How Much would You've Gained if You had Invested All Singapore REITs since Their IPOs

Once, a friend of mine told me: "It is not worth investing in REIT because the dividend you get will only be used to cover your loss of share price, end up you wouldn't earn much in long run." His belief is in Malaysia's residential properties where his property doubles in value within 5 years, during the property boom time. Well, in today's post, let's look at whether the above statement of my friend is true. 

Let's go through a quick history for SREITs: the first REIT listed is CapitaMall Trust was listed 19 years ago in July 2002 on Singapore Exchange. Subsequently, Ascendas REIT was listed in November 2002, followed by Fortune REIT listed in August 2003. Throughout these years, there are 5 mergers between REITs and 6 REITs/BizTrusts delisted or suspended. Fast forwarded to today, there are 38 REITs and 2 BizTrusts which operate similar to REITs.

Image by Tumisu from Pixabay

Let's say there is a REIT investor named Ah Nuah who subscribes S$ 5,000 to each and every IPO of REITs and BizTrust (which operates similar to REITs) without doing any research on them. He is lucky enough to get his full allotment every time. Like his name, he is a lazy person who doesn't follow any news after IPO, therefore, he never participated in any preferential offer or rights issue. Also, he never sold his nil-paid rights for profit nor consideration units after any mergers. All he cares about is the dividends coming to his bank account. Let's look at how Ah Nuah's portfolio performance after all these years:

* Return is adjusted for 5 to 1 units consolidation, however, IPO price is not adjusted

^ Sold at last day of trading

From the above, Ah Nuah has invested in 51 counters, which amount to S$ 255,000 capital. To date, he has received S$ 189,222.87 worth of dividends, equivalent to 74.2% of his capital. Due to delisted and suspended counters(which amount to S$ 30,000 of his capital), he has a realized capital loss of S$ 11,173.84. His current portfolio value is at S$ 272,364.70, with an unrealized gain of S$ 47,364.70. Below is a quick summary:

	Amount	Return	CAGR
Capital	S$ 255,000.00	-	-
Current Value	S$ 272,364.70	-	-
Dividends	S$ 189,222.87	74.2%	2.9%
Realized Loss	S$ (11,173.84)	-4.4%	-0.2%
Unrealized Gain	S$ 47,364.70	18.6%	0.9%
Total Gain	S$ 225,413.73	88.4%	3.4%

The portfolio CAGR is based on the period from 17 July 2002 when Ah Nuah gets his first REIT - CapitaMall Trust until today @ 19 Sep 2021. It is just an approximate gauge as Ah Nuah injected capital and received dividends throughout different periods. 

Next, let's take a look at Ah Nuah's portfolio in terms of CAGR ranking (from the listing date until 19 Sep 2021) for individual counters:

	Highest CAGR	Value	Lowest CAGR	Value
1	Keppel DC REIT	19.1%	Eagle Hospitality Trust	-100.0%
2	Frasers Logistics & Commercial Trust	14.7%	ARA US Hospitality Trust	-19.2%
3	Mapletree Industrial Trust	14.5%	Saizen REIT	-18.2%
4	Mapletree Commercial Trust	12.2%	Lippo Malls Indonesia Retail Trust	-3.6%
5	Parkway Life REIT	11.9%	AIMS APAC REIT	-3.4%
6	Croesus Retail Trust	11.1%	Dasin Retail Trust	-2.9%
7	Ascendas REIT	10.4%	Frasers Hospitality Trust	-2.2%
8	Mapletree Logistics Trust	10.1%	United Hamsphire US REIT	-2.2%
9	Sasseur REIT	9.9%	Frasers Commercial Trust	-1.8%
10	Frasers Centrepoint Trust	8.8%	OUE Commercial REIT	-0.9%

From the above table, you can see KDC gives the highest CAGR to Ah Nuah, followed by FLCT and MIT. However, Ah Nuah has lost 100% of the fund in EHT, followed by CAGR of -19.2% from ARAHT and CAGR of -18.2% from Saizen. Coinincidencely, the top 3 best CAGR is from the industrial sector and the top 3 worst CAGR is from the hospitality sector.

