THE QUARTERS EARNINGS reporting season is in full swing and of the many counters that have reported so far, REITs or property trusts have generally found favour with their relatively resilient earnings amid the market uncertainty.

 

Of course, investing in these trusts probably won’t double your money in 12 months’ time, but at the very least, as far as the opinion of the analysts go, investors probably won’t lose their pants either.

 

Besides CapitaMall Trust, which is probably one of the star picks in this sector (see this week’s The Edge cover story, issue 495), other trusts linked to the CapitaLand stable has also done well.

 

Ascott Residence Trust, for example, posted a 112% y-o-y gain in net profit to $25.3 million, on a 57% y-o-y jump in revenue to $72.9 million in the same period. Distribution per unit (DPU) is up 21% to 2.23 cents. OCBC Securities analyst Eli Lee notes that both the net profit and revenue for this quarter have just exceeded her full-year expectations.

 

“We continue to see value in ART given its defensive earnings from master leases and management contracts with minimum-guaranteed income,” she writes. However, to take into account higher global economic risks, she has lowered rental growth assumptions, which results in her fair value estimate trimmed from $1.35 to $1.13, even though she maintains her ‘buy’ call.

 

OCBC Securities’ view on Frasers Centrepoint Trust is more upbeat, following the suburban mall REIT’s announcement of a record DPU of 2.35 cents -- up 8.8% y-o-y. “The solid performance was achieved on the back of strong performance upswing from Causeway Point, which lifted FCT’s quarterly gross revenue and net property income to $34.1 million (up 5.1% y-o-y),” notes analyst Kevin Tan.