Surprising Upcoming Merger between Frasers Commercial Trust and Frasers Logistics & Industrial Trust

In a surprising twist of fate, both Frasers Commercial Trust ("FCT") and Frasers Logistics & Industrial Trust ("FLIT") announced a trading halt. According to the Business Times, their ''secret sources" revealed that both REITs will be joined in holy matrimony and merged into one entity. The "secret sources" identity also cannot be revealed as the information is still private. As always, news seems to have leaked ahead of the trading suspension and the unit price of both REITs increased suddenly above their normal trading range for no apparent reason over the past few days. FCT and FLIT seems to have jumped onto the bandwagon of Capitaland and OUE Group by suddenly deciding to just merge the 2 REITs. 

I am currently holding on to both FCT and FLIT with almost similar weightage in terms of quantum in my margin portfolio. So the question of whether one particular REIT's shareholders will benefit more from any bias or favorable pricing over the other REIT in the new entity will appear to be non-relevant to me. As I intend to hold on to Frasers REITs for the long term for their dividends, the post merger will not increase the distributions automatically. It does make it more financially stable and probably be able to obtain cheaper re-financing by virtue of its mammoth size. If these are the good points, then Frasers Property can probably do a merger every year by injecting its other REIT and business trust, that is, retail and hospitality arms into one super giant stapled Business Trust. But then, it will make it murkier than mud and take away one's freedom to choose the business that one specifically wanted to invest. 

The only other benefit in my view will be the reduction of statutory compliance cost from one listed entity instead of the current two entities. Will await further details from Frasers Group regarding their upcoming plans for these 2 REITS.