QCT poised to refinance RM117m facility

KUALA LUMPUR: Quill Capita Trust (QCT) has obtained a commitment from a financial institution to refinance a RM117 million debt, which is expiring at the end of the third quarter in the financial year ending Dec 31.

According to presentation slides of the company, the refinancing of the medium-term note (MTN) would push the maturity of the debt to 2018.
QCT has another MTN due next year and following that it only has commercial papers worth RM130 million due in 2016.

The real estate investment company said it had renewed 20% of its leases, based on net lettable area (NLA) — due for renewal this year.

“For the balance leases due in 2013, negotiations with tenants have commenced. The majority of these leases will only be due for renewal in the fourth quarter of 2013,” it said.

Some 63% of QCT’s assets are in office space with 25% in retail space. There have been recent reports of a glut in office space.

However, the company said a report by Henry Butcher Malaysia Research affirms that QCT’s average occupancy rate for the year stood at 95% in terms of NLA as compared to the average office occupancy of 80.24% in the Klang Valley.

In an announcement to Bursa Malaysia yesterday, QCT said it recorded a profit after tax of RM8.11 million on turnover of RM17.23 million for the first quarter ended March 31 this year.

The increase is marginal compared to the RM8.07 million on a turnover of RM17.78 million recorded in FY12.

For last year, the real estate investment group recorded a realised income of RM34.46 million on turnover of RM69.49 million, a 0.4% increase from RM34.32 million in FY11.

According to QCT chairman Datuk Mohammed Che Hussein, results for last year were due to prudent capital cost management which resulted in lower finance cost by 8.5% compared with 2011.

“We managed to control and lower property expenses for FY12 without compromising our quality of services to tenants,” he said in last year’s annual report.

On Jan 31 this year, Quill Capita Management Sdn Bhd, the owner of QCT, declared a final distribution of RM4.28 per unit for between July 1, 2012 and Dec 31, 2012.

This article first appeared in The Edge Financial Daily, on May 10, 2013.