Scentre Group (ASX: SCG) today released its results with Statutory Profit for the period at $174.9 million and includes an unrealised property valuation decrease of $1,017.1 million. The Group’s portfolio is valued at $34.3 billion at 31 December 2023.
Scentre Group CEO Elliott Rusanow said: “Our focus on creating the places and experiences that more people choose to come to, more often and for longer, has delivered strong operating performance with Net Operating Income increasing by 8.8% to $1,951 million.
“Customer visitation to our 42 Westfield destinations for the year was 512 million, up 32 million or 6.7% on 2022. This was underpinned by our activation program which included new strategic partnerships with leading brands Disney, Live Nation and Netball Australia.
“As a result, our business partners achieved $28.4 billion in sales, an increase of $1.7 billion or 6.4% compared to 2022 and representing a record across our Westfield platform.”
Demand from business partners continues to be strong with occupancy increasing to 99.2% at 31 December 2023 compared to 98.9% at 31 December 2022. During the year the Group completed 3,273 leasing deals which included 307 new brands to the portfolio.
The Group collected $2,723 million of gross rent during the year, an increase of $131 million compared to 2022 and equivalent to 103% of gross rental billings for the period.
“During the year we continued our focus on strategic customer initiatives including our Westfield membership program. We now have over 3.8 million members, an increase of 640,000 for the year,” Mr Rusanow said.
Distributions are expected to be at least 17.20 cents per security for 2024, representing at least 3.6% growth for the year.