attention to the distributions from investments. It has grown 22.8%. This is mainly due to the higher contributions from GRPL, which is the entities that hold NICS. We acquired the 25.5% stake on 6th of February last year.

And as a result, this year is a full six months contributions from the investments. Secondly, we also increase our stake in SSDs which hold waterway point from 40% to 50% last year on 8th of February that also contributed to the increase. So however, this is offset by the absence of distributions in Hector, which we have divested in December. Next. The adjusted NEV is stable at 2.25. Next. For the financial metrics, the aggregate leverage actually went up from 37.2% to 38.5%. Due to the loans that was drawn down in March, to finance the acquisitions of 25.5% stake in NICS, and also to find the asset enhancement work that companies want.

ICR at healthy level at 3.26 times. And our cost on that for this first half is at 4.2%. For the first quarter, it is at 4.3% and the second quarter is at 4.1%. So you see a dip in terms of the cost of financing. About 68.5% of our debt are actually hedged to fixed rate interest increased from the last quarter of 63.4%. So we do the, we have undrawn facilities about 587.5 million for the vehicle. Next. So this shows you the debt maturity profile is well spread. There's no refinancing risk in FY2024. So what is, due next year FY2025 is about 320 million. We have really started engaging the banks for the refinancing next year. So with this, I'll hand over to Pauline. We will run through the portfolio highlights.

Yeah, thank you, Ojibwe. Hi, good morning, everyone. I'm very happy to actually share with all of you a good report card. I think it's a good report card with all around positive, robust and resilient performance. All right. So I think Richard has spoken about some of the good news that we are sharing for this quarter. So we see very positive trends in terms of occupancy, in terms of sales, football, as well as reversions. So I'll go into a little bit of details on these KPIs in my subsequent slide. Okay, what you see here is the committed occupancy. So the portfolio's committed occupancy has remained at a very strong level of 99.9%. This has been sustained over the past two to three quarters. On a year basis, we also see an improvement in the occupancy. And I would say that some of the active management

in terms of repositioning, in terms of curating the retail offering our malls, and our malls is actually a bearing fruit. And this is also underpinned by the fact that we do see, I mean, we shared earlier what some of the sales, the occupancy in the Singapore retail market, the trending is also generally in line with the positive performance that we are seeing in the overall market. Next slide, please. All right, for this slide, again, I think Richard shared earlier that for revenue and MPI, on a year basis, our portfolio has actually delivered a growth. And this is not withstanding the hate wins that we are seeing in terms of cost inflation and so forth. And our focus remains on driving the top line. You'll see that across our assets on a year on year basis,

the top line has actually been growing on a year on year basis. And I would attribute it to our three pillars of growth, driving organic growth. So really driving the rental growth. And you will see that in the rental reversions, far portfolio that I will share later. It's also true value creation via AEI, as well as repositioning. So the likes of Century Square, for example, you see that the revenue has actually picked up quite strongly compared to last year. And also lastly, strategic acquisitions, the focus on rebalancing our portfolio, going into quality assets. So all that is bearing fruit in terms of the numbers that we are showing. Okay, next slide, please,

the timing of Hari Raia this year versus last year. And also due to the active management that I spoke earlier in terms of changing out some of the tenants and also getting our existing tenants that are doing well to upgrade themselves. So that is coming true in terms of the footfall and also the marketing initiatives that are being undertaken to enhance the stickiness of our shoppers. And that close true in terms of the sales trend. I think Richard mentioned earlier, compared to pre-COVID, that has actually grown by 20%. On a quarter to quarter basis, we continue to see the growth being sustained. Okay, next slide, please. All right, so reversions. So where does that lead us? So in terms of reversions, very happy to share. Very strong reversions for the first half of this year.

