Investment Portfolios Updates- S$630k (1 July'22)- Uncertainty in US Office REITs Occupancy and Mounting Losses from Keppel DC REIT

The last 2 months has been a blood bath for my investment portfolios in banking stocks and REITs. The net assets for investment thus went down to S$630k from the S$640K during my last review at the end of April'22. The good thing about being an income focused investor is that I am not too worried about the fluctuations in valuation due to market volatility as well as unrealised losses. My only concern is whether the stream of passive income from dividends/distributions from investee companies will be drastically impacted if there are fundamental changes to the business. Expected dividends per annum now approximates S$60K at gross level and S$51.2K at the net level after accounting for financing charges from utilization of my margin facility with Maybank.

The COVID downturn that happened 2 years back was another creature altogether with devastating economic lockdowns leading to an almost immediate more than 50% cut in dividends & distributions. I believe that the upcoming recession will not lead to such drastic cut in dividends & distributions and that my current portfolio can ride out any incoming headwinds.  

1. Portfolio 1- Stocks held in SGX Central Depository 

(Note: 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.)

The only adjustment I made here was to acquire additional units of the undervalued United Hampshire US REIT which focuses on grocery retail tenants that has proven itself to be resilient even during the COVID crisis. On 9 June 2022, it was announced that the REIT will be acquiring Upland Square Shopping Center in Montgomery, Pennsylvania for US$85.7Mil. This DPU accretive deal will push up future annual distribution yield to 10.38% based on previous closing price of US$0.610 per unit. Please see "United Hampshire US REIT Acquired New Grocery Anchored Shopping Center- Improved Forward Distribution Yield Of 10.38% Per Annum".

2. Portfolio 2- Margin purchased securities

(Note: 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.) 

My data centre REITs and US office REITs performed horrendously. UOB and OCBC stock price also took a beating during this dark period. I have sold off a substantial portion of my UOB and OCBC stocks to take profits and also to reduce my leverage by S$10k. I have also bought additional S$10K worth of Keppel DC REIT when its price plummeted to below S$2 per unit (at S$1.94 per unit in June'22). 

For US Office REITs, a number of analysts have high targeted prices for Prime US REIT, Keppel Pacific Oak REIT and Manulife US REIT. However, I am not as optimistic at all as I am seeing trends of decreasing occupancy in some of their quarterly operations reporting. The post COVID economy has escalated the remote working culture that sees possibility of a permanent decrease in required office space by companies.  As such, I have not made additional investments into the US Office REITS albeit the crazy low prices- one could end up catching a falling knife.  Please see "Manulife US REIT High Distribution Yield of 8.67%- Rosy Future Or Just A Value Trap?".

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

(i) Added 400 more shares of Alibaba (HKEX 9988) at an average cost of HKD83 per share.  

(ii) Added Q&M Medical Group. Please see "Investment Into Q&M Medical Group- Further Diversification Away From REITs Centric Portfolios"

(iii) Dasin Retail Trust has good news recently on 20 June 2022. Its bankers has allowed it a 6 months syndicated loan extension (instead of the previous 3 mths) while it explores sales of its 2 biggest shopping malls to pare down debt. Investors thus get to see another distribution from Dasin for the 6mths ending 30 June 2022.

In addition, it was reported that on 22 June 2022, 50 million units of Dasin Retail Trust representing 6.3% of total units, changed hands at a premium of S$0.345 per unit relative to the average of S$0.30 market transactions per unit. On 3rd June 2022, Harvest Private Wealth Thematic Fund has also increased its stake in Dasin to 8.45%. Current distribution yield hovers around 16% with NAV of S$1.41 per unit.

Summary:

I look forward to the upcoming dividends and distributions in Q3 2022. For now, I think that I will be adopting a wait and see stance and will be building up my cash reserves on hand and also paring down my margin loan to prepare for the worsening economic downturn due to the relentless increasing of borrowing rates by the US Federal Reserve in their fight against inflation..

Singapore Saving Bonds Yield Offers Attractive Current Yield of 2.7% For Risk Adverse Investors.

