Alibaba Horrendous Q4 2022 Results Release And A Silver Lining In The Dark Cloud

 

I am not sure why many analysts were very pleased with the latest Q4 2022 results released by Alibaba (despite it depicting a huge loss worst than the prior Q4 quarter of 2021) which they think is much better than their expectation. The US and HK stock exchanges for Alibaba also went up between 12%-15%. For me personally, I am holding a contrarian view for the near term as despite the 9% growth in revenue for Q4 2022 year on year, Income from Operations has actually fallen off the cliff after normalising for reversal of share-based compensation expenses of RMB13,046 Million in Q4 2022-meaning a razor thin profit from Operations of only RMB 3,671 Million for Q4 2022. This also means that the Net Loss for Q4 2022 is approximately  <RMB 31,403 Million> after normalisation. 

1. Loss of RMB18.4 billon dollars on RMB 204 billion dollars of revenue for Q4 2022 results

The bad news here is that the pressure on gross profit margin from the anti-monopoly measures forced down on Alibaba seems to have squeezed the life out of the e-commerce giant. In FY2021, its Q4 Loss from Operations included a RMB 18 Billion (US$2.7 Billion) Anti-monopoly. Hence the actual decline for the same Q4 year on year is a whopping RMB 31.4 Billion decline.

The other complication here with regard to earnings visibility is the impact of COVID-19 disruption to Alibaba operations. As China gradually open up its economy, the million dollar question here is whether the number of transactions generated from e-commerce spending by consumers during lockdowns will decline drastically as some consumers head back to traditional purchases. Hence based on its current Q4 results, the results are murky and personally, I am unable to tell with more certainty on the general trending for Alibaba's future performance.

2. Silver lining in the dark cloud

As mentioned earlier, the good news is that Alibaba continued to grow their revenue by 9% based on Q4 year on year. This is a rather impressive feat given the multi-faceted challenges in the regulatory environment and also covid 19 lockdown disruption to the supply chain. 

In addition, the adjusted EBITA for Cloud segment of Alibaba Group shows a profit RMB276million for Q4 2022 instead of a loss of RMB342million for previous Q4 2021, largely attributable to the realisation of economies of scale. This is a rather good sign as besides China e-commerce segment, the Cloud segment seems to have grown in size and generating a positive EBITA despite the pulling out of cloud services by state-own companies (as ordered by regulators over cybersecurity concerns of Alibaba and Tencent in Dec 2021).

Last but not least, its international e-commerce business fronted by Lazada continues to grow rapidly. Although the planned IPO for Lazada has been halted for now due to less than ideal valuation, there will be upsides to Alibaba group from its listing once the market conditions improves.

Parting thoughts

Overall, despite the headwinds from the competitive e-commerce landscape and uncertain times, Alibaba continued to invest into strengthening its eco-system to generate revenue growth and has taken drastic measures such as laying off (around 15%) of its workforce to optimize its operating cost structure in order to enhance overall returns to shareholders. I will continue to hold my small stake in Alibaba while awaiting greater clarity in its next quarter earning release. 

Why I Am Staying Away From Temasek's Astrea 7 PE Bonds.

The application period for the Astrea 7 PE bonds opens on Friday (20 May 2022) and closes at 12pm on Wednesday (25 May 2022). So far, I have seen a couple of glowing reviews about this new class of bonds for retail investors and folks who want to subscribe. However, I will be staying far far away from this particular Astrea 7 series. I have to give a thumbs down for those who keep insisting that bonds are relatively less risky than holding equities. It is all about the market trending and macro-probability. In the face of super inflationary pressure and US Federal Reserve putting an all out stop to combat rising inflation, buying bonds now is just suicidal for me. I only have one thing to say about the issuance of this current tranche, that is, Temasek's Azalea could not have picked a worst time for this particular fund raising exercise.

1. Rising interest rate environment leads to butchering of the face value of Astrea 7 PE Bonds

Well this is basic economics 101: Bonds have an inverse relationship to interest rates. When the cost of borrowing money rises, bond prices usually fall. With an all out fight to stop hyper-inflation, the US Federal Reserve is hell-bent on raising borrowing rates. Although there are indeed some signs of green shots sprouting on the taming of inflation, I think it is just too early to conclude that the war has been won. Safe to say, I expect interest rates to continue rising aggressively. 

Simply put, there may come a time when the fixed deposit offered by banks reached over 4%. If this scenario materializes, then we can imagine the opportunity cost of holding on to the PE bonds. The risk and reward does not seemed adequate currently. Chances are that the market value of the Astrea bonds will drop upon listing in the next 6 months is quite high. 