How about we look at the number of counters according to individual CAGR range:

CAGR Range	Qty	CAGR Range	Qty
-5% and below	3	5% to 7.5%	11
-5% to 0%	9	7.5% to 10%	5
0% to 2.5%	5	10% to 15%	7
2.5% to 5%	10	15% and above	1

There are 12 counters having negative returns where 2 are delisted/suspended. In another word, the are still chances for the remaining 10 to turn around to a positive return in the future. There are 24 counters that provided more than 5% CAGR to Ah Nuah. If 5% CAGR isn't impressive, there are 8 counters provided CAGR 10% and above. Considering 12 counters with negative returns and 5 counters with less than 2.5% CAGR, my friend is not "entirely" wrong on his theory, as 1/3 (17 over 51 counters) are having less than 2.5% CAGR.

To MACFK (Mapletree, Ascendas, CapitaLand, Frasers & Keppel) lovers, below is the summary to satisfy your curiosity:

*Frasers Commercial Trust is excluded as it was listed as Allco Commercial REIT initially, without Frasers involvement. 

** Lippo Mall Indonesia Retail Trust is included as it was listed as Lippo-Mapletree Indonesia Retail Trust where Mapletree Capital (a wholly-owned subsidiary of Mapletree Investments Pte Ltd) owned 40% of the manager -  Lippo-Mapletree Indonesia Retail Trust Management Ltd. In mid-2011, Lippo Karawaci Tbk acquired the entire 40% shareholding from Mapletree.

*** PRIME US REIT is included due to the 30% interest in REIT manager by Keppel Capital Two Pte. Ltd., a wholly-owned subsidiary of Keppel Capital Management Pte Ltd and in turn, wholly-owned by Keppel Capital Holdings Pte. Ltd. which is the asset management arm of Keppel Corporation Limited.

If Ah Nuah solely invested in MACFK related counters, his capital would be S$ 95,000 and his total return would be a whopping 164.5% with a CAGR of 5.2%. Just the dividends alone, his return is already at 100.7%, slightly more than his capital. Coupled with a 63.8% unrealized gain, his total return is 86% more as compared to simply buying all the SREITs/Biztrusts.

Image by mohamed Hassan from Pixabay

Obviously, same as stock investing, REIT investing requires research as well to achieve a better return. Now, how can Ah Nuah further increase his return? First, he would have to start following REITs updates. Of course, he can still choose not to subscribe to any preferential offers and rights issues. However, he should sell his nil-paid rights for gain provided it is enough to cover his commission. Besides, Ah Nuah could also:

1. Learn about fundamental analysis
2. Have a systematic way to value REITs
3. Learn about technical analysis
4. Take profit when the share price is higher than the intrinsic value (at target %)
5. Cut loss when fundamental shift causing intrinsic value drops below the share price

If one enters a REIT at a high price, even if its fundamental is very good, or be it MACFK related counters, it might take quite some time to have a decent return due to its compressed dividend yield. It becomes worse if the share price slides down due to lower-than-expected results, market sentiment, or more often than not, simply drops for no reason. Maybe later I could work on the gain/loss if one bought at all-time high prices.

As a side note, it seems SREITs like to list with the number of 8; there are 32 counters listed with the number 8 in their IPO price in which 11 counters listed with 88 cents, 6 counters listed with 80 cents, 4 counters listed with 68 cents and 3 counters listed with 78 cents. There are also 5 counters listed with 93 cents, I could understand the reason for 8 as it is pronounced similar to wealth, but 93? Hmm, I do not get this. There are also 4 SREITs that exercised unit consolidation in which all are having the same ratio of 5 to 1.

Do note that past performance is no guarantee of future results. If you are passionate to learn more about REIT investing, you could refer to the FREE resources on the following pages on my blog:

1. Personal Finance where I've shared some basic relevant topics like what to prepare before start investing and how to come out with a simple dividend investment plan.
2. REITs Investing where I've shared my idea and experience on REITs investment. If you find pure wording is boring, then you could start with the comic strip (links at bottom of the page) that I believe you would enjoy reading. 
3. REITs Analysis where I've shared my review on individual REITs, REITs comparison within the same sector as well as monthly SREITs fundamental review.
4. SREITs Dashboard where you could find the detailed information on individual REIT and REIT ETF, which is the source of my review post as well.
5. SREITs Data where you could find an overview of SREITs and REIT ETFs, including consolidated tables for SREITS metrics and average dividend yield & P/NAV

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*Disclaimer: Materials in this blog are based on my research and opinion which I don't guarantee accuracy, completeness, and reliability. It should not be taken as financial advice or a statement of fact. I shall not be held liable for errors, omissions and loss or damage as a result of the use of the material in this blog. Under no circumstances does the information presented on this blog represent a buy, sell, or hold recommendation on any security, please always do your own due diligence before any decision is made.