• Registered Return on Equity¹ (“ROE”) of 15.3% and Return on Invested Equity² (“ROIE”) of 10.4%
• Increased Total Owned and Managed Assets under Management (“AUM”) by 20.3% to S$55.7 billion from S$46.3 billion
• Delivered consistent performance on its second Five-Year Plan with ROE averaging 12.8% for the last five financial years

SINGAPORE – Mapletree Investments Pte Ltd (“Mapletree”, “丰树产业” or “the Group”) is pleased to announce today that the Group has achieved another year of record net profit of S$2.16 billion, an increase of 10.3%; with a ROE of 15.3% for financial year 2018/2019 (“FY18/19”) ended 31 March 2019.

FY18/19 also capped the end of the second Five-Year Plan that Mapletree set in FY13/14 with a strong finish. Revenue and recurring PATMI³ for the Group increased to S$3,948.1 million and S$770.8 million respectively, representing a year-on-year increase of 23.6% and 11.5% respectively. ROIE rose to 10.4% from 8.7% in FY17/18 attesting to the strong capabilities of the Group’s execution of its business model.

The Group grew its shareholder’s funds by S$6.3 billion over a five-year period from S$8.3 billion to S$14.6 billion as at 31 March 2019. In addition, the shareholder funds tripled over the last 10 years, with an approximate S$10 billion increase.  

On the performance achieved in FY18/19, Mr Hiew Yoon Khong, Mapletree Group Chief Executive Officer said, “Mapletree’s strong commitment and execution of its business model brought forth the benefits of growing its business while maintaining consistently high returns. We are delighted that earnings were boosted due to new income streams from investments into new sectors and markets, organic growth of our same store assets, divestments by our private funds and asset revaluation gains”.

Underpinned by the Group’s deeper penetration into markets such as Australia, the United States (“US”) and Europe, AUM increased by 20.3% to S$55.7 billion in FY18/19 from S$46.3 billion in FY17/18.

FY18/19 marked the Group’s maiden foray into the logistics market in Europe and the US with the acquisition of an income-producing portfolio of logistics assets from three separate vendors. Mapletree also made further inroads into the student accommodation sector with the acquisition of 224-bed property in Norwich, United Kingdom (“UK”) in November 2018. With this latest acquisition as well as other projects under development, the Group’s total student housing portfolio (including those held under MGSA Private Trust (“MGSA”)) consists of 48 assets with nearly 21,000 beds located across 33 cities in the UK, the US and Canada.

Other key acquisitions include a Grade A office property, 67 Albert Avenue located in Chatswood, Sydney (New South Wales, Australia), as well as an operational IT office park, Global Infocity Park Chennai in India with a net leasable area totalling 252,403 square metres (“sqm”).

After assembling the high quality logistics portfolio during the financial year, in March 2019, Mapletree syndicated a private fund, the MUSEL Private Trust (“MUSEL”), with S$5.6 billion of assets. This is the Group’s first fund in the US and Europe focusing on the logistics sector, allowing investors the opportunity to gain exposure to a quality, diversified and well-located portfolio of 262 logistics assets in 26 US states and 20 European cities across seven European countries.

During the financial year, the Group’s managed private fund MJOF, which invests in a diverse portfolio of income-producing office spaces in Japan,  fully exited its investment and generated for its investors a net internal rate of return (“IRR”) of 27% and an equity multiple of more than 1.8 times, significantly above its targeted IRR of 11% per annum. Six of the office assets were acquired by Mapletree North Asia Commercial Trust (“MNACT”) in a Distribution per Unit (“DPU”) accretive transaction for MNACT in May 2018.

In addition, Mapletree India China Fund and Mapletree China Opportunity Fund II completed the divestment of Mapletree Business City Shanghai and VivoCity Shanghai in November 2018, contributing positively to the returns of both funds which are in their divestment phase.

Post financial year end in May 2019, Mapletree completed the divestment of Mapletree Bay Point, a Grade A office development in Kowloon East, Hong Kong SAR, for approximately S$1.6 billion. The Group had developed Mapletree Bay Point for long term rental income purposes. However, given the buoyant office capital value in Hong Kong, it was opportune to realise the attractive value the building can fetch and recycle the proceeds for other growth opportunities.

Separately, the Group’s four managed REITs raised a total of approximately S$3 billion in equity proceeds since FY14/15, demonstrating our strong ability in tapping various source of funding for potential acquisitions.  

Mr Hiew added, “The last Five-Year Plan saw Mapletree broadening its presence in key growth markets such as Australia, Europe and the US and into new sectors such as lodging (student accommodation, multi-family assets and serviced apartments) and data centres. On top of building our presence in these markets, we successfully completed the development of a number of high quality buildings throughout Asia and strengthened our regional operations and network”.

