Listed property loan stock company Premium Properties on Monday announced that its distributions to unitholders for the six months ended August 31 had increased 39,8% from the same period last year.

This makes Premium Properties and sister company Octodec Investments the top performers in the listed property sector in the past year in terms of their distributions to unitholders. Both Premium Properties and Octodec Investments are managed by City Properties.

Last week Octodec announced a 26,3% increase in distributions to unitholders for the year ended August 31.

Premium said sustained growth in earnings and distributions were driven by rental income and net rental income increasing 19,5% and 12,3% respectively, compared with the corresponding period last year.

Premium said these rental income and net rental income increases were due to a combination of stronger trading activities, a number of yield-enhancing acquisitions and new residential conversions from office space being included in the results.

It said significant reductions in financing costs had also contributed to growth in earnings and distributions for the period.

Premium said its interim distribution was 22,5c compared with 16,1c for the same period last year.