Charter Hall reports substantial FUM boost

Charter Hall reported a group net profit of $517.8 million in the first half, a significant boost from $173.2 million in the comparable period a year earlier. 

In an ASX listing on Friday, Charter Hall said operating earnings doubled to $263.9 million from $129.3 million a year earlier, while revenues jumped to $566 million, from $248.3 million. 

"Charter Hall’s strategy of partnering with tenant and investor customers continues to deliver strong returns for securityholders. Investors continue to endorse our investments in long WALE strategies and look to benefit from our ability to access off-market opportunities," said Charter Hall’s managing director and group CEO, David Harrison.

"The current period has seen us experience strong inflows across our strategies, with $2.8 billion of gross equity allotted. We’ve also successfully deployed $5.4 billion in acquisitions across 18 funds and partnerships, a record 6-month period. Importantly, our development pipeline continues to grow and now stands at $13.2 billion, providing valuable opportunities to deploy our investment capacity into new product," Mr Harrison added.

During the six months to 31 December, Charter Hall's property investment portfolio increased by $432 million, or 18 per cent, to $2.85 billion.

Overall, the group’s managed funds grew by 52 per cent to $79.5 billion, driven by property FUM growth of 17.2 per cent. 

Charter Hall also reflected on its ESG wins, noting the group remains on track for 100 per cent of operations to be supplied by renewable energy by 2025.

The group declared an interim distribution of 11.33¢ and interim dividend of 8.33¢ per stapled security.