In an ASX announcement on Wednesday, the fund manager reported a statutory loss after tax of $222.1 million after posting a profit of $196.1 million a year earlier.

Its operating profit after tax was $358.7 million, down from $441.2 million a year earlier, reflecting a high level of performance and transaction fees earned in fiscal 2023, while EBITDA contracted up 12.3 percent to $579 million.

According to Charter Hall chairman, David Clarke, the result should still be seen as strong given the challenging real estate environment and corresponding muted transaction activity.

"Our ability to deliver these revenues, in line with our guidance, reflects strong cost controls and discipline across the platform," Clark said.

Group funds under management (FUM) decreased by $6.5 billion to $80.9 billion, comprising $65.5 billion of property FUM and $15.4 billion of Paradice Investment Management (PIM) FUM.

Property FUM contracted $6.3 billion, led by impairments of $6.1 billion and sales of $2.4 billion, offset by acquisitions of $1.7 billion and capital and development expenditures of $0.5 billion dollar.

Clarke noted that despite this, Charter Hall continues to hold Australia's largest portfolio of commercial properties, diversified across the sector.

“FY25 will not be without its challenges and we will continue to face headwinds,” the chairman said.

"However, by leveraging our real estate expertise, scale, depth of talent and strong relationships with our clients, we will look to capitalize on the growth opportunities we expect to arise," he added.

Looking ahead, Charter Hall's managing director and group chief executive, David Harrison, said the fund manager was well placed to take advantage of the coming lower interest rate environment.

"With emerging evidence of a slowing economy and a slowdown in inflationary trends, we see ourselves as well positioned to take advantage of the lower interest rate environment as it arises," Harrison said.

"We see current market pricing as offering attractive long-term returns for stabilized core real estate and value-added development and opportunistic strategies, and expect capital deployment to increase to take advantage of market conditions."

“We also stay close to our tenant clients. Our sale and leaseback capabilities combined with our development experience make us uniquely positioned to partner with our tenants and help them meet their real estate needs. We look forward to working with both our investor and tenant clients over the coming year as the partnership remains central to our continued success and growth of the business.”