05:11 PM EST, 03/06/2024 (MT Newswires) -- Minto Apartment Real Estate Investment Trust (MI-UN.TO) Wednesday announced its financial results for the fourth quarter and year ending Dec. 31, 2023.

"Minto Apartment REIT ended the year with an exceptionally strong fourth quarter. Continued strong operating performance combined with prudent capital allocation decisions led to a 21.2% increase in Normalized FFO per unit and a 25.9% increase in Normalized AFFO per unit compared to Q4 last year," said Jonathan Li, President and Chief Executive Officer of the REIT, in a statement. "For the full year, the REIT delivered 10.1% Same Property Portfolio Normalized NOI growth, driven by strong market fundamentals in Canada's major cities and strong operating performance from our high quality, urban portfolio. Importantly, we successfully converted NOI growth into cash flow per unit growth by delivering Normalized FFO per unit growth of 4.9% and Normalized AFFO per unit growth of 6.0%, despite carrying a high amount of expensive variable-rate debt earlier in the year."

The Audited Consolidated Financial Statements and Management's Discussion and Analysis for Q4 2023 and FY 2023 are available on the REIT's website at www.mintoapartmentreit.com.

"The successful execution of our capital recycling program has strengthened our balance sheet and further reduced our variable-rate debt exposure into early 2024. Including assets which closed subsequent to year end, we sold five non-core assets at prices in line with their IFRS fair values for $128 million and we used the net proceeds to repay variable-rate debt," said Li in a statement.

"2023 was an important year for the REIT. Looking back, we made many disciplined capital allocation decisions throughout the year, including waiving on an acquisition, deferring a major intensification project, waiving on opportunities presented to the REIT, securing upward refinancings and successfully executing on our capital recycling program," said Li in a statement. "At times, these decisions were difficult - but they were necessary - as they have best-positioned the REIT to become a growth story once again."

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