For years, I have been nagging at my wife to put her money into the Singapore Savings Bonds ("SSB") as she is only willing to invest a very tiny part of her overall excess funds into stocks while preferring to hoard the bulk of her cash savings in the bank which make her feels "secure and safe". I was astounded to see that the SSB yield rising to 2.7% for the recent July 2022 tranche. The August tranche which just opened today (1st July 2022) for application is expected to give an even better yield due to rising interest rate environment. What I like about the SSB is that any individuals can redeem it in any month without any financial penalty should one need the cash urgently. Decent risk free yield coupled with high liquidity makes the SSB a wonderful investment particularly for risk adverse investors. 

The main difficulty for my wife is that she tried many times to try to subscribe but gave up as she finds it bothersome to find out on how to apply and asserted that this cannot be done online. I decided to help her apply this time round. Basically, the SSB is available on ATMs and also conveniently on internet banking of the major local banks (DBS/POSB, UOB & OCBC). For DBS/POSB users, please see illustrative below on where to apply for the SSB. It should be almost the same for the other bank portals. 

For DBS account, go to "Invest" and then click on "Singapore Government Securities".

Then click on I want to apply for "Singapore Savings Bonds".

Parting Thoughts

The individual limit for SSB has been raised to S$200,000 (from S$100K) from 1st February 2019 by the Monetary Authority of Singapore. The interest will be paid to you every six months after issuance and acts a little similar to dividend investing. Overall, the SSB is good for risk adverse investors. This is definitely better than leaving huge sums of cash in saving deposits and letting inflation erodes its value.

Mahathir claimed that Singapore and the Riau Islands were "Malay lands" and should be "returned" to Malaysia.

Former Malaysian prime minister Mahathir Mohamad has gone bonkers again. On 20 June 2022, various media outlets reported Mahathir as making the remarks in a speech that Singapore was once owned by Johor and the state of Johor should claim that Singapore be returned to it and to Malaysia. He also made a similar claim on the Riau Islands which belong to Indonesia. 

Then just yesterday, Mahathir changed tune and asserted that the remarks previously made were taken out of context and he was actually just mocking such an idea. I do hope that he can still run for the next election and become the oldest Prime Minister of Malaysia. It would be fun and exciting to watch the sly fox made a mess out of the entire Malaysian political scene again. The last stunt pulled by Mahathir lead to the collapse of the entire Pakatan Harapan government. HBO's Game of Thrones pale in comparison to the real life saga.

Investment Into Q&M Medical Group- Further Diversification Away From REITs Centric Portfolios

Recently, I have decided to invest into the Q&M Medical Group with my main rationale being the diversification of my REIT-centric equity portfolios as well as investing for growth instead of relying solely on an income-focused approach. I have thus added Q&M into my Portfolio 3 parked under Tiger Brokers. The low trading fees offered by Tiger Brokers (relative to traditional trading platform) makes it easier to invest into more equities at bite-size level and at a much more reasonable and sane cost per transaction. There are some interesting developments in Q&M which I like and hence I decided to take up a small investment into it- I should elaborate more below.

1. Investment into Q&M

I have purchased around 8,100 units of Q&M at around S$4K. With the relaxation of anti-COVID measures and the assumption that COVID vaccines and herd immunity will prevent another total lockdown in Singapore and Malaysia (I mentioned Malaysia as Q&M now has a material presence there), I would think that Q&M Medical Group should be able to produce a more robust set of earnings of its dental clinics as it is coming off the previous FY2021 low due to COVID restrictions of available procedures. 

The most fascinating part about Q&M is that it just acquired a testing business, Acumen on 16th August 2021 which has the potential for spinning off into a listing at NASDAQ. This splendid diagnostics business help drive results for the past quarter for its offsite PCR COVID testing after being granted a license by the Singapore Ministry of Health on 16th December 2022. The results for  the Lab segment for 2022 Q1 thus increased 80% relative to 2021 Q1. But we now know what happened subsequently-all PCR and ART tests volume came down as the government declared COVID to be endemic and for everyone to live with it just like the common flu. So I will expect Q1 2022 Acumen testing activities to plunge drastically going into Q2 2022 and onwards. Saying that, the Acumen PCR technology is also being developed for infectious diseases, sepsis and cancer marker PCR tests etc and there is tremendous market potential for such services.

