Monday, May 20, 2019

Frasers Logistics and Industrial Trust (FLT)

The Properties

FLIT has 60 industrial properties.  By value:
  • 2/3rds are in Australia.   2/3rds of those are in Sydney & Melbourne.  Minimal exposure to Perth (1 property, or about 7% of the Australian properties' value).
  • 1/3 are in Germany and the Netherlands
The Australian buildings seem to be mostly small, generic light industrial buildings, with a few large warehouses (5-6 buildings).
The European buildings are large Logistics or Industrial buildings.
None of the buildings seem highly specialised.

70% of the properties by value are freehold, and another 21% have a lease of over 80 years.

The Australian Property Cycle

Varies by city and within parts of a city.
  • A 2019 Moodys Report expects Western Sydney Industrial property prices to rise, due to online shopping and new infrastructure.
  • A Centuria Industrial REIT (ASX:CIP) presentation shows available space declined up to Oct 2018.
To know about the cycles, you really have to be an expert on the land supply in different parts of the cities.  And predicting future demand is just guesswork.

Tenant Quality

Generally good.

FLIT lists all their tenants (how many REITs do this?).  I categorised each tenant, trying to guess their ability to pay rent in a recession:
  • Reliable: Is either part of an oligopoly (eg: Coles, Woolworths), government (eg: Australian Post), or listed (showing profits for the last 2 years and reasonable debt).  In essence, no way that they would not pay rent.
  • Unknown: Private companies (eg: BAM Wine LogisticsCapriceBroetje Automation).  Even though some of them sound interesting, there's no way of knowing how profitable they are.  Most companies in the world are going to be here.
  • Dodgy: Currently loss making.  So when times go bad, we can expect the company to go under.
Each category, by gross revenue (Sept 2018):


Overall, this is a pretty high level of 'reliable' companies.  If you pick a random street or industrial park to walk through, you are not going to see such a high proportion of 'reliable' companies.

The two dodgy companies are CEVA Logistics: a merger of two loss making companies which is still loss making, and Constellium: an aluminium product manufacturer with borderline profits/losses and large debt.

CEVA is a worry: they are one of FLIT's top 10 clients.  They are renting a massive warehouse in the middle of nowhere - this may be difficult to lease out again, and buildings like this are valued by their lease (...no lease, no value).


But overall, tenant quality seems quite high.

Management Quality

Sponsor Holdings: Frasers Property, holds 20% of the trust.  I haven't looked at enough REITs to see how this compares.

Management Fees (p146): 0.4% of property value as base fee, plus 5% of distributable income.
Seems reasonable.  Would be better if the fee was based on DPU.

Most management fees are paid in units: at least 85% in 2018 (note 5) and 91% in 1H19 (p10).

Trust expenses were very high in 2017, but lower in 2018 (p158).  They were 8.6% and 1% of distributable income, respectively.  I found no explanation on what these expenses were.



Pipeline: ROFR for 17 Australian properties and 29 European properties.

Past Acquisitions have been OK:

The numbers

Gearing Ratio is now at 35.1%.   No perpetual bonds.

Debt Expiry: They have a large chunk of debt due in 2021:

They did mention their intention to refinance the (grey) European debt (currently at 2% interest) with a lower rate later.  But I think they should space out their debt a bit more.

79% of their loans are fixed rate (p5), or protected by swaps for the lifetime of the loan.

Unencumbered buildings: (In Sept 2018 AR, footnote 10) The secured bank loans are secured over investment properties with a total carrying amount of A$969,554,000 (2017: A$Nil).  So out of AUD 3bn worth of property, 2bn is unencumbered.

They have always had 100% dividend payout ratio.

Valuation

Other Risks:
  • Kyith Ng highlighted that many of their Australian rents were above market rate during hte IPO (June 2016).  I am factoring in a AUD 3-4m income to be lost because of this.
  • AUD has dropped a lot recently, I am factoring in a rate of 1 SGD to 0.9 AUD.  Same as the global financial crisis.  Assume no change in EUR/SGD exchange rate.
For a target 6% yield, I would value the stock at SGD 1.10.

Saturday, May 18, 2019

Dividend Portfolio

Inspired by posts like this and this, I've decided to slowly start a dividend portfolio.  I'm looking for stocks with a 6% yield -  the hard part is to judge if its sustainable.

I aim to buy SGD 8K worth of stocks per month for the next 3 years.  Plus a little more when I get my bonus.   This should give me a 300K portfolio in 3 years, with an income of 18K per year.  I expect a serious downturn in the next few years, which would make me buy faster.

I've started with:

  • Cromwell Reit (10,000 shares) - not great, but had an 8% yield which is probably sustainable.
  • Netlink Trust (12,000 shares) - low yield, under 6%, but very stable.  I can't see any threat from 5G, and NBAP revenue may grow from IOT.
  • Manulife REIT (6,800 shares) - 6% yield, US economy still looks strong, the main risk is taxation (resolved for now, but always in the background).  Impressive Management.  [Update 21st May: Bought another 7000 shares]
Should give me enough dividends for kopi everyday.



Some REITS I've looked at but haven't bought:
  • IREIT Global main tenant seems to be in long term downsizing.  Too bad, its good otherwise.
  • CapitalMalls Malaysia Trust has reasonable 7% yield, as the Malaysian Retail market is currently oversupplied - could I buy for a cyclical upswing?  I decided not to as 1) The only players that seem to maintain their advantage are the 5 premier malls with 1m+ square feet.  Although CMMT's Penang's Gurney Plaza is good, it is not unbeatable.  2) Small, mixed use malls and individual strata malls are disadvantaged.  So why did CMMT buy Tropicana (mixed use) and Sungei Wang (strata)?  As mall operators they should know these problems, especially as they've seen it play out in SG before.  Why such stupid acquisitions?
  • Singapore Industrial REITS have high yields, but are paying out 100% of their distributable income, even as they have short leases.  So you need to deduct 1 to 3 percent from the yield to get the 'true' long term yield.

I'll look at Frasers Logistics and Industrial Trust next.  Maybe Malaysia later - there may be some lower priced REITS there, as their industrial, office and retail property sectors are in a property glut.

Tuesday, May 14, 2019

Systematic Trading: Week 11

Momentum (Clenow)

On Monday night:
  • Sold INSM at 27.7, GRA at 73.43, EOLS at 22.39, PYX at 16.79 and CPRX at 3.08.
  • Bought EIDX (Eidos Therapeutics Inc): 132 shares at 24.78, ADVM (Adverum Biotechnologies): 504 shares at 6.59, BOOM (Dmc Global Inc): 48 shares at 69.15, TGTX (TG Therapeutics Inc): 455 shares at 7.39, and LSCC (Lattics semicondictor Corp): 256 shares at 13.19

Tuesday, May 7, 2019

Systematic Trading: Week 10

Momentum (Clenow)

On Monday night:
  • Sold EHTH at 59..89.
  • Bought CVNA (Carvana Co): 54 shares at 69.6)

Wednesday, May 1, 2019

Systematic Trading: Week 9

Momentum (Clenow)

On Monday night:
  • Sold MRTX, XPER, LRN and CMG.
  • Bought CNST (Constellation Pharma: 317 shares at 12.41), YETI (Yeti Holdings: 112 shares at 34.41), VYGR (Voyager Therapeutics: 183 shares at 21.69),  and CPRX (Catalyst Pharma: 690 shares at 5.76),