KUWAIT'S Global Investment House (GIH) has emerged as an investor in AmanahRaya Real Estate Investment Trust (AR-REIT), Malaysia's second largest property trust by asset value.
GIH, an investment company, bought a 3.94 per cent stake, or 17 million units, at the end of June, making it the fourth largest unitholder. It bought the units from Kumpulan Wang Bersama, the property trust's sponsor and biggest unitholder.
"It acquired the units because of the stability of AR-REIT in terms of rental yield and unit price. GIH has started to enter Southeast Asia in various investments and they view REIT as a good investment to start with.
"We believe this is considered one of the largest of REIT units taken by Middle Eastern institution in Malaysia," said Datuk Mohamed Azahari Mohamed Kamil, a director in AmanahRaya-JMF Asset Management Sdn Bhd, the REIT manager.
AR-REIT plans to pay a better yield of about 7.4 per cent this year compared with 6.9 per cent last year.
"We're looking at about 7.4 per cent net. There shouldn't be any problem because there hasn't been defaults in any of our rentals," Mohamed Azahari remarked.
It recently announced its first interim dividend of 3.57 sen for the first six months this year, which translates into an annualised yield of 7.5 per cent based on its last price of 95 sen a unit.
AR-REIT's unit price, which has lost four per cent of its value this year, has been trading at between 91.5 sen and 99 sen. Its latest net asset value is 97.4 sen.
By New Straits Times (by Adeline Paul Raj)
Monday, July 21, 2008
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment