In an ASX announcement on Wednesday, the fund manager reported a statutory loss after tax of $222.1 million after clocking a profit of $196.1 million a year earlier.
Its operating earnings post-tax came in at $358.7 million, down from $441.2 million a year earlier, reflecting a high level of performance and transaction fees earned in financial year 2023, while its EBITDA shrunk 12.3 per cent to $579 million.
According to Charter Hall’s chair, David Clarke, the result should still be seen as a strong one given the challenging environment for real estate and corresponding subdued transactional activity.
“Our ability to deliver these earnings, consistent with our guidance, reflects strong cost control and discipline across the platform,” Clarke said.
Group funds under management (FUM) fell $6.5 billion to $80.9 billion, consisting of $65.5 billion of property FUM and $15.4 billion of Paradice Investment Management (PIM) FUM.
Property FUM contracted by $6.3 billion, driven by devaluations of $6.1 billion and divestments of $2.4 billion offset by acquisitions of $1.7 billion and capex and development spend of $0.5 billion.
Clarke noted that notwithstanding this, Charter Hall continues to hold the largest sector-diverse commercial property portfolio in Australia.
“FY25 will not be without its challenges, and we will continue to manage headwinds,” the chair said.
“However, by leveraging our property expertise, scale, depth of talent, and strong relationships with our customers, we will look to capitalise on the opportunities for growth we expect to emerge,” he added.
Looking forward, Charter Hall’s managing director and group CEO, David Harrison, said the fund manager is well positioned to take advantage of the upcoming lower rate environment.
“With evidence emerging of a slowing economy and inflation trends moderating, we consider ourselves well positioned to take advantage of a lower interest rate environment as it emerges,” Harrison said.
“We see current market pricing as offering attractive long-term returns for stabilised core real estate products and value-add development and opportunistic strategies and it’s our expectation that capital deployment will increase to take advantage of market conditions.
“We also remain close to our tenant customers. Our sale and leaseback capabilities, combined with our development experience, make us uniquely positioned to partner with our tenants and help them meet their property needs. We look forward to working with both our investor and tenant customers in the year ahead as partnership remains central to our ongoing success and the growth of the business.”