Another interesting part to note is that Q&M seems to be more aggressive growing its network of clinics in not just Singapore but also in Malaysia. The Q&M management has an ambitious target of growing 30 franchise dental clinics every year from FY2021.  Even if we assume they only managed to open half the targeted clinics, this is still an impressive growth rate of around 13%-15% per annum. 

2. Bonus share given but do not despair if you missed this bonus disbursement previously

On 13th August 2021, Q&M proposes a 1 for 5 bonus share- 20% additional issuance of net assets as bonus shares. Its share price hit a high of S$0.835 per share. If we normalise this, the share price then would be S$0.668 per share taken into account bonus shares. However, current share price has since plummeted to S$0.455 per share as at 20 June 2022 which is at a 32% discount to those who purchased during the bonus share issuance period.

Also, based on Q&M's annualised dividend of S$0.016 (using latest Q1 FY2022 quarterly dividend of S$0.004 per share as proxy) on S$0.455 per share, this is a dividend yield of 3.52% per annum. This thus gives some realised return to shareholders while waiting for the growth story to develop and crystallize. 

 

Parting thoughts

Summarising, Q&M seems to have a few major catalysts for growth being strategized by its dynamic management team lead by its CEO, Dr Ng Chin Siau. The potential NASDAQ listing for Acumen Diagnostics as well as the aggressive opening of new dental clinics bodes well for its future growth. 

Some Personal Updates And My Investment Into The Bear Market- Adverse Impacts of Recession Heading Our Way?

Strange that while inflation this year is expected to be 5%, my boss only gave an increment of less than 1.5% to all staff despite making millions of profits in previous years. So this year is actually a net pay cut given the inflationary pressure on almost everything. For example, the price of food keep going up. My fishball noodle at food centre went up from S$3 to S$3.50 per bowl-my close friends told me S$3.50 is considered cheap these days and they are paying S$5.50 per bowl near their workplaces.  

The "Great Resignation" at my workplace has also begun with my company's Human Resource department unable to retain a single staff who have resigned and HR is unable to find replacement at the old salary rate. My old buddy from University sent me the link that reads "KPMG S'pore increases starting pay by up to 20%" and I was shell-shocked. No wonder my HR Manager is so busy these days fighting battles with the entire labour market for headcounts and talents.

Despite all these challenges of escalating prices, many local residents seem unfazed with the ever increasing interest rates and possible loss of jobs due to the impact of recession. Private properties continue to fly off the shelves upon release by developers as if there is no tomorrow (look at Piccadilly Grand). There is also talks that sub-urban condominiums will need to launch at S$2,000 psf in future to cover for increasing land costs, materials and labour costs. North Gaia EC at Yishun Close already achieves 27% sales at an average of $1,302 psf in April'2022. It was also reported that developers in Singapore sold 1,356 new homes in May'22 relative to April'22 660 units- more than double the previous month. 

The most absurd news is that COEs for category B vehicle is now at S$100K per paper certificate. We need to pay S$150K to S$180K for cars these days? This is absolutely crazy. I told my wife to prepare to take more public transport once our existing COE expires in another 4 years time. It is a good time as the kids would have grown old enough to take the train and bus themselves.

 

1. Investment front

The SGX has been playing see-saw up and down every few days during this period. The S&P500 in US market is also down 20% from the beginning of the year. We are officially in bear territory. 

1.1 Investment into Mapletree Logistics Trust

I have  invested additional S$20K into Mapletree Logistics Trust ("MLT") during this period. The price of MLT has dropped <13.7%> from S$1.90 per unit from beginning of the year to S$1.64 per unit. It has been a long time since I last saw the projected distribution yield hit above 5%. MLT is well-diversified (183 properties in 8 countries worth over S$13 billion as at 31 March 2022) and has just completed 16 M&A this year so far. MLT has an excellent track record of making yield-accretive acquisitions in a space that still sees healthy demand due to the boom in e-commerce. I expect its DPU to continue growing.