I think over the course of our past few months, we've met various investors and this was an area of key focus. And we did indicate that we are positive about the reversions that we are seeing in the portfolio. So this has actually panned out in the number. We have shown, or we have achieved a rental reversion of 7.5% on an average to average basis for the first half of this year. And we are seeing good traction in terms of leasing. You don't see next year, but the reversion from next has actually also contributed to the 7.5% for confidentiality reasons. I cannot share the exact number, but it has actually come out quite positive for next. Next slide, please. All right, this is just some of the new tendencies

that we have brought to our portfolio for the second quarter of this financial year. I think in terms of focus on refreshing our retail mix, that continues to be something that we are very, very cognizant of because that will then future-proof our portfolio for sustained good performance. And the sensing is also in terms of the Singapore retail sector that continues to be active. We do see good traction from various trades, including FNB fashion, as well as beauty and services. Next slide, please. The focus on activating our malls, and trenching our malls as part of the community. We've not lost sight of this. Social promotions, events, keeping up to date with some of the social trends that we are seeing.

So this, activating our malls continues to be a key focus. And I think this is also one of the reasons why the footfall has actually recovered. So it's back to basics, getting the shoppers back to the malls, providing them with the retail offering that is needed and driving the sales. Next slide, please. All right, now I'll share a little bit about our enhancement strategy. So we have a live AI project ongoing at the Tempenese month. And in terms of the progress, it has spent well, both on the project site as well as on the leasing site. To date, we have achieved close to 100% in terms of the pre-commitment for the leases that is in scope for the AI. And the project is, or the construction is also pending well on track for overall completion

by the end of this financial year. And in fact, for the month of May, we are looking at about 86% or more than 80% of the spaces impacted by the AI being handed over to tenants, right? And progressively you do see some of these new tenants coming on. And kudos to the team on the ground. I think in terms of the brands, the new to more brands that are coming into the Tempenese one post-A. That will definitely strengthen the positioning of this month. And we do have quite a few good names that's coming to the mall. Next slide, please, Phung. All right, with this, I'll hand over to Phung Li to talk about sustainability. Thank you. Right, thank you, Pauline. I'm happy to announce or rather share with you the initiatives that we have on the ESG front. First of all is the launch of the inaugural online ESG data book.

This is in line with the group's push to increase the disclosure on ESG data. So if you go to our website, that link that is provided there, you'll find that all the ESG data that's related in the last three years, organized in different tabs for you to use for the user to look at all the related ESG data, including those with scope tree disclosures. So this is a very comprehensive ESG data book and we hope that this will provide the investors and stakeholders with an easy to use resource in the ESG study. We have announced last month largest solarization project for retail malls to date and across six of our retail malls and this installation will be completed by the end of this year. So a total of 3,533 square meters of solar panels will be installed at six of our malls,

including Cosway Point and North Point City, North Wing. So the size is about nearly three Olympic size swimming pools. So this will be installed on the rooftops and this latest initiatives is in line with our group's goal to achieve net zero carbon by 2050. So on the savings that is to be generated is roughly about 722,000 kilowatts of electricity per year. And this works out to be just under $180,000 in terms of energy costs and a reduction of 293 tons of carbon emission annually. So while the electricity generator is not meant to replace the main source of energy, it's meant to complement. So this amounts to about just under 2% of the energy consumption for the buildings. So I'll hand this over to back to Richard to sum up the presentation. Richard.

Yeah, thanks, Fangling. So just a quick closing summary. So as what Pauline has mentioned this now, I think our approach or strategy of having a three pillars of growth that are bearing goods in terms of organic growth, value enhancement and also strategic acquisition. And that as you can see, the healthy first half results that we have shown in terms of financial results, in terms of the overall operating performance. If you look at what we have done in our AEI, we are close to completing our AEI and as we have indicated for the next FY, you will be able to enjoy the full year's contribution from this asset enhancement initiative. So by and large, we are gonna continue very much to focus on our asset and property management capabilities

to drive both organic growth, value creation and at the same time, always look for opportunistic investment when it comes out, right? So also I think the other notable point to note is that the acquisition of 24.5% stake in NEX, again, this year we only will have part of the results coming from that acquisition. And but for the next FY, we will be able to enjoy again, a full contribution for the entire year, like what we have done or what we have achieved for the initial acquisition of the stake in NEX, right? So with that, we end our presentation and happy to take questions. Back to you, Fangling. Yes, thank you, Richard. So we are opening the floor for Q&A. So let's take some time to queue the questions and then we'll open up to the first questions later.

