Simon Property Lowers Borrowing Costs But Occupancy Falls -- Earnings Review

Simon Property Group Inc. (SPG) reported its fourth-quarter results Wednesday. Here's what you need to know.

PROFIT: The shopping mall owner had a profit of $571.1 million, or $1.84 a share, compared with $394.4 million, or $1.26 a share, in the same quarter a year earlier. Funds from operations came in at $1.12 billion, or $3.12 per share, up from $912.2 million, or $2.53 per share. Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters expected the funds from operations per share to come in at $3.11.

REVENUE: Revenue rose 0.1% to $1.43 billion. Analysts had expected $1.42 billion

OCCUPANCY: The company said that occupancy was 95.6% at the end of 2017, compared with 96.8% at the end of 2016 and 96.1% at the end of 2015.

BORROWING COSTS: Simon said it worked to lower its effective borrowing cost during the year. It completed two senior notes offerings, totaling $2.7 billion, and retired three series of senior notes of about $2.6 billion. The new notes had a weighted average coupon at 3.07% while weighted average coupon of the retired debt was 3.65%.

2018 GUIDANCE: Simon expects net income between $6.90 to $7.02 a share and funds from operations between $11.90 to $12.02 a share.

Shares, which have gained 4.7% in the past three months, were inactive in premarket trading.

Write to Austen Hufford at austen.hufford@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

January 31, 2018 08:31 ET (13:31 GMT)