Goodman Group (ASX: GMG) shares were under pressure on Thursday.
The industrial property giant's shares ended the day 1.5% lower at $35.62.
This compares unfavourably to the performance of the benchmark ASX 200 index, which rose 1.1% and closed at a record high of 9,019.1 points.
Why did Goodman shares underperform?
Investors were selling the company's shares today in response to the release of its full year results.
For the 12 months ended 30 June, Goodman reported a 13% increase in operating profit to $2,311.2 million and a 9.8% lift in operating earnings per share (EPS) to 118 cents.
One driver of this growth was its Development earnings, which were up 4.8% to $1.34 billion. Management believes this reflects the quality of the workbook in urban locations.
Also driving growth was its $72.1 billion of external assets under management (AUM), which underpinned a 7.9% increase in management earnings to $837.4 million.
Occupancy was high at 96.5% during the 12 months, with like-for-like net property income (NPI) growth strong at 4.3%.
Looking ahead, management has plenty of work in progress (WIP) to drive its future growth. Development WIP stood at $12.9 billion at the end of the year, with an annualised production rate of $6.1 billion.
Data centres currently make up 57% of the development WIP. It notes that the global power bank is 5.0 GW across 13 major global cities, of which 2.7 GW is secured and 2.3 GW in advanced stages of procurement.
Management commentary
Goodman's Chief Executive Officer, Greg Goodman, was pleased with the 12 months. He said:
Goodman has reported a strong operating result for FY25. This reflects the quality of our assets, the strength of our financial position, and the continued successful execution of our strategy.
We have looked beyond the volatility in the economic and trade environment over the last 12 months, and actively pursued long-term growth opportunities. These include making a number of strategic site acquisitions that will enable us to meet growing demand for data centres and capture future growth in logistics demand across our metropolitan locations.
Outlook
Goodman is positive on the company's outlook and highlights its "significant" opportunity in data centres. He adds:
The scale and potential impact of the data centre opportunity for Goodman is significant. We are on target to have 0.5 GW of data centre development underway in key global cities by June 2026.
Goodman is in a strong position heading into FY26 and is well placed for long-term growth, supported by the significant data centre opportunities in the near term and the Group's financial capacity and flexibility.
The company is guiding to operating EPS growth of 9% in FY 2026, which will mean an operating profit of over $2.6 billion.
Given that the consensus estimate was for 11% growth in the new financial year, this could be why Goodman shares fell today. However, it is worth remembering that the company is usually conservative with its guidance early on in the financial year. So, this could be upgraded as the year progresses.
