This is the oldie but goodie reason why I'd never touch K-Reit or any other related ones. End up missed out on near 100% gains.
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Business Times - 15 Nov 2011
Don't let Reits be the next wave of governance lapses
By WONG WEI KONG
SINGAPORE boasts of a thriving real estate investment trust or Reit sector, but recent events have served another reminder that beneath the glowing surface, there are some key fundamental concerns.
K-Reit Asia, last week, pushed through its plan to buy 87.5 per cent of Ocean Financial Centre (OFC), and raise some $976 million through a rights issue to fund part of the cost. It had earlier announced that it would pay some $1.57 billion to buy parent company Keppel Land's entire stake in the OFC office building. Keppel Land will see a net gain of about $492.7 million from the sale (in addition, K-Reit will pay acquisition fees and nearly 100% more in management fees on enlarged AUM to the REIT manager which will be paid in units).
Put before shareholders for their approval at an extraordinary general meeting (EGM), the proposal ran into howls of protest. Shareholders questioned the stiff price and timing of the deal, at a time when the economy is facing a slowdown. Shareholders noted that while the prime Grade A office building in Raffles Place has a tenure of 999 years with 850 years remaining on the lease, KepLand is selling its stake with only a 99-year lease. Others questioned why K-Reit is paying its manager (which is owned by KepLand) an acquisition fee - even though it is buying the asset from its parent company. There were also rumblings about the independence of the manager.
In a nutshell, the EGM brought to the fore two key issues relating to Reits here that corporate governance advocates have been highlighting for some time: sponsor groups offloading assets to their Reits on terms that seem disadvantageous to the Reits, as well as the apparent lack of independence of the Reits. K-Reit chairman Tsui Kai Chong's comment that 'Our father organisation, Keppel Land, is only willing to sell it (OFC) to us for 99 years', says it all. And the fact that both resolutions - to buy the OFC stake and for the rights issue - were passed with a show of hands, after a bid by institutional investor to vote by poll was denied, simply drives home the point.
This isn't the first time - and probably it won't be the last - that issues like these arise at a Reit. For some time now, there has been growing disquiet among corporate watchers about weaknesses in the corporate governance structures in Singapore Reits.
Earlier this year, a review of Asia-Pacific Reit markets by the CFA Institute produced less-than-assuring results. Looking at the governance of Reits in Singapore, Australia, Hong Kong and Japan, the institute in its report called strongly for Reit managers to be independent. In the current most common scenario, the Reit sponsor wholly owns the Reit manager, and also holds a large stake in the Reit.
And even before the latest K-Reit development, cases of sponsors selling properties to Reits have triggered concerns about conflict of interest, and unitholders have often questioned the purchase of these assets and how they were priced. The CFA Institute said that to better protect ordinary unitholders, most directors on the boards of Reit managers should be independent of management, sponsors and substantial unitholders. This should be made law, rather than just a best-practice guide. There is also the need to have more transparent structures to pay Reit managers and to tie these more closely to performance, and indeed to require all Reits to hold annual meetings for unitholders.
Reits are often presented as defensive plays, and given their yield structures, there is some truth in this. But it would be unfortunate if investors buy into Reits for their relative safety just to have their interests as minorities undermined by weak corporate governance structures. If nothing is done, the Reit sector could be where the next wave of governance lapses emerge, and that would be a pity for a sector that has done quite well so far.
WAH PIANG 0.596 nia! 
