By David Winning

SYDNEY--Goodman Group upgraded its earnings guidance, cementing its place among companies that have benefited from an accelerated shift in consumer behavior during the coronavirus pandemic.

Goodman, which owns warehouses and industrial parks in countries spanning the U.S. to Australia, said it now expects an operating profit of 1.2 billion Australian dollars (US$932 million) in the year through June. That would represent a 12% increase on operating profit a year earlier and is an improvement on a prior forecast for 9% growth.

Management stuck with earlier guidance for an annual distribution of 30.0 cents per security.

The revised guidance was detailed alongside a 29% rise in net profit to A$1.04 billion in the six months through December, from A$810.6 million a year earlier. Its operating profit was 16% higher at A$614.9 million.

"On average, global online sales increased by 30% in 2020 and are expected to show strong growth over the next five years," said Chief Executive Greg Goodman. "We are experiencing strong demand from customers as they meet increasing consumer requirements and higher utilisation of properties."

Goodman's strategy of focusing on so-called gateway cities such as Sydney, Hong Kong and Los Angeles that share characteristics such as a scarcity of land, close proximity to wealthy consumers, and serviced by modern infrastructure and transport networks gave it an advantage when the pandemic flared early last year.

With offices emptying as staff worked from home and schools closed in many areas of the world, retailers responded by ramping up delivery services for goods purchased online. Those products were often housed in industrial facilities close to city centers where they could be dispatched quickly.

The work-from-home trend is also driving a need for more data storage, Goodman said at its annual meeting of shareholders in November.

Commercial real estate typically is valued based on its capitalization rate, or the annual net income produced by a property divided by the purchase price. Like bond yields, falling cap rates indicate rising values, and vice versa.

Goodman, along with many real-estate investment trusts focused on industrial property, has benefited from strong inflows of capital and asset sales that have tightened the cap rates for industrial property over the past six months.

The company's facilities were 97.9% occupied at the end of December, with like-for-like net property income growth of 3.0% in its fiscal first half. Its gearing--a measure of debt relative to equity--was 4.8% at the end of December.

Goodman said its development work in progress totaled A$8.4 billion at the end of the reporting period. That was up from A$7.3 billion at the end of September, and in line with company's expectations that it would increase further in fiscal 2021.

Write to David Winning at david.winning@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

02-18-21 1656ET