2. Portfolio asset class diversification?

On the need for diversification of asset classes, I certainly do agree with it. Nevertheless, another way I look at this is that our Central Provident Fund ("CPF") special account already provided some good diversification and is the closet thing to a government risk free bond. Why do we want to buy into PE bonds that most certainly will encounter high chance of declining price (as alluded to point 1 above) and also faces the possibility of some valuation impairment for unlisted businesses?

For me personally, now maybe the time to gradually invest more into businesses listed on the various stock exchanges. The S&P 500 is down about 20%. This is definitely a bear market. Again, the strange thing is that many retail investors tend to sell or stay away from equities during bear market and buy more during a bull market rally.

3. Singapore Saving Bonds ("SSB") is more liquid than Astrea 7

Furtherance to the topic of asset class diversification, as a small retail investor, I would rather put my money into SSB as one can do early redemption without any penalty or loss in value. So it would be easier to do switching or re-allocation to equities later on if there are good opportunities. 

For Astrea 7, you can only sell if off in the secondary market on SGX after being allocated the bond issuance- bad news here is that the trading liquidity portion can be a challenge at certain period based on historical issued Astrea series. 

Parting thoughts

Anyway, the above are just my own personal train of thoughts at this juncture based on my own long term investment objectives. For those who wanted to buy into Astrea 7 PE bonds and are willing to hold on till the redemption, I guess this would still be better than putting everything into the bank.

Fall in Singapore Logistics REIT Pricing And Good Potential Rental Reversion Upsides- Good Buy Now for Mapletree Logistics Trust?

The recent price weakness of Logistics REITs, due to inflation fears as well as interest rate hikes, presents a good entry point in this particular asset class segment. Mapletree Logistics Trust, AIMS APAC REIT and ESR-LOGOS market prices have declined significantly over the past 6 months. Locally, there are many positive rental reversion cases in view of the limited warehousing space available. 5 years ago, the whole warehousing space market was in a terrible low occupancy state with rates plunging to S$1.00psf in Western Singapore. Since post COVID era, the cost of space has ballooned to between S$1.50 to S$2.00 at most warehousing facilities.  

1. Take it or leave it attitude of logistics Landlord

Many warehouse landlords have been playing hard ball recently as currently, in particularly in Singapore market, there is excessive demand over available space-virtually, it is a landlord market these days. 

Some landlords have demanded existing tenants with less than 6 months lease left to take up 20%-30% increment in rental rates offer made within a month or their marketing team will put it up for rental in the market. If the offer by new potential tenants exceed the offer, then the existing tenant will need to match it. 

I am surprised by the high handed approach these days relative to 5 years back then, when the landlord's marketing team were begging customers to stay on or fighting with other landlords by snatching each other customers to move to their warehousing facilities with enticement of many months of rent free period and also offering to pay for the transportation/haulage of cargo. 

2. Factors driving up demand and limited supply of warehousing space in the local Market

Current warehouse space are in great demand and short supply mainly due to:

(i)      Government stockpiling programme of essential food and materials due to uncertainties in COVID situation is still on;

(ii)     Many companies hoarding up warehousing space to store their supplies for finished products in the event of the unpredictable disruption to their supply chain and

(iii)    The relatively short land tenure awarded to new warehouse developments, which typically have a lease duration of no more than 20 years (used to be 30yrs), means that there is little incentive for developers to venture into this asset class in Singapore hence as a result, there is a significant lack of new warehouses in the pipeline.

Parting thoughts

Summarizing, it maybe a worthwhile time to pick up some logistics REIT with good exposure to the Singapore warehousing market in view of the high demand and lack of warehousing space. My personal pick is Mapletree Logistics Trust ("MLT"). As an ex-tenant of MLT, dealing with MLT is a nightmare as their property management team is always doing inspections of common areas diligently or nitpicking reinstatement handover and always trying to push back repair costs to tenants. As an investor, I rather like such attitude and culture of their management team. Its portfolio is also geographically well diversified. Most importantly, MLT has the full financial backing of the Singapore government linked Temasek Holdings behind them.  

Of course, the downside risk here is that the stabilization of the COVID pandemic and high interest rate will moderate the hot demand for warehousing space. If so, lower occupancy rates may soon follow and the red-hot warehouse rental reversion rates may start going downhill gradually.

