SINGAPORE (Nov 25): November threw up some surprises for followers of real estate in vestment trusts. The outperformer month-to-date is Sasseur REIT, which had traded at or below its IPO price of 80 cents for most of the time since its listing in March last year. In 3QFY2019, its distributable income rose 7.2% y-o-y to $19.6 million, and distribution per unit increased 6.4% y-o-y to 1.64 cents. Its net asset value is 84.99 cents, 6.2% higher since IPO. Sasseur REIT has been trading at 80 cents since April this year, but moved above this level at end October.
Sasseur REIT owns four outlet malls, one each in Chongqing, Bishan, Hefei and Kunming. Anthony Ang, CEO of Sasseur REIT’s manager, says sales for the three months to Sept 30 picked up, owing to anniversary sales at one of the malls. “With the year-end holiday season and schedule of sales events that have been lined up, we look forward to even stronger sales for the last quarter of 2019. Our outlets in China have not been impacted by external trade factors, as sales are largely fuelled by domestic consumption.”
