Recent Transactions & Dividends Update

Dividends Update

Dividends received to date: $5,602.80

Coming dividends: $466.28

From: MNACT, Suntec REIT and Netlink Trust

Total for the year: $6,069.08.

Target hit.

Recent Transactions

Purchased my maiden lots of Mapletree NAC Trust @ $1.11 during the recent bearish trends in the market.

Ever since they made the foray into Japan, I began to take a deeper look into MNACT because I like the geographical diversification taken by the management.

Have been monitoring MNACT for awhile since and when it hit my TP I pressed the trigger.

This is my second purchase of the Mapletree family. The first being Mapletree Logistics Trust.

Why MNACT?

Financials:

Gross revenue, NPI, distributable income and DPU all increased for the first half of this FY.

Gearing is a tad too high for my liking at 39% though it's still below the 45% regulatory limit.

Other Metrics:

Like the fact that 78% of the debt is tied to fixed interest cost. Assuring in the rising interest rates environment.

Also like the reduced forex risk with 80% of FY18/19 distributable income hedged into SGD. Prudent management.

Valuation:

My purchased price is well below the NAV of $1.325.

One of MNACT directors recently bought 200,000 of its shares at $1.12. Since I'm buying at a cheaper price I would like to think this is a price with enough safety margin.

Outlook:

With the exception of Gateway Plaza (98.7%), all other properties in the portfolio enjoy 100% occupancy. Average portfolio WALE of 3 years ensures continuity for the near future.

And with Festival Walk, Gateway Plaza and Sandhill Plaza all contributed higher average rental rates for the first half of the year, it seems that there is no lack of suitors for MNACT's mix of retail and office spaces.

I especially like the fact that GP and SP are located in the tier 1 cities of Beijing and Shanghai.

Finally, contribution from the newly acquired Japanese properties should provide the impetus for the trend of increasing incomes and DPU to continue.

A well-managed REIT with prudent management and >6% yield. Great.

Added Netlink Trust @ $0.77 to my existing IPO holdings. Waited for its XD before buying as I reckoned it should fall further below NAV levels.

My holding price averaged to $0.79 with this tranche. Close to its NAV of $0.792 as of 30 Sept 2018.

Reasons for buying Netlink Trust have been covered in previous post and those reasons have not changed.

I like this counter for its stable and recurring income.

Financials:

Revenue, EBITDA and profit after tax are higher than projection for H1 FY19.

Can't find the gearing in the financial statements so I did a quick calculation using their loans and net assets. The gearing stands at 20.5%.

Annualised DPU of $0.0488 is higher than the $0.0464 projection and yields 6.18% against my cost.

Valuation:

Purchased price is a slight discount to book.

Outlook:

Netlink Trust maintains a strong economic moat as the dominant player in the field of fibre cable laying and associated installation.

In the short to mid term, Starhub's cessation of its cable network and transition of its broadband customers to fibre network by July 2019 provides likely upside.

In the mid to long term, the increasing residential units will continue to spearhead Netlink Trust as the residential connection segment contributes ~60% of its topline.

The low gearing puts the company in good stead if they wish to expand their business beyond the core offerings, though that will require shareholders approval.

If there is one worry it will be a reduction in the regulated returns during the next review period after Dec 2022.

Lower installation revenues highlighted in the financial report ought to be noted for next half (2H FY19) monitoring as well.

Meanwhile let's collect the >6% yield per annum first.

How Do I See the Possible Merger of ESR-Reit and Viva Industrial Trust

Although the combined entity will be the 4th largest industrial REIT by asset value and 5th largest by market cap in Singapore, I hope the deal doesn't materialise.

The figures above sure look impressive.

However in my opinion the future outlook, portfolio quality and the performance of the REIT management are equally, if not more important.

Take a look at the following table.

 

Gross revenue, NPI and DPU have been decreasing Y-o-Y for ESR whereas that of Viva Industrial Trust (VIT) have grown Y-o-Y. This is a testament of the REIT's manager strength.

Apart from the WALE and occupancy rate which are higher, ESR is going to be a drag on VIT.

Numbers don't lie. Though in some cases they do tell a different story. For example, the REIT's rental reversion depends on what type of leases they take into account. But this is topic for another day.

Since we are at rental reversion, let's look at the negative rental reversion of ESR and think about how this will impact the REIT price performance and dividend payout.

In the most direct manner, the DPU will be negatively affected going forward. The overall value of the REIT portfolio will also be negatively impacted since the collective value of the assets will go down.

Comparing to ESR, I would say VIT performed much more admirably. Whether it's the distribution yield, revenue, NPI or rental reversion.

I also prefer the portfolio of VIT more than that of ESR. Except for 7000 AMK, the rest of the latter's portfolio doesn't conjure any excitement in me when I glanced through.

On the contrary I prefer the outlook for the two crown jewels of VIT: Viva Business Park and UE BizHub East.

Having said that, I do see something interesting for ESR with the Tuas mega port coming up in 2040.

ESR has a number of properties in Tuas among which one of them was acquired last year with 36 years remaining land lease.

If they can position themselves to make use of the mega port development, it should change the dynamics for them.

In summary unless there's something very positive that I missed out in ESR, I hope the deal doesn't goes through.

Portfolio Review: Viva Industrial Trust

Managed to find time to review the performance of my holdings.

For Viva Industrial Trust (VIT), the FY2017 results are nothing short of stunning and vindicated my decision to pay a premium to purchase the units three months ago.

The glowing result is mainly contributed by the post-AEI Viva Business Park and the logistics property at 6 Chin Bee Avenue. UE BizHub East also shows marginal increase in revenue contribution.

