RL Commercial REIT FY24 profit: P6.1-B (up 38%)

RL Commercial REIT [RCR 6.42, up 1.6%; 296% avgVol] [link], the Gokongwei Family’s REIT subsidiary of Robinsons Land [RLC 12.24, up 1.3%; 97% avgVol], posted a full-year net income of P6.13 billion, up 38% from its FY23 net income of P4.44 billion, and improving its earnings per share by 24% from P0.41 to P0.51. RCR maintained an occupancy rate of 96% (top tier) and paid out 93% of its distributable income for the year. The stock price improved 20% from January 1, 2023, to December 31, 2023. RCR paid P0.4261/share in aggregate dividends across four regular dividends and one special dividend, which provided a yield of 8.7% relative to RCR’s FY24 starting price, and a yield of 6.6% relative to RCR’s IPO price. 

MB bottom-line: It took the Gokongwei Family some time to pay attention to RCR, but once it did, it really demonstrated the depth and breadth of the potential pipeline of injections between RLC and RCR. I’ll admit that I was underwhelmed by RCR’s Q4 dividend after that amazing post-injection Q3 dividend extravaganza, so I’m very interested to see where the Q1/25 dividend lands. Will RCR keep making small incremental adds to the dividend-per-share, or will things kick into a higher gear for RCR shareholders? Either way, from a business risk perspective, I’d be pleased to enter this year with a higher percentage of mall assets, and I’d be interested to see that percentage holding to continue climbing as soon as possible.

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