Okay. Okay, we have the first question from Jonathan Cole. You'll be here. Jonathan, please unmute yourself and go ahead with your question. Good morning to our management team. Two questions from me. Jonathan, could you speak up a little bit louder? Okay, can you hear me now? Yes. Yes, much better. Thanks. Okay, so yeah, congrats on a good number. Two questions. Firstly, you mentioned improved physical occupancy for your suburban mall. Could you elaborate a little bit more because we tend to relate physical occupancy to office. For dynamics on the ground at suburban mall, is there a negative impact from more people going back to work in the office and which will attribute the better performance at suburban mall to less leakage to Singaporeans traveling out?

Secondly, is on cost of debt. There's a 20 basis point Q on Q improvement. Yeah, I did notice that SORA is a little bit lower, but you know, couldn't have caused that big of fluctuation. Could you share if you have benefited from better credit rating and therefore a narrower credit spread? Those are my two questions. Thank you. Yeah, thanks, Jonathan. I will approach the first question and then Pajit, maybe you can take on the debt interest rate question. So I suppose you're referring to committed occupancy that we have indicated for this set of numbers we have revealed that we achieved a committed occupancy of 99.9%. That is a slight improvement from where we were at. And also I think the key point here is to highlight the strong demand that we are seeing

from retailers for our malls, right? Again, we have alluded to the fact that we have significantly improved the performance or the quality of the portfolio that we have today. So that is also one of the key drivers as we continue to see strong demand because retailers want to be in malls that they could probably do better. They want to be in stronger, more dominant malls of which we have four out of the 10 largest, four out of the 10 in terms of the largest malls across Singapore. So that actually put us in a very good state to continue the trajectory of getting good occupancy. In terms of the negative impact of leakage, I presume you're talking about comparing different trades across the retail market, right? So it is true because our portfolio largely provide basic essentials, right? So whether you travel or you don't travel,

most of the items, products that you find at our malls are basic necessity, things that you will need on a daily basis. So the impact could be less affected by traveling. Of course, traveling would still impact the market overall because people are away from Singapore at a certain point in time, right? But nonetheless, I think because the nature of our product will ensure that the community still comes to the mall because that is what they need on a daily basis. And I think there's also one question you talk about whether back to office has some impact. Yes and no, there are two sides to the coin for that. What you're seeing is that traffic numbers has grown, meaning that probably we are seeing more people going back to the office because by and large, a lot of the commuters are residing near to our mall. So when they go back to work, they do go to the mall.

But at the same time, we are not really seeing an impact because our sales continue in a very good, strong, positive trajectory. So we do see from both aspect, people do go back to work more, but I think there's still a proportion of people working from home and also people are spending more at our malls, right? So I hope that answers your first part of the question. Audrey, you want to take on the interest rate question? Yeah, so one thing your question says, for quarter and quarter, there's a savings of 20 bits in terms of the cost of debt. That's mainly because we actually repaid some of the higher interest rates debts using the diversity of the seats and also the EFR proceeds, handing the deployment to fund the acquisitions of NAICS. And coupled with the fact that we have also entered into IRS in December and January, that helps to bring down the average cost of debt.

All right, Jonathan, how we answer your questions? Yes, thank you, thank you for the color. Thank you very much. Thank you. We'll move on to the next question from Derek Chan, Marvin Stanley. Please go ahead. Hey, thanks, thanks for the link. Hi, Richard and team, can you hear me? Yes, yes, loud and clear, thanks. All right, perfect. I just want to ask a question on management fees taken in units. I think this half, you talk about 82% in units, significantly higher than usual. Just wondering, is this just to soften the timing gap between the placement and the full contribution from NAICS, or will this be a more permanent feature? I would say it's not permanent feature, but especially as and when we do AEI, I think this is something that we shared with you guys and also with the investors. Whenever we do AEI, any short fall in the results or the financial performance of the asset

