PRIME REIT- US Companies Imposing Work From Office Measures Positive Developement

 Amazon at the corporate level has instructed its staff to return for at least 3 days in a week.

This to me signals the return of demand for office spaces for USA. It is likely the WFH culture will be reduced dramatically on the basis of improved productivity.

Effects on PRIME REIT

With Inflation still high and an expected increase in demand for office spaces due to US firms stipulating periods of time to work at the office, I expect further positive rental revisions for 2023. This means higher rentals. I am forecasting revenue increase of 6%. (US$163 mil --> US$172.8 mil)

With the increase in interest rates for the next full financial year, I forecast an increase of interest expense by 13% as compared to this year's. (US$21.6mil--> US$24.4mil)

In 2022, there was a deferred tax expense of US$13.9 million due to revaluation losses. I do not expect another of the same magnitude, however, with the rise in cap rate, I expect further losses and hence a positive deferred tax expense of US$2 million. Hence there will be a cash outflow of US$11 million in adjustments.

In summary, I expect a decrease in income avaliable for distribution from US$35 mil to US$31 mil. This means US Prime REIT will have to a DPