Mapletree Industrial Trust - Phillip Securities 2018-12-14: Acquiring 18 Tai Seng From Sponsor

MAPLETREE INDUSTRIAL TRUST (SGX:ME8U)

Mapletree Industrial Trust - Acquiring 18 Tai Seng From Sponsor

Purchase consideration of S$262mn for a nine-storey mixed-use development with Business 2 industrial, office and retail spaces.
Sizeable property value of S$268mn adds +6.1% to existing S$4.4bn portfolio.
Proposed acquisition is subject to unitholder approval at an EGM.
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MAPLETREE INDUSTRIAL TRUST (SGX:ME8U) announced the acquisition of 18 Tai Seng from its Sponsor, Mapletree Investments Pte Ltd. A date for the extraordinary general meeting (EGM) has not been set, as the Circular is pending approval by SGX. However, the manager is working towards making the date of the EGM known by January 2019.
MAPLETREE INDUSTRIAL TRUST has sufficient debt headroom to acquire the property fully-fund by debt, but a final decision on the funding structure has not been reached. The manager commented that it would be dependent on market conditions.
Pro forma illustrations by the manager for 100%, 60% and 40% loan to value scenarios show that the acquisition is DPU and NAV accretive. Aggregate leverage would rise to 38.7% if fully-funded by debt.
The occupancy of the property is currently 87.4%, and committed leases of 95.7% to commence progressively by 1 March 2019.

18 Tai Seng is located in Paya Lebar iPark and is easily accessible by public transportation and major expressways. The property is directly connected by an underground pedestrian link to the Tai Seng MRT station; and is accessible to three major expressways of Kallang-Paya Lebar Expressway, Pan-Island Expressway and Central Expressway.
The property is also newly completed in November 2016 to high specifications of column-free floor plates, full-height windows and BCA Green Mark Gold certification which adds to its attractiveness.

Property weighted average lease expiry of 3.6 years is in line with that of the existing portfolio. However, the lease expiry profile is substantially back-loaded with 78% in FY22/23 and beyond. This provides predictable income visibility for the next four to five years.

Addition of 18 Tai Seng would lower maximum risk exposure to any single tenant from 10.0% (currently Hewlett-Packard) to 9.4%. Top 10 tenants currently contribute 26.3% of gross rental income; and this would be lowered to 25.8%.

Recall that the distribution reinvestment plan (DRP) was resumed in the most recent quarter, and that resulted in $22.8mn cash retention for the quarter. To put that into context, it would it would take about 12 quarters of DRP cash retention to cover the total acquisition outlay of S$271mn.

Retail space accounts for 12.3% of the property's net lettable area (NLA). According to URA data, Fringe Retail rent peaked in 4Q 2014 and has trended lower since. The latest 3Q 2018 Fringe Rental Index is 17% lower than the peak. We think that the retail component of the property could be potential source of drag in subsequent lease renewal cycles.

We have assumed that the property is acquired fully-funded by debt and DRP is maintained for 12 quarters.
Minimal DPU impact for FY18/19, but our FY19/20 DPU estimate increases 3.4% to 12.42 cents from previous 12.01 cents.

Richard LEOW CFA Phillip Securities Research | https://www.stocksbnb.com/ 2018-12-14

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