that's undergoing AEI will then be supplemented from AMC's to cover that short fall. So one of the key attributes to this higher than usual AMC's for this quarter is because the fact that companies, one is more or less in a stage of full blown AEI works, and that is a significant impact to the bottom line and that can be using AEI to cover the short fall. And that's one. And the other one is also, as you're probably aware for NAICS, we actually taking 100% AMC in units. So the combination of those two, that led to the higher than usual AMC's. So once a templates one AEI is completed, you will see that AMC's numbers coming down. So once that's complete, we'll be seeing go back towards the 20% number, 40, 20%, 45% number? The 20% will be for most of the other, the rest of the portfolio as in,

but I mentioned that for NAICS, we are taking 100% of the fees in giving. Okay, understood. All right, thanks Richard. All right, thank you. Moving on to the next question from Yuciang, CSA, please go ahead. Hi, hi, hi Richard. Can you hear me? Yeah, sure. Yeah, I have two questions. First is on NAICS. Is the reversion tracking ahead of your portfolio or below? As in your portfolio is doing 7.5, I just wanna know that number. And then for tenant sales wise, is it? Is it also tracking above your portfolio average or below? And then the second question is on Central Plaza. Can you talk about the occupancy and also seems like the reversion for that office is tracking below some of your other office peers? Okay, let me take the first part. Maybe Pauline, you want to take on the Central Plaza question. So for NAICS, okay, we can share with you the specific

but happy to say that inside the reversion is very strong and it's above the average number you're seeing, all right. And I think this is something that we have shared at the, when we talk about the acquisition. Recently, we said that we see opportunity for us to gain organic growth from the asset to a rental reversion, some remixing and also especially in terms of looking at how can we right size some of the tenants, et cetera. So this is bearing fruits and we are seeing a very strong reversion from NAICS. At the same time, the sales is pretty much in line in terms of the growth that we are seeing for the mall. Right, so that hopes to answer your question on NAICS. Pauline, you want to take on the Central Plaza? Yeah, hi, Vokya. Hi, sorry, I got distracted by your question on thanks. So you were saying, you were asking about the reversion, right, for Central Plaza? Yeah. Okay, actually it's a very-

No, no, no, no, I mean, Central Plaza, just to talk about the occupancy is becoming down and in terms of the office reversion, it is weaker than some of the other office peers that we are seeing. Yeah, okay, so for Central Plaza, in terms of the occupancy, I would say it's still at a respectable level. It's above 90%, 90 over percent, close to the mid-90s. In terms of reversion, what we have shown here is only for one space per se, right? But if I can bring you back to the, you know, we were showing the revenue and the NPI. If you look at it on a year-on-year basis, it has actually been on the uptake. Okay, yeah, okay. Okay, so last question, can you talk about plans for the AEI for NAICS? There was this mention in the press release, just want to know how much can you do?

Is it a big chunk or is it like 5% of the total NLA or? How much can you squeeze out? Yeah, you can, we need indicated that overall, there's a potential to do about 60,000 square feet of space. But of course, subject to what we can achieve or what will be approval comes back with, that is the maximum amount, right? So we are working very hard with the consultants to push for as much as possible, but at the same time, we also want to create space that makes sense, right? I mean, 60,000, it's available, but it has to also make sense. That's one point, right? So this is, and we also shared that we'll be looking at between 15 to 18 months in terms of getting the approval. So now we are in the process of going through that motion. The 60,000 spaces existing or are you coming out? That means are you improving the efficiency or are you getting additional? Okay, this is actually GFA that was previously used

when they compute the car park development, all right? So now we, and because there is the old way of computation, back then the guidelines we necessitate the use of GFA to build car park space. But it has since changed, meaning that now you can unlock this GFA without actually removing the car park. This is again, she very clear because next you don't have enough car parks. In fact, we will be putting more car park as part of the AI. So, but the underlying area that was computed as car park usage previously can now be unlocked and convert into commercial revenue generating space. So it's an addition to whatever NLA that we have today, if you look at it from that perspective, just to simplify it. Okay. So you can, if I may put it into perspective, if you look at the NLA for next, it's about 600 over 1,000, right? So this 60,000 square feet is actually GFA.