Commenting on the next lap of Mapletree’s growth, “Moving forward, the Group will continue to focus on the disciplined execution of its business model as a real estate developer, investor, capital and property manager to achieve high sustainable returns in the third Five-Year Plan”, added Mr Hiew.

Additional Information on Second Five-Year Plan highlights:

Table 1

Diversification into Europe and the US

• Mapletree entered the corporate housing/serviced apartment business in April 2014 and subsequently acquired Oakwood Worldwide (“Oakwood”) in February 2017. The Group also added to the overall expansion plans of Oakwood with its Mapletree-owned corporate housing/serviced apartment properties. Together with the recently acquired properties in January 2019 – Oakwood Chicago River North and Oakwood Arlington in Northern Virginia – the total number of Mapletree-owned corporate housing/serviced apartment assets increased to 15 as at 31 March 2019.
• The Group marked its first foray into the commercial sector in Europe and the UK in May 2015. The portfolio has since grown with acquisitions in core UK regional cities such as Manchester, Bristol and Aberdeen and the 79-hectare leading business park, Green Park, located in Reading. In December 2017, Mapletree acquired its first office property in the US, 50 South Sixth which is located in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
• The Group raised equity of US$535 million (~S$725.1 million) in March 2017 for MGSA, which was the first trust in Singapore that focuses on this sector.
• In December 2017, Mapletree expanded into the data centre sector through the acquisition of a portfolio of 14 data centres in the US, at a purchase consideration of approximately US$750 million (~S$1,020 million) via a 60:40 joint venture with Mapletree Industrial Trust (“MIT”).
• In FY18/19, the Group entered the Europe and US logistics market and assembled a portfolio of 283 logistics buildings through a series of acquisitions from three vendors, out of which S$5.6 billion of these assets were syndicated into MUSEL in March 2019.

Development success in Singapore

• The Group completed the development of Mapletree Business City II (“MBC II”) in April 2016. Committed occupancy for MBC II reached 99.4% as at 31 March 2019.
• In August 2016, Mapletree Commercial Trust acquired the office and business park components of Mapletree Business City I from Mapletree Investments at S$1.78 billion.
• In February 2019, MIT acquired 18 Tai Seng, a nine-storey high-specification mixed-use industrial development from the Group at a transacted price of S$268.3 million.
  

Deepening our presence in Asia

• Mapletree closed its Japan-focused logistics development fund and office fund, MJLD in June 2014 and MJOF in January 2015 respectively, with a total fund commitment of JPY116 billion (~S$1.4 billion).
• The Group entered the commercial sector in Australia with the acquisition of 144 Montage Road in Brisbane, Australia, a Grade A office building in November 2014. Since then, Mapletree has increased its presence in Australia and now owns nine commercial assets in key cities of Adelaide, Brisbane, Melbourne, Perth and Sydney with more than A$1 billion (~S$1 billion) AUM.
• In October 2017, Mapletree Logistics Trust acquired the 11-storey ramp-up Grade A logistics facility, Mapletree Logistics Hub Tsing Yi, which was the first logistics property in Hong Kong SAR developed by the Group, for HK$4.8 billion (~S$834.8 million).
• The Group completed its first office development in Hong Kong SAR, Mapletree Bay Point, a Grade A office building in Kowloon East, in end March 2018. This development was subsequently divested in May 2019.
• The Group’s managed private fund, MJOF, fully exited its investment and generated for its investors a net IRR of 27% and an equity multiple of more than 1.8 times in FY18/19.
• In FY18/19, the Group further expanded its logistics development footprint in China, signing 25 investment agreements with a total value of S$1,547 million and acquired 18 development sites for S$976 million.

Mapletree acquired three high quality logistics portfolios in FY18/19. 1089 E. Mill, San Bernardino, California is one of the distribution warehouses located in the US with a net lettable area of 37,600 sqm.

The Group added a 224-bed property in Norwich, UK to its student accommodation portfolio in November 2018.

In November 2018, Mapletree acquired Global Infocity Park Chennai, an operational IT office park in India.

Footnotes
¹ROE denotes return on equity and is computed based on PATMI attributable to equity holders of the Company over shareholder’s funds.
²ROIE computed based on Operational PATMI (less profit attributable to perpetual securities) over the Group’s equity from shareholder adjusted for unrealised revaluation gains or losses and such other non-cash flow and non-operating items including mark-to-market fair value adjustments and negative goodwill.
³PATMI denotes net profit (after tax and non-controlling interests) attributable to Perpetual Securities Holders and Equity Holder of the Company.
⁴NAV CAGR is adjusted for dividends distributed to shareholder and calculated excluding non-controlling interests and perpetual securities and with NAV as at 31 March 2014 as starting base.
⁵Earnings before interest and tax (EBIT) plus share of operating profit or loss of associated companies and joint ventures (SOA), excluding revaluation gains or losses, divestment gains or losses, foreign exchange and derivatives gains or losses.
⁶Fee Income includes REITs fee income