First REIT Disposal of Siloam Hospital Surabaya- Loss on Disposal Despite Impressive "Capital Gain" announced of 143%? Contradictory statement Or Just Clever Marketing?

 

The recent press release by First REIT (on 18th May 2022) with regard to its disposal of Siloam Hospitals Surabaya ("SHS") is mind boggling. First and foremost, the press release talked about the original cost of acquisition of SHS was just S$16.8Mil in 2006 and hence the selling price of S$40.9Mil translates to a huge capital gain of over 143.2%. However, when one opened up the SGX announcement, it revealed a shocking loss of <S$0.6Mil> upon the disposal of SHS. There appears to be 2 completely contradictory statements being made. What exactly is going on here?  

1. Press release emphasis on 143.2% gain since initial purchase at S$16.8Mil.

Extract of Press Release

The press release only reported impressive capital gain of 143.2% but strangely it did not have a single word pointing to the "loss on disposal" expected from this deal. 

2. Fair valuation of SHS (S$40.9Mil) as at 31 Dec 2021 is already the same as the announced selling price

If we read the annual report, the S$40.9Mil is already the fair valuation in the financial statements of the annual report for the year ending 31 December 2021. 

Accounting Policy For Fair Value to P&L for Investment Properties

The accounting policy is clear that any subsequent increase in fair value would have been passed through to the Profit and Loss of First REIT. Hence its market price already factored in this fair valuation gain to S$40.9Mil since this is already captured in their books. Therefore, if the offered sales consideration is also S$40.9Mil, the sales of SHS is actually a loss for First REIT given that there is S$0.6Mil worth of professional service fees and divestment management fees payable to the Manager of First REIT. 

3. Loss on proposed disposal of SHS of  <S$0.6Mil>

Extract of Announcement On Loss of S$0.6Mil from Proposed Divestment

As aforesaid mentioned, since the of S$40.9Mil selling price after netting off current book value of S$40.9Mil plus S$0.6Mil of selling cost is negative, this gives rise to a loss upon the proposed divestment.  

Parting thoughts
The proposed divestment price is rather disappointing as after 5 months and in-spite of post COVID recovery in Indonesia, the valuation of Siloam Hospitals Surabaya remains the same as the valuation as at 31 December 2021 captured on the books of First REIT. As a matter of fact, this is a loss upon disposal of <S$0.6Mil>. However, all is not bad on this deal. 

With the disposal of Siloam Hospitals Surabaya, it slowly chips away at the over-concentration risk of having one single tenant contributing to a substantial portion of the total rental income. This is currently still the Achilles' heel of First REIT. Many investors/ex-investors paid a huge price for their investments into First REIT during the default of the previous main tenancy agreement which was crafted as a "restructuring" of master tenancy agreement. I do hope that the new 2.0 Growth Strategy will be able to fundamentally make First REIT more resilient and prevent such unfortunate crisis from happening again and all the best for current investors still holding on to First REIT. 

P.S: Please also see my other postings on First REIT below

1. First REIT Twisted The Knife Further Into The Heart Of All Unitholders- Nightmare of Nightmares Right Issues Announced At More Than 50% Discount Off Last Market Price.

2. First REIT Nightmarish Rental Restructuring- Good Buy Now With Huge Drop in Price and High Potential Dividend Yield of 12.2%?

Time To Sell All Stocks To Prepare For Upcoming Recession? Heavy losses from Crytocurrencies.

The stock markets have been fluctuating wildly for the last few months. This week is probably another one of the scariest week with consecutive days of stocks free-falling non-stop to another market low. I saw a S$40K of paper loss just in this week alone from my various investment portfolios. Is this just a temporary market correction to take into account the high interest rates to tame soaring inflation or is this just the beginning of a market crash before the deep dive into another global recession just when many businesses are still trying to recover from the recent COVID induced recession?   

1. Luna plummeted overnight and rest of Crypto dragged in. 

The cryptocurrencies market is in turmoil right now. It has been a shocking week for those who own bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, as they watched billions of dollars in their asset valuation vaporize overnight. Luna unfortunately crashed suddenly due to a lack of confidence by holders. My thoughts are that those affected should continue forward and not let this setback impact their investment confidence. 

2. Sell all stocks to avoid the painful stock market crash?
Well personally, I will not be doing any panic selling despite the sudden S$40K drop in my overall portfolios. My preference is to double down to pick up extra units of the various counters that I have especially those that have reported good results or backed by strong sponsor such as those belonging to the Mapletree or Keppel family. In the event that there are any rights issue to top up liquidity, at least one can be rest assured that Temasek will be able to cough up the money or underwrite such emergency fund raising.   

