Scentre profit jumps on property valuation gains

The firm operating local Westfield shopping malls says higher property valuations drove a 41pc rise in annual profit.

Scentre operates nearly 40 Westfield shopping centres in Australia. Pic: Bloomberg

Scentre Group said higher valuations placed on its Australian shopping malls drove a 41% rise in annual net profit.

Scentre (SCG), which owns and operates nearly 40 Westfield-branded shopping centres, reported a net profit of $4.22 billion in the 12 months through December. That included $3.2 billion of valuation gains. Net profit was up from $2.99 billion in 2016.

Funds from operations — a smoothed measure of operating cash flow that excludes depreciation, amortisation and gains on asset sales — rose by 4.25 per cent to $1.29 billion in the year. That was in line with a target of about 4.25 per cent growth.

If the impact of transactions was stripped out, growth in funds from operations would have been around 4.9 per cent, Scentre said.

Scentre said it expects funds from operations to rise by around 4 per cent in the 2018 fiscal year, with a 2 per cent uplift in distributions to 22.16 cents per security.

Dow Jones Newswires