Trading at around S$0.585, Lendlease Global Commercial REIT (SGX: JYEU) looks, on the numbers, like one of the more underappreciated names in the Singapore retail S-REIT space. A market-beating yield, a shrinking debt load, and accelerating rental growth don't usually coexist with a unit price sitting near the bottom of its 52-week range — yet that's the setup here.
A Yield That Holds Up Well Against Retail S-REIT Peers
Lendlease REIT's ("L-REIT") showed a Distribution Per Unit (DPU) of 1.85 Singapore cents, up 3.1% year-on-year. Annualised against its share price, that works out to a yield of roughly 6.3%. With both 1H and 2H financial results proving that the REIT is likely to be consistenly announing 1.85 Sg cents.
For context, here's how that stacks up against the broader retail-REIT peer set:
Against CICT and FCT — the two largest, most liquid domestic retail landlords, and the most directly comparable names — LREIT's yield premium of 100+ basis points is a meaningful gap, and it comes at a time when its balance sheet metrics are improving rather than deteriorating.
So the more like-for-like comparison — Singapore-anchored, domestically focused retail landlords — still favours LREIT on yield.
Leverage Trending Down, Competitive Within the Peer Set
Gearing stood at 38.9% but the amount of Perpetuals in L-REIT's balance Sheet has reduced
Stacked against the wider retail-REIT peer set:
- FCT: gearing of 40.3–40.4% as at end-FY2026 (though FCT has separately flagged a pro forma reduction to ~36.5% following the proposed divestment of White Sands mall)
- CICT: gearing in the 38.6–39.2% range
- Suntec REIT: 41.5%
LREIT's leverage is now clearly below FCT's and Suntec's reported figure and broadly in line with CICT's.
Retail Rental Reversions Are Growing
Operationally, the retail portfolio is doing the heavy lifting. Positive rental reversion for L-REIT units has come in at double digits.
Cutting the Expensive Perpetual Securities Down by 40%
One of the more overlooked parts of the story is what management has done to the REIT's perpetual securities — a historically expensive layer of hybrid capital that sits above senior debt in the cost stack.
LREIT previously carried S$400 million in perpetual securities across two S$200 million tranches. Through two refinancing rounds:
- April 2025: S$200 million of perpetuals refinanced, replaced with S$120 million of new (lower-coupon) issuance plus additional lower-cost loans, bringing the balance down to ~S$320 million.
- April 2026: A further S$120 million in new perpetual securities was issued at 4.28% p.a. to partially refinance the remaining S$200 million tranche that matured in June 2026, with the balance addressed through existing debt capacity.
Net result: perpetual securities outstanding have fallen from S$400 million to roughly S$240 million — a 40% reduction. Since perpetual distributions are typically more expensive than senior debt and rank ahead of unitholder distributions, shrinking this layer directly frees up more income for unitholders.
As a result, ICR is now 2.1 times, a large improvement.
Bottom Line: Best Singapore Focused Shopping Mall REITs
Lendlease REIT's latest results show a REIT genuinely repairing its balance sheet while its underlying retail portfolio accelerates. With a higher yield than CICT and FCT which are Singapore malls focused, L-REIT is indeed an undervalued gem and income investors could consider buying L-REIT for its dividend up to 65 Singapore cents and holding it to 68 Singapore cents
