The STI Is Up 23%. REITs Are Down 12%. The Question I'd Ask About the Payout
Thu 1 Oct 2026 | Evening
The Numbers
Angela's video today starts from the index gap I wrote about this morning. The Smart Investor puts the STI about 23% higher this year and the iEdge S-REIT Index about 12% lower, both on a price basis. Her question is whether a REIT's payout would still exist if the trust sold nothing, raised no new money and had to refinance debt at a higher rate. She puts it to three Singapore REITs. Sasseur REIT shows a trailing yield of about 9.3% at S$0.695 on 20 August, with gearing of 25.6% and interest cover of 5.6 times as reported by the manager. CapitaLand Ascendas REIT brought gearing down to 39.7% after a S$900 million equity raise.
My Personal Take
This morning I wrote that I could not assign the 12% to rates alone. What I almost missed is that Angela's video moves the question from the price to the payout, which is the number nobody living on distributions can skip. It took me a while to see that the Sasseur REIT figures pull in two directions: gearing of 25.6% looks clean, while 9.3% is a yield I would want explained before I trusted it. I do not know yet what the market sees that the balance sheet does not. The CapitaLand Ascendas REIT distribution per unit at its next result would show what the S$900 million raise cost existing owners, and that is the number I will look for. 🦖
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📩 Substack: https://investingiguana.com/p/the-sti-is-up-23-reits-are-down-12
Not financial advice. Iggy's Forensic Compliance Standards apply.
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