The Goodman Group (ASX: GMG) share price is under pressure on Thursday morning.
At the time of writing, the industrial property company's shares are down almost 1.5% to $34.70.
This follows the release of the company's FY 2024 results before the market open.
Goodman share price lower on results
- Portfolio occupancy at 97.7%
- Like-for-like net property income (NPI) growth of 4.9%
- Operating profit up 15% to $2,049.4 million
- Operating earnings per share up 14% to 107.5 cents
- Statutory loss of $98.9 million
- Full year distribution of 30 cents per share
What happened in FY 2024?
For the 12 months ended 30 June, Goodman reported a 15% increase in operating profit to $2,049.4 million and a 14% lift in operating earnings per share to 107.5 cents. The latter was ahead of its upgraded guidance for 13% growth and well beyond its original guidance of 9% growth for FY 2024.
This was driven by a combination of strong demand for its warehouses and data centres, new developments, and a 4.9% increase in like-for-like property income.
One negative, though, was that Goodman recorded a statutory loss of $98.9 million for the year. This reflects negative revaluation movements across the company and partnerships in FY 2024.
Nevertheless, this couldn't stop Goodman from keeping its distributions flat at 30 cents per share in FY 2024.
Management commentary
Goodman's CEO, Greg Goodman, was pleased with the company's performance. He said:
Goodman is providing essential infrastructure, with our warehouses and data centres supporting the flow of goods and data through the economy. The expansion of the digital economy continues at pace. The growth of e-commerce, cloud computing, and adoption of new technologies, including artificial intelligence and machine learning, is creating significant opportunity for Goodman to develop the infrastructure our customers are seeking.
This has supported the Group's strong operational results, despite global market uncertainty. Operating profit was $2.05 billion, up 15% for the year, and operating EPS was up 14% on the previous year. This was significantly ahead of our original operating EPS growth guidance of 9%, as we continued to successfully execute our strategy.
Our focus has remained on logistics and data centre opportunities in key cities around the world, where barriers to entry are high and supply is limited.
Outlook
The weakness in the Goodman share price today could be due to management's conservative guidance for FY 2025.
It is guiding to operating earnings per share of 117.2 cents, which is up 9% on FY 2024.
However, it is worth remembering that Goodman has a habit of underpromising and overdelivering on its guidance. So, it will not be surprising to see this guidance increase as the year progresses.
The company also expects to maintain its distribution at 30 cents per share.
