SCA Property Group, the country’s biggest neighbourhood shopping centre landlord, officially rebranded to Region Group on Monday.
The new Region Group name and rebranding coincide with the business’s tenth anniversary as an ASX-listed company after being spun out from Woolworths. Its new ASX ticker is RGN.
During this time, it has achieved a number of significant milestones, including admission to the ASX100, expansion of its property portfolio from 56 to 104 centres, increasing its unit price from $1.40 in 2012 to $2.75 as of 30 June 2022, and delivering over 234 per cent in total unitholder returns compared to the ASX200 A-REIT index return of 116 per cent.
SCA stood for Shopping Centres Australasia, which CEO Anthony Mellowes describes as a very literal name.
“We’re 10 years old, broken into the ASX 100, we’ve evolved to do a bit of other things outside of regional shopping centers – we’re doing some funds management – and we just thought the literal name could limit some potential for us,” he said.
The group, which already owns a Bunnings and a number of childcare centres, may potentially look into types of areas that suit its core business model, Mr Mellowes said.
“Some of those adjacent sectors that fit in with us, with our core business, could become opportunities,” he said.
While the core strategy of the group is strong and remains its key focus, he said the group still looks out for other opportunities in those adjacent sectors.
The group is also looking at investing in its solar generation capacity to help achieve its net-zero by fiscal 2030 for Scope 1 and 2 emission goals. The group is planning on spending $20 million per annum over five years to do this.
Mr Mellowes said that neighborhood shopping centres have been performing strongly this year as people with savings are spending more and those with flexible working arrangements are visiting more.
“Retail is in a really strong place at the moment,” he said.
“Our leasing deals that we are doing are really good… the basics of our business is in really good fundamental shape.”
Mr Mellowes said the past 10 years have seen the groups portfolio of metro and regional convenience shopping centres grow and evolve.
“We are excited by the opportunities ahead of us as we continue to expand and explore new ways to deliver on our purpose supporting better communities across Australia,” he said.