Cambridge Industrial Trust: Friends again.

I chose a rather amusing title for this blog post (some might even say cavalier) and it shows that there are no forever friends or forever enemies in this world.

I was wondering if there would be a sell down of CIT's units today but I guess market participants are savvy to the benefits of this rights issue. The buy queue at 50.5c is very long.

So, I had a choice of either buying up at 51c or just wait and see how much the nil-paid rights would trade for later this month. The biggest attraction of buying up at 51c is that it would allow me to apply for excess rights which would bump up the distribution yield for me if I should be successful in getting some. Going by past experience, chances of success should be rather high.

Now, I am, once again, a CIT unitholder. I bought up 17 lots at 51c/unit today. This is a small investment to get my foot in the door, so to speak. This would guarantee me 3 lots of rights as I would basically apply for excess rights to round up the odd lot. The average price per unit would be (51c x 17 + 42.9c x 3) /20 = 49.785c. With a DPU of 5.07c, it would mean a distribution yield of 10.18%.

Without the attraction of possibly getting some excess rights, I would not have bothered to buy up at 51c today. So, assuming that I am awarded 1 lot of excess rights (on top of what is required to round up the odd lot), that would bring my average price per unit down to 49.457c which would mean a distribution yield of 10.25%. I hope I would be able to get more excess rights than just 1 lot.

I will also be keeping an eye on the price of the nil-paid rights when they start trading. In my last blog post on the subject, I mentioned that the rights should not trade higher than 7c. It would not make sense to buy at a higher price than 7c. In fact, at 7c, I would not bother either because it would mean a final price of 7c + 42.9c = 49.9c which is higher than my expected average price, post rights.

If the nil-paid rights should trade at 4c to 5c, it would be quite attractive as that would translate to 46.9c to 47.9c per unit which would have a distribution yield of 10.58% to 10.81%. Any price less than 4c would be a steal!

Related post:
Cambridge Industrial Trust: 1 for 8 rights issue.

Cambridge Industrial Trust: 1 for 8 rights issue.

As a retail investor and minority shareholder, I prefer a rights issue to private share placement as it allows me to participate in the enlarged capital base of the business entity. Cambridge Industrial Trust (CIT) is having a rights issue to help fund three acquisitions in Singapore. I won't go into the details. You can get all the details here.

Foremost on my mind is how can I benefit from this rights issue. Although I am no longer invested in the REIT, I will not let my past experience stop me from a possible money making opportunity. Rights issues have, so far, been profitable for me.

The rights are at an issue price of 42.9c each. 1 rights unit for every 8 units of CIT owned.

Current price is 50.5c/unit. 

Current DPU is 4.89c. Current NAV/unit is 61c. Current gearing is 34.7%.

Post rights, DPU will be 5.07c. NAV/unit will be 58c. Gearing will be 35.9%.

Therefore, if we are after a 10% distribution yield, getting units in CIT at 50.5c or lower would secure that for us. So, we could either buy some units at the current price and take part in the rights issue or we could wait to see how much the nil-paid rights would go for when they start trading later this month. Since the rights are at an issue price of 42.9c, the nil-paid rights should go for 7c at the highest. It would not make sense to pay more for them.

If the unit price of CIT were to be hammered down for some reason or if the nil-paid rights were to be sold at very low prices when they start trading, we could have ourselves a bargain.

Important dates:

Last day of CR: 15 March 2011.

Trading of nil-paid rights: 23 March to 31 March 2011.

Last date for acceptance and payment: 6 April 2011.