Keppel Pacific Oak US REIT (KORE) has reported income available for distribution of US$30.4 million ($39.4 million) for the 9MFY2025 ended Sept 30, 14.8% lower y-o-y.
The drop was due to the lower adjusted net property income (NPI) of $63.2 million, 2.2% lower y-o-y, due to lower cash rental income from higher free rents due to the timing differences in leases completed for the respective periods.
The lower distributable income was also attributed to higher finance and other trust expenses, which rose by 6% y-o-y to US$24.6 million.
Gross revenue inched up by 0.1% y-o-y to US$112.1 million while NPI fell by 1.3% y-o-y to US$61.3 million.
In its business update, KORE’s manager says it has completed its refinancing for 2025 and is working on its refinancing for 2026. It has a lender commitment secured to refinance 59% maturing in 2026 earlier.
As at Sept 30, portfolio occupancy remained stable at 88%. Portfolio weighted average lease expiry (WALE) stood at 3.9 years based on cash rental income (CRI) or 3.7 years based on net lettable area (NLA).
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For the 9MFY2025, the REIT reported positive rental reversion of 9.6%.
As at the same period, KORE’s aggregate leverage stood at 43.1%, up from 42.6% as at Sept 30, 2024. Interest coverage ratio as at Sept 30 stood at 2.5 times, down from 2.7 times in the same period last year.
A 100 basis point (bps) increase in weighted average interest rate will lower KORE’s interest coverage ratio to 1.9 times while a 10% decrease in its ebitda will lower it to 2.2 times.
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‘On track’ to restarting distributions
KORE’s manager says it is “on track” to restart distributions for the 1HFY2026, with payments expected in 2HFY2026 barring any unforeseen circumstances. It will adopt a “conservative initial payout ratio” and progressively increase that to a sustainable level moving forward.
In July, the REIT manager stated that its resumed distributions would be “substantially smaller” compared to its previous “full distributions.”
Per market research by JLL and the US office market dynamics for the 3Q2025, the US office market is showing “early signs of stabilisation” amid a flight to quality. There was also a pick up in leasing activity with vacancy declining for the first time in seven years, KORE adds.
As at 9.12am, units in KORE are trading flat at 23 US cents.
