I did not go to the AGM but watched the live broadcast. Attendance looked good even though no voucher or food for CapitaLand AGM from this year onwards. CEO Tan Tze Wooi gave a presentation before the formal AGM. In short, AEI at major malls have resulted in positive rental reversion. Also, Q1 2023 traffic is already higher than that of 2022, with tenant sales at approximately 98% of pre-covid level! That’s pretty impressive.

I would say Tze Wooi is a patient man. Answering the questions from various shareholders patiently even though his presentation would have covered some of the questions or the answers can be found on the document on CLCT’s website or SGXNet. Maybe they could have told the shareholders about the document at the beginning or share some of the questions and answers during his presentation.

One interesting question that caught my attention is how the group is moving towards 40-30-30 from current state? How do they intend to fund future acquisition of new economy properties? CEO shared that funding will be partly done by recycling capital like what have done in the past few years. The rest of the funding will come from debt or equity when window is right.

A follow-up question was CLCT’s asset is at $5 billions now and if the group has a target of reaching a certain amount by certain year. CEO replied that they normally do not share the target to shareholders (not sure why) but they do have an internal target. In general, they are looking at growing every year.

So the outlook does look good but two things to take note as a shareholder. The first being forex uncertainty which impacted both NAV and DPU last year. Of course, it might be different this year especially when MAS just make a pause of monetary policy tightening. The second is to expect more placement and rights which might not turn out to be accretive. While one strategy to raise fund is to recycle capital, it might not be enough, and with higher interest rate, they might use equity to raise fund again.

I am just going to hold on to my current stake and see how things turn out going forward.

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