Since we do not have magical crystal ball, I do not think that there is any point for one to try to time the market. For all we know, this may turn out to be a false alarm should inflation came under control soon and it became the case whereby one misses the market rally.  

3. Major change made by opening Endowus account

I have decided to open an account with Endowus to prepare to invest my CPF ordinary account in event that the global markets crash further. This could very well be another great opportunity to beat the 2.5% in CPF ordinary account.

Parting thoughts

As at 13 May 2022 (Friday) today, we finally seen some respite with stock prices recovering some of the heavy losses this week. But similar to other recessions, this maybe one of the many impending bouts of fake rallies. Panic selling might just ensue again next week. I do think that with my current portfolios (especially with regard to my Margin Portfolio), the tweaking of investment constituents into more Temasek linked companies as well as blue-chip banking giants, should make them more resilient. I will continue to plough back my upcoming S$8K of dividends for May'22 and June'22 into priming the bruised portfolios for post crisis recovery.

Manulife US REIT High Distribution Yield of 8.67%- Rosy Future Or Just A Value Trap?

Manulife US REIT ("MUST") just announced its Q1 2022 operational updates. This is one of my major US Office space investments inside my margin portfolio which delivers an effective distribution yield of around 13% per annum along with Keppel Pacific Oak US REIT as well as Prime US REIT with the use of leverage. Things on the surface looks good but the risk of runaway US inflation and US Federal Reserve interest rate hike as well as flexible working hours from home (instead of office) seems to be creating much weakness in its market pricing. MUST seems to have performed the worst out of the other 2 US Office REITs with a drop in market pricing of <18%> since 1st January 2021. From a market price of S$0.743 per unit, the current unit price of MUST at S$0.600 as at 9th May 2022 is only a faint shadow of its former glorious self. I will go on to highlight 3 factors that I am currently not comfortable with regarding MUST.

MUST Q1 2022 operational and financial metrics

1. Occupancy rate has been declining relative to pre-COVID days

While the occupancy rate of 91.7% seems high relative to the "average US Office Class A" rate of 83% ((based on report from JLL US Office Report 1Q 2022), it is nothing short of a disaster if we were to look at the beginning of COVID madness in Q1 2020 where the occupancy rate was 95.8%. If we were to further compare to the pre-COVID days of Q1 2019, the occupancy rate then was even higher at 97.4%. This is an extremely worrying negative trending.

If we delve into the details, MUST have stated 2 points with regard to the headwinds challenge in their business:

(i) Decision makers are unclear on their space requirements due to global uncertainties and employees slow return to office;

(ii) Hybrid working model these days could see incremental 10% of workers working from home up from the pre-COVID levels of 12% (based on Greenstreet report as at 10 Mar 2022).

Personally, I think that the low occupancy rate is one of the main reasons for the sharp decline in MUST market unit price ever since Q1 2021. 

2. Impending interest rate hike and impact

In addition, the cost of borrowings will continue to adversely affect MUST. MUST has a 42% gearing ratio which is relatively higher to the other US Office REITs of approximately 38%.

According to MUST, every 1% increase will impact DPU by 0.075 US Cents. Coupled with the high gearing ratio of 42.8%, MUST maybe in a perfect storm should the drastic approach, employed by the US Federal Reserve, to keep on increasing borrowing rate to tame soaring inflation continues unabated. 

There is an increasing likelihood of a potential crash in investment property valuation should the increase in rates lead to another severe recession akin to the 2008 global financial crisis whereby many REITs were forced to do rights issue at huge discount to maintain the required gearing ratio of 50% mandated by the Monetary Authority of Singapore.

3. Private placements over retail preferential rights issue detrimental to existing unit-holders

While I understand the rationale to do a private placement for the faster speed of obtaining funding and improved trading liquidity (with an enlarged base) to the unit-holders, my personal thought is that such fund raising exercise nevertheless is not opened to existing unit-holders and destroyed much value for loyal unit-holders of MUST. The recent issuance of 154Mil units at US$ 0.649 per unit for the acquisition of Diablo Technology Park, Park Place and Tanasbourne Commerce Center is a very good illustrative example of self-value destruction by MUST.

The as aforesaid mentioned private placement exercise was launched on 30 Nov 2021 at US$0.649 per unit. Before the announcement, MUST was trading at US$0.710 per unit. MUST management has offered a 8.6% discount off the market price for the new unit-holders. Upon completion of the acquisition, MUST market price has plummeted to US$0.66 per unit. I was extremely disappointed with the huge discount offered to the new unit-holders at the expense of existing loyal unit-holders.

