SYDNEY--Goodman Group continued a trend of targeting 9.0% growth in annual operating earnings per security as it seeks to lock in customers for the data centers that it is building in cities including Paris, Hong Kong and Los Angeles.
The goal for the 2027 fiscal year compares to the 10.1% growth rate achieved by Goodman over the past 12 months when management repeatedly passed up the opportunity to upgrade the outlook despite analysts' expectations that it would do so.
Many in the market think Goodman deliberately sets a low bar to cushion the impact of any shifts in the macroeconomic backdrop, as it has experienced in recent years with U.S. tariffs and the Middle East conflict. Consensus forecasts are ahead of Goodman's maiden guidance at 11% growth for the new year, data from Visible Alpha show.
Goodman, which owns commercial property ranging from business parks to warehouses, provided the outlook alongside a statutory net profit of 2.78 billion Australian dollars (US$1.98 billion) for fiscal 2026, up 67% from A$1.67 billion a year earlier. Annual revenue totaled A$2.67 billion.
In recent years, Goodman has positioned itself at the forefront of the boom in artificial intelligence and cloud computing by stepping up investment in data centers. Goodman said its global power bank totaled 6.4 gigawatts, in line with the end of March.
Data centers under construction now account for 78% of Goodman's work in progress, which totals A$19.7 billion.
Still, Goodman has yet to reassure many investors that customers will commit to the data centers during the construction phase, contributing to its share price pulling back from a record-high close reached in early 2025. Earlier this week, the company said it had signed a 20-year lease with a global hyperscale customer for the first 50 MW phase of the Tsukuba Tech Central data-center campus in Greater Tokyo.
On Thursday, Goodman said demand is structural across both logistics and data centers. It said leasing is progressing alongside construction, with negotiations advanced across several sites.
"Automation and robotics continue to drive logistics requirements while scarcity of power and land remains the key constraint on AI and cloud growth supporting data center demand," said Chief Executive Greg Goodman. "Hyperscaler capex expectations continue to rise, with many customers facing undersupply into 2027 and 2028."
Goodman said its property was 95.6% occupied at the end of June, with like-for-like net property income growth of 4.0% over the past year. Total assets under management rose 4.0% to A$89.0 billion.
Its gearing--a measure of debt relative to equity--was 6.5% at the end of June, up from 4.1% six months earlier. On a look-through basis, gearing was 19.5%.
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