1.2 Investment of CPF ordinary funds into S&P500.

I have put in 3 tranches spread over (1 month) into the S&P 500 (total S$15K invested) when it is at level of 3735-3900. If the S&P drop further, I will put in additional CPF funds to take advantage of the opportunity. While I try not to touch my CPF for investments as it represented my last resort retirement funding in event of total loss on the stock market, current opportunity due to the more than 20% plunge in market valuation seems to be worthwhile. However, I have only utilized my CPF ordinary account for investment and will not be using any of my Special Account which has already reached the Full Retirement Sum balances (and earning a risk-free 4% interest rate). 

2. Wife does not believe in investing into the stock market and prefers to hold all cash in bank account 

My wife does not like investing into the stock markets and she prefers to put all her cash in the bank. I managed to convince her to invest an extra S$15K into REITs during this period of market downturn and invested into United Hampshire US REIT and Mapletree Logistics Trust.

I have built up an equity portfolio of S$140K (REITS and local banks) under her own CDP account thus far. Hopefully, I will be able to persuade her to have more faith and to build up a more substantial recurring passive dividend income. Coupled with her overseas investment property being rented out, I reckon her passive income is around S$12K per annum.

Parting thoughts

The persistent high inflation rate is a real nightmare and gives rise to relentless increase in interest rates by the US Federal Reserve to combat it. I am disappointed to see that May'22 is another record month for inflation when I thought that there should be some good news on it being tamed. 

United Hampshire US REIT Acquired New Grocery Anchored Shopping Center- Improved Forward Distribution Yield Of 10.38% Per Annum.

Fast coming off the disposal of its locker storage facilities, United Hampshire US REIT ("UHREIT") wasted no time in its announcement on 9 June 2022 that it is acquiring Upland Square Shopping Center in Montgomery, Pennsylvania for US$85.7Mil. This DPU accretive deal will push up future annual distribution yield to 10.38% based on previous closing price of US$0.610 per unit.

1.Key benefits of this deal are as follow:

1.1  Additional diversification of tenants for UHREIT. 

Post acquisition, UHREIT top 10 tenants concentration will drop from 60.2% to 56.8%. It thus reduces tenant concentration risk and enhances income resilience.

1.2 DPU Improvement

DPU is expected to improve by 2.13% post-acquisition. 6.23 cents will mean a distribution yield of 10.38% based on the previous closing price of US$0.64 per unit. The acquisition will be funded mainly with the sales proceeds from the locker storage facilities as well as the assumption of the existing mortgage.

2. Bad point for this deal- Leverage post acquisition crosses over the 40% mark.

The aggregate leverage of 42.7% is not desirable. While there are still ample headroom under the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) stipulation of up to 50%, nevertheless, if recession were to rear its ugly head, valuation of properties may drop substantially and rights issue at severely discounted prices will be needed to restore back the leverage level. Retail investors in particularly may not have sufficient cash on hand to do such subscription during crisis period and end up heavily diluted in their unit-holdings. 

Personal thoughts

While UHREIT portfolio’s focuses on cycle agnostic tenants providing essential services, its unit price has been in a persistent doldrum. Its price for the past 2 months has been in the US$0.600-US$0.640 per unit range. Despite the announcement of the above mentioned acquisition deal, its traded price remain stagnant like still water. It is currently trading at a 21% off its NAV (US$0.74 per unit) with an incredulous 10.38% forward distribution yield. It is interesting to note that the analysts of UOB Kay Hian has a target price of US$0.88 per unit for UHREIT in their report of 3rd June 2022. This represents a 44.3% potential upside in capital appreciation. Of course, the other flip side is that there maybe something wrong with the business hence the ever dwindling unit price of UHREIT being priced in by the market. 

(P.S: Recently, I have been building up additional stakes in UHREIT to collect dividends while waiting for potential capital appreciation in future. Not sure whether the upturn in its unit price will ever materializes....but I am keeping faith that since it survives the COVID induced recession onslaught with resilient performance for the past 2 years, it should theoretically continue to do well....keeping my fingers crossed).

