The pedestrian results led to JP Morgan maintaining its underweight recommendation on MINT with a June 2027 price target of $1.85 versus its end March NAV of $1.63 (-4.7% y-o-y).
“MINT’s outlook remains challenging due to upcoming US vacancies of around 4.5% of gross rental income (GRI), USD weakness, the impact of prior divestments, and higher borrowing costs, which we expect to drive an 8% y-o-y decline in FY2027 DPU. Despite MINT underperforming the S-REIT index by 16% since end-2024, we recommend investors avoid the REIT given its weak earnings profile and the likelihood of further Bloomberg consensus downgrades.” JP Morgan says in an update on May 11.
Its DPU estimates for FY2027 and FY2028 are 3% and 4% below consensus respectively. In the US, heading into FY2027, MINT faces headwinds from AT&T’s exit in San Diego at end-May 2026 (2.5% of GRI); non-renewals at Hawthorne (1% of GRI) at end-May 2026 and Alpharetta (also 1%) at end-Sep 2026, totalling 4.7% of GRI.
MINT must also navigate a 2.1ppt y-o-y decline in occupancy across its North American data center portfolio.
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“The ability to backfill AT&T vacancies is challenging given the softer data centre and life science market in San Diego and smaller/older size of MINT’s US data centres. Partially offsetting this is potential backfilling at Alpharetta, which is in a strong data centre market, and management noted it is in advanced discussions with a prospective tenant. Overall, we expect vacancy concerns to continue weighing on DPU and share price performance,” JP Morgan explains.
In addition to occupancy issues, borrowing costs are likely to be higher, with cost of debt rising from 3% to 3.2% in FY2026 and with guidance of 3.4%-3.5% for FY2027.
“A weaker USD/ SGD also adds headwinds. MINT’s plan to dispose of $500 million to $600 million of North American data centres could be DPU-dilutive if the assets are income producing,” JP Morgan points out.
As a result, the US bank is forecasting an 8% y-o-y decline in MINT’s FY2027 DPU (compared to 12.71 cents in FY2026). FY2028’s DPU could be lower, depending on the non-renewals.