The following slides show it all.

 

In a span of one year (2016 end - 2017 end), share price of VIT ran up from S$0.755 to S$0.94. An increase of nearly 20 cents. This is justifiable.

As an income investor, one of the criteria I look out for when adding a stock into my long term portfolio is the dividend payout. In this aspect VIT remains one of the best among the industrial REITs.

I do have a concern regarding the WALE of 2.6 years though I won't be losing sleep over this as VIT is doing quite well in terms of tenancy retention. However this shall be a point of monitoring for me.

Fundamentally, VIT remains solid. Outlook in my opinion, is looking good especially for both business parks.

Will I continue to keep VIT in my portfolio? Absolutely.

Will I add more? Yes.

Now comes the golden question. How do I see the possible merger of ESR and VIT?

I will answer this in the next post since the reply will not be a short one.

Viva Industrial Trust - My First Foray Into Industrial REITs

Today (actually it's yesterday since it has passed midnight) marks my first foray into the industrial class of REITs if I don't consider Mapletree Logistics Trust as industrial.

Viva Industrial Trust is not a pure industrial REIT. It has a hotel among its properties.

I have been monitoring Viva Industrial Trust for some time. When the price dropped more than the dividend post-XD today, I decided to take advantage of this and buy into this counter @ $0.955.

Ideally I would like to go in below $0.95 but guess I am not that disciplined.

Results from Viva's latest quarter look promising.

Comparing Y-o-Y and Q-o-Q,

Other results,

Gearing is reasonable at <40%.

WALE is 2.8 years. To be honest I would prefer this to be higher.

And portfolio occupancy is 90.9%.

As a matter of fact, the above figures allude to the good fundamentals and good management of the trust.

Furthermore with the opening of the Downtown line station connecting directly to UE BizHub East, there is a real possibility of upcoming positive rental reversion and increment of the property value.

However the deal clincher for me is the AEI done for their Viva Business Park (VBP) in Chai Chee. I've been to VBP several times in the past for business meetings before they commenced the AEI.

Post-AEI, I've went back several times with my wife and what a world of difference the initiatives made!

The most obvious improvement is the number of retailers and anchor tenants such as Harvey Norman and Decathlon taking up space in the business park.

This is a far cry from the old VBP where majority of the tenants are commercial entities and the only retail shops on the ground floor are cafes and such.

The effort made for the AEI is actually visually-obvious. It changes the whole vibe of the business park. And I have to say I am impressed by what I see.

Paying at $0.955 a piece for Viva means paying a premium to its NAV and this is usually what I don't do.

However I see limited downside and much upside to the price due to the increased buying interest in this REIT, value-realisation of UE BizHub East and potential of increased income from VBP.

The way I see it, Viva will break $1.00 soon.

My plan when I placed the queue order today was this:

a) If the price appreciated within these few days, I might do a short term trade.

b) If the price drops, I will hold as part of my income portfolio. A dividend yield of nearly 8% doesn't hurt.

Cheers.

Recent Action - Mapletree Logistics Trust

Taking advantage of the dip in price, I purchased 10,000 shares of Mapletree Logistics Trust (MLT) today as my maiden entry to the Mapletree family.

Has been eyeing several of the Mapletree counters in my watch list for some time and ironically my first choice in the Mapletree family is actually another trust : )

Anyway the reasons for purchase are summarised as follows.

The recent news concerning logistics players such as FLT and GLP signal a favourable outlook for this sector as a whole.

With a diversified portfolio in 8 countries, MLT presents a good choice with exposure to growth in the APAC region.

And add a well spread of tenants to the equation. I like the fact that the biggest sector of tenants accounts for just 24% of the revenue contribution. This is from the F&B sector by the way.

Exposure to the troubled oil & gas and marine sectors is also limited as they account for only 5%.

Customers-wise, none account for more than 5% of total gross revenue. I find this a good hedge against any major upheaval in specific industries.

Weighted lease term to expiry (WALE) of over 4 years. Although this is not too long in my opinion, I am not overly concern with this.

After all there is no one anchor tenant account that makes up a substantial portion of the revenue where it can skews the results upwards (or downwards!).

Furthermore a lower WALE might be advantageous to MLT since it has shown positive rental reversions in China, Vietnam, Japan and Hong Kong.

Portfolio occupancy remains high at 95.5% despite a slight decline from previous quarter. This can be be explained by the transitional downtime from a property in South Korea.

Importantly, occupancy rates from other countries actually improved from the last quarter.

93% of leases that expired in 1Q FY17/18 has been renewed or replaced.

Freehold and long leasehold properties. About 30% of MLT's portfolio is freehold and average expiry to their leasehold land is 47 years. Pretty long if you ask me.

Talking about portfolio, I also like the current and future yield-accretive acquisitions and AEIs by MLT.

Even with lower contributions from the South Korean property and absence of contribution from one block of Ouluo Logistics Centre, MLT's gross revenue actually grew by 7% year on year and NPI grew by 7.5%.

Nice!

Of course DPU increased of 2% year on year and 1.5% quarter on quarter doesn't hurt ; )

Risks

Total outstanding debt increased by S$18 million. However approximately 79% of total debt has been hedged into fixed rates.

Continued pressure over the increased in supply of warehouse space locally. However this is mitigated by the renewal and replacement of expiring leases as well as positive rental reversions in other markets.

Lastly, I'm paying a slight premium to the NAV. Not my usual style. But I feel the upsides outweigh this hence this purchase.

Note: Figures obtained from 1Q FY17/18 financial results.