Rising demand for industrial property

Axis Real Estate Investment Trust (Axis-REIT) expects sustained demand for industrial property and disciplined capital management to drive its growth outlook.

The REIT company said Malaysia’s macroeconomic fundamentals are expected to remain supportive of demand for industrial property.

The company said continued investments into the manufacturing and logistics sectors, along with accelerated growth of new sectors such as data centres, are expected to sustain demand for strategically located, modern industrial property in the years ahead.

“We believe Axis-REIT is well-positioned to capitalise on these buoyant conditions and have set an ambitious target of growing the fund’s assets under management (AUM) to RM10bil by the end of 2030,” Axis-REIT said in its recently released annual report for last year.

For its financial year ended Dec 31, 2024 (FY24), Axis-REIT surpassed its AUM target of RM5bil to achieve RM5.26bil.

The group said it completed a record eight acquisitions during the year, raising its portfolio count to 69 properties with 15.15 million sq ft of space under management.

“In 2024, we successfully completed eight property acquisitions for RM719.4mil – a record in terms of the number of properties acquired and the amount invested in a year,” Axis-REIT said.

Its revenue rose by 11.7% year-on-year to RM322.15mil last year supported by additional revenue from new acquisitions and completed developments, full-year rental income from Bukit Raja Distribution Centre 2, as well as rental revisions across the portfolio during the year.