Parting Thoughts

US Office REITs are currently facing strong headwinds. In view of the low occupancy rate in US market and impending increase in borrowing costs, I cannot see a rosy road ahead and is waiting for the next quarterly reporting on occupancy rate. Hence in-spite of the seemingly high distribution yield of 8.67% from MUST, there is the big question mark here on whether such payout is sustainable in an increasingly gloomy future.  

Last but not least to balance the viewpoints, analysts at CGS-CIMB have a target price of US$0.86 per unit while analysts at Maybank Securities have a target price of US$0.90 per unit for MUST which is a potential upside of 50%. Personally, I believe in my own eyes for now and has not seen the reversal of the negative declining occupancy rate. I do hope that with the appointment of the new CEO, Mr William David Tripp Gantt on 4th May 2022, he will be able to bring in more yield accretive M&A opportunities for MUST. However, this maybe an extremely arduous task given the current low market pricing which gives a distribution yield of almost 9%. 

Investment Portfolios Updates- S$640k (29 Apr'22)- Addition to Lendlease REIT via Rights Issue

The net assets value went up mostly due to the dividends of S$19K received over the past month from the investment portfolio along with some slight recovery in the overall markets. The Ukraine-Russo war is here to stay and so is the battle against inflation by US Federal Reserve via the raising of interest rates. Singapore banks strangely rallied during the last week of April'22 in spite of the drop of around 10% in earnings.

1. Portfolio 1- Stocks held in SGX Central Depository

This portfolio is designed to provide immediate dividends for use (if required) as it is under my own CDP account and the dividends credited goes directly to my bank account. Going forward, I will be concentrating resources to increase the quantum here as my other Portfolio 2- Margin Purchased Securities (please see section 2 below) has grown to a sufficient scale to sustain itself and also to repay annual financing charges as well as to gradually pay down the margin loan through dividends generated.   

No major changes here except for the rights subscription to Lendlease Global Commercial Trust ("LREIT"). I managed to get 11,500 units (inclusive of all my excess application). I saw someone posted that the DPU will drop due to the low pricing of the rights to 5.8% yield. However, my own computation is a 6.2% to 6.5% yield post JEM acquisition- we should see the numbers from the upcoming quarter ending 30 June 2022. Please see below posts:

(i) Lendlease REIT Rights Issue- What You Need To Know To Avoid Severe Dilution And Boost Your Chance For A Quick Realised Gain.

(ii) Lendlease Rights Issue Part 2- Preferential Tranche Now Open And New Subscription Method Available.

2. Portfolio 2- Margin purchased securities

As mentioned above, my Margin Purchased Securities has grown to a sufficient scale to sustain itself and also to repay annual financing charges as well as to gradually pay down the margin loan through dividends generated. It is currently having a projected dividend distribution yield of 9.14% on S$342,652 of capital being deployed into this portfolio.  

Basically, 3 updates here for the past 2 months and all related to LREIT:

(i) purchased additional 10,000 units of LREIT before the rights issue when its price keep dropping;

(ii) subscribed for LREIT rights of 20,300 units and excess of 9,700 units using leverage.

(iii) sold off 20,000 units after the rights issue to reduced concentration risk 

I was surprised then that I got all the 30,000 LREIT units that I requested as it was reported that the retail tranche was 1.5 times oversubscribed. I have to sell off 20,000 units immediately in order to reduce my overall concentration risk as I found myself holding on to too many units (if I include in the 40K units under my Portfolio 1). Also took opportunity to take some immediate profit off LREIT.

One important point taken from past lessons is that one should only deal with well-known and established companies for any purchases under margin account in order to mitigate going concern risk of the investments under management. Riskier ventures should preferably be parked under Portfolio 3.  

3. Portfolio 3 (with Tiger Brokers)- Venture into higher risk as well as capital growth stocks here

Main updates as follow:

3(i) Alibaba (9988)

I have sold off all my Alibaba (except for 100 shares being retained) at HKD100 on 8th March 2022. Recently, I have bought back 200 shares at HKD 86.4

3(ii) Lion-OCBC Sec HSTECH (S$)

Between 17 March 2022 to 30 March 2022, I have accumulated 3,700 units here. I still think that China tech stocks offer very good value for money. However, the regulation by the Chinese government on their Tech Sector creates much uncertainty- so I decided to buy into this fund to seek diversification. 