If you are able to get very high efficiency from that GFA, it's quite close to that 10% right? If you are able to convert that GFA. Okay, thanks. Thank you. All right. Moving on to the next question from Geridene Wong-BBS. Please go ahead. Good morning. Thank you for taking my question. So the first one will be on reversions. Can we expect companies one when it starts to contribute to deliver above popular average reversions, maybe in a double digit range? And white sands looks a bit weaker, potentially from the past three small. Do you expect this to stay on throughout the first days things cycle as that as that as that ramp up? Yeah, okay. For companies one as we have shared, because what we are expecting a return from our investment in the AEI, it's about 8%, right? So that comes from the uplift in overall revenue

that's gonna be rental, that's gonna be generated as part of this AEI. So in terms of the, if you look at this pure reversion, I think it's pretty much aligned with what we are getting right now. Some spaces of course would be higher than others, but overall it's about that range, seven plus 8% reversion. For white sands, you highlighted that yes, this is one of the softer reversion that we are seeing in terms of our portfolio. Partly we have done a lot of work around remixing our trade mix, strengthening our trade mix and to complement what is coming up at past series small. So it's a deliberate effort for us to improve some of the tenants or rather replacing some of the non-performing tenants with better performing tenants, better brands. And like what I say, this is still in our effort to complement the upcoming opening of past series small.

Which way if I mean supplement not one AEI. So I think Richard mentioned earlier that in terms of the ROI we're seeking that 8%. And I think one of the key aspects of unlocking value is actually transferring the space from say, a weaker lower rent area to a higher unit area. So you see post completion, right? We have actually moved or increased the space at some of the prime areas or prime levels like level one basement and so forth, right? So in terms of overall rent or average rent for the mall, it will pick up post AEI, right? And that repositioning that we are undertaking to strengthen it, it has this young and trendy positioning, well then future prove it for that stronger sales and that will then drive the rental reversion for this mall.

So I'm not sure whether that gives you a little bit more perspective on your rental question. Yeah, thanks Pauline, very competitive. Thank you. If I could just squeeze some more in on you. This course understand that there's some cost savings this year, able to share any numbers, year savings or any form of quantum that we can explore. I think we have indicated before that we currently the utility cost is about 10% of our overall OPEX. And we expect this to grow up by 1% which point to about 11%. Well, we have done a lot of initiatives, rolling out a lot of initiatives in terms of cost savings, but not all of them will be completed ahead or on time or rather some of the works are ongoing and we take a while before completion. So the overall savings may not be achieved in this FY alone. So we are still expecting the utility cost

to go up by about 1% which point to about 11% of our OPEX. Okay, thanks Richard, that's all from me. All right, thank you. Moving on to the next question from Joel Seel, DBS. Please go ahead. Hi Richard and Tim, thanks for the presentation. I just had two questions. The first is regarding Tiong Barrow Plaza. Let's say the revenue dropped a little despite the higher occupancy year on year. So just wondering if you guys could elaborate on it. Is this due to sales turnover or some transition? Yeah, okay. From that perspective is if you go to Tiong Barrow Plaza you would have seen that some minor AI work was carried out in which we recover or rather we took back some space from the food court previously and also amalgamate that space to provide or rather to create a space and brought in Dong Dong Donkey. All right, so now we have also a smaller food court

which is actually doing better, more efficient and a new tenant in terms of having Dong Dong Donkey no more. So because of that work has created some downtime during the period and that's one of the reason why you saw a lower financial performance from Tiong Barrow Plaza. But that is actually something you feel is more sustainable going forward. Yeah, and Richard it's not just the food court space. It's also another mini anchor space that was recovered for the reconfiguration. Yeah, that's amalgamated to create that space for Dong Dong Dong. And in terms of the sales performance, it has actually come out quite well post reconfiguration. So that will then provide that trajectory for growth for this asset going forward. Hey, thanks. My next question is regarding the bond market. Understand previously you guys shared that bank loans are cheaper than bonds. Is this still the case?