Elite Commercial REIT High Dividend Yield of 7% But May Not Be As Safe As One Thought- 3 Things To Watch Out For.

Elite Commercial REIT ("EC REIT") debuted in early 2020 on SGX mainboard at GBP 0.705 per unit which is 3.7% higher than its IPO price of GBP 0.68 per unit. Ever since then (in particularly the last 52 weeks), its price has hovered mostly between GBP 0.610 per unit to GBP 0.680 per unit. Most recently, it was announced that its major tenant, the UK government, has agreed to the removal of "break clauses" for its rented properties from EC REIT during negotiation which thus translates into a long and stable WALE of around 5.5 years as of March 2022. The current 7% dividend yield is one of the highest among the Singapore REITs. The UK government also seemingly appears to be an AA-rated solid tenant and the lease is on triple net lease basis. However, I am staying away from Elite Commercial REIT due to 3 main concerns which I will further elaborate below.

1. 99 per cent of its gross rental income came from from leases with the UK government, primarily DWP (Department for Work & Pensions) which is the largest public service department
Concentrating 99% of its gross rental income on the UK government is actually a double edged sword. Since 2001, the UK government has been running a budget deficit. UK's Public sector debt excluding public sector banks was at GBP 2.34 trillion at the end of March 2022, or around 96.2% of GDP. It’s now at levels not seen since the early 1960s. Hence there is a real risk that there maybe governmental fiscal structural reform.  

While I do not think that the UK government will default on its rental payment, there is a strong likelihood that if the fiscal situation worsened in future and things become unsustainable, then there maybe a "re-negotiation" with EC REIT that may result in a substantial haircut to rental rates. Look at what happened to First REIT and its master and main tenant Lippo Karawaci in Dec 2020 and I cannot help but get this Deja Vu feel.

In addition, what if the UK government decided to give up half of the properties in future and make use of online technology to service citizens? EC REIT's marketing team will have a very exciting time trying to search for new replacement tenants. The lack of diversification of non-government tenants is worrisome. Hence having 99% of gross rental income coming from the AA rated UK government is really a double edged sword- it can cut the other way just as easily.

From the Q1 2022 updates, we are already seeing some of the government properties being given up

Note that a total of 8 properties making up around 4.8% of FY2022 contractual rental are now at stake for FY2023. EC REIT is pondering a variety of options for each of these properties, including re-letting as an office or other uses, disposal with vacant possession or following re-letting, and seeking consent for alternative uses such as redevelopment.

2. Weak bargaining power in negotiation since major tenant (UK Government) took up bulk of its commercial properties
As evident from the latest negotiation with the DWP, the rental rates offered for 11 properties were being reduced. I find this very strange and disturbing given the assertion that UK rental market is resilient and that the Consumer Prices Index ("CPI") rose by 7.0% in the 12 months to March 2022.

3. Forex currency conversion risk

I do not think we need to delve too much into this forex issue. EC REIT is listed in pounds and functional currency is in GBP. Hence SGD receipt of distributions or any capital gain/loss will be subject to forex conversion risk.

Parting thoughts

Despite the acquisition exercise in FY2021 of 58 additional UK commercial properties, the so-called "diversification" of tenant base towards other UK Government occupiers beyond the DWP for other tenants to be 10.4% of total gross rental income is immaterial and ultimately, still with the UK government and not exactly the diversification which I have in mind. EC REIT also has 12 months to decide on their strategy and types of usage for the 8 properties that DWP had exercised the break clause. I remain skeptical of having such a high concentration risk of main tenant and will not be investing into EC REIT.

(P.S: There are some folks who seemed very upset with this posting. I just want to point out that this is a free world. If one's view is that it is absolutely safe, then please put in as much cash or even make it into one's 100% concentrated portfolio. The above is just my personal view due to previous bad experiences with REIT tenant making up more than 90% of rental income and the importance of tenant diversification. This is not a recommendation to buy or sell or to talk-down a particular REIT.)