3(iii) Dasin Retail Trust

I have sold off 32,000 units @ $0.315 per unit on 22 March 2022. The syndicated loan has not been renewed as 15% of the lenders are making noise. There is an upcoming deal with regard to the asset sales of 2 shopping malls from Dasin Retail. High risk of suspension for Dasin Retail if bankers announced default of loan. 

(a) Dasin Retail Trust 15.4% Distribution Yield Per Annum- Typical Value Trap Or A Hidden Gem?-12th March 2022

(b) Dasin Retail Trust Unable To Renew Syndicated Bank Loans For Long Term- Forced to Sell 2 Shopping Malls in Guangdong Province-21st March 2022

3(iv) United Hamsphire REIT-USD

I think that United Hamsphire US REIT is undervalued tremendously-pls see my previous post here. Hence added 11,800 units on 24 March 2022.

Parting Thoughts

The recent news that the Chinese Communist Party ("CCP") will stop clamping down on its Tech Sector is certainly good. Hopefully, it is not too late for the CCP to salvage their battered economy which is facing headwind from the potential collapse of its Property sector as well as Tech sector. 

Take It With A Pinch Of Salt-The Reluctant Half-Baked Chain Offer for SPH REIT By New Major Shareholder Cuscaden Peak And 3 Points To Note.

I thought that the current offer price of S$0.9372 per unit for SPH REIT by Cuscaden is just a half hearted and half baked one- in fact it is forced under SGX rule to make this chain offer- so do not expect too much from it and don't waste too much time pondering over it. Cuscaden looks like it is heavily bruised from the tussle with Keppel Corp over the recent Singapore Press Holdings acquisition. While it won a great battle for taking control of Singapore Press Holdings, it had burned a big hole in its bank account and it is clear that at this particular juncture, Cuscaden is ok for it to remain listed as it is. 3 things to take note of, regarding this upcoming acquisition offer for SPH REIT:

1. The market price as at 29th April 2022 is S$0.975 per unit but chain offer price is at S$0.9372 per unit.

I had a good laugh at this. The cash offer is 3.88% lower than the last closed price. Ok, what this means is that unit-holders who are looking to sell their units are better off selling their SPH REIT units on the market rather than accepting the chain offer from Cuscaden. So why is Cuscaden making an illogical offer then? The answer is as aforesaid mentioned, because from the SPH acquisition exercise,  they now owned more than 30% of SPH REIT and SGX rule stipulated that they need to make a general offer for the rest of SPH REIT. 

Nevertheless, I would expect the unit price of SPH REIT to drop immediately to match the S$0.9372 per unit upon resumption of trading on 4th May 2022 ( Wednesday). If so, this chain offer would have destroyed much value for SPH REIT. 

2. No one knows exactly what Cuscaden intends to do with the assets acquired under SPH hence future of SPH REIT is also a big question mark.

The consortium of Cuscaden is made up of Hotel Magnate Ong Beng Seng's Hotel Properties (40%) and 2 Temasek-linked units, namely Capitaland (30%) and Mapletree (30%). Ong's lieutenant has not officially announced how the 3 parties intend to split the assets such as Student Accommodation, Seletar Mall, Woodleigh Mall etc among themselves. 

I frown upon the future of SPH REIT which remains muddy with no clear sense of direction.

3. It is a myth to believe that SPH REIT still has a solid backer with Temasek Holdings behind it. 

Now, this is the part that I personally believe is no longer the same case as Mapletree REITs, Capitaland REITS and Keppel REITs. The entry of Ong Beng Seng and his Hotel Properties holding the most individual party shares of 40% in Cuscaden means that Ong is now in the driver seat. In the event of a major crisis, there is a high probability that Temasek will not be diving in to the rescue immediately and with resources going out to other Singapore government linked REITs first.

On 29th and 30th November 2021, I have sold off all of my 44,000 units of SPH REITs at an average price of S$1 per unit mostly due to the fear of the omicron wave spreading as well as the uncertainty over SPH REIT's future. Subsequently, I have re-deployed some of the funds into Capitaland Integrated Commercial Trust instead while waiting for better visibility on Cuscaden's plan for SPH REIT.  

Parting Thoughts

In summary, I think that SPH REIT is now a totally different creature altogether relative to its former old self in-spite of holding on to the same investment properties. I hope that with the SPH acquisition completed and dust settling, the Cuscaden consortium will at least reveal more of its hidden cards on how it wants to run the newly acquired businesses.