And I think the bulk of your retail bond peers actually traded high trees or lower on the secondary. And this compares against I think 4.1% of your average cost of funding. So just wondering what are your thoughts around this? So maybe I can do this question. So for bond is always opportunistic and then it fluctuates from time to point. So when we look at the refinancing for the upcoming FY we definitely explore options if we bond and bank loans and it says accordingly.

Okay, sure. Yeah. Yeah, or is it because you don't want to log in at higher rate for longer? So I'm just wondering. Yeah, so we will explore and see what makes sense with the vehicle. And then they bring down the average cost of debt and it's buying the various options that is in the market. Yeah. Yeah, just to add, I think we always look at having a wider range of options available in terms of financing, but then it has to make sense, right? So at some point in time, we will also want to look at that market and not just relying on bank financing. Yeah. Okay, thank you. That's all for me. Right, thank you. Moving on to the next question from Karens Key. Please go ahead, Karens. Hey, thanks. Thanks, Richard and Tim. Sorry, I apologize. This has been asked before, as I've felt in late, but I wanted to check on revenue and MPI from next, essentially. It's very, very volatile.

You have 20 million up and down from second half of last year to first half of this year. So it's almost like 20, 25% change. Could you share a little bit on what's been happening there? Thanks. Only can you pull this, right?

To be specific, I'm comparing against second half of last year versus first half of this year. I think on a year and year basis, it looks flat-ish, but yeah, sort of hitch on hitch basis. Yeah, rather than a year and year. Oh, you're talking about quarter on quarter basis. There was a 20 million movement. Are you referring to the distribution or the? Both on revenue and MPI. So half on half, essentially, if you look at second half last year, I think your MPI margins for next was close to 80%. And then first half last year was 76%. And then now this sort of normalized back to 77%. So there seems to be quite a bit of noise coming from next. Okay, honestly, I think we need to compare those numbers, but from what we could see, in fact, the performance of next

has continued to be very strong. Of course, there is some cost pressure coming from inflationary impact in terms of utilities, in terms of the cleaning and so on cost. But honestly, I don't think there's a movement about 20 million, but we need to check on that. Pauline, do you have any visibility on that? Because I don't remember the answer to that question. It's like what you said, it's actually been improving. Tell us, are you looking at the same basket now? Because there is a change right in the percentage over the period, could it be distorting the numbers? Yeah, possibly. Maybe I'll get back to you. Yeah, maybe we can take this offline. And then if I could ask on financing costs, maybe could you share a little bit on what's the expectations

for financing costs for FY, for this FY, given that we saw a little bit of dip in financing costs. Thanks. So we reckon that bearing on for good sense circumstances, the average cost of debt for this FY should be around low cost. Okay, that's great. That's all I have for now. Thanks. All right, thank you. It looks like there's no questions in the queue at the moment. So if you have any questions, please feel free to raise your hand. Okay, it appears there's no further questions from the audience. Maybe we can invite Richard to do a rep and yeah, Richard. Yeah, thanks. Thanks, Wangling. Just wanted to give a quick rep top of our performance. Like what we said, we are actually very happy to be able to share a set of healthy results,

both from the financial front and also what you could have seen from the operating side of things, right? We were asked, I think, when we did our first queue business update in terms of what we expect from the market. And our tune back then was that we are positive with the market and it's rightly so, as you can see from this numbers, when we continue to remain positive, of course, bearing any unforeseen circumstances that in terms of traffic visibility, in terms of the performance of the mall, I shared it a bit about underpinned by limited supply, strong demand from retailers coming into the mall, strong performance by our retailers and so on. So this is actually panning out as what we have expected. So we hope that we will continue to be able to deliver on the same trajectory for the rest of the year. We've got our end of presentation. Thank you so much for joining us today. Right. Thank you everybody for attending the briefing this morning.

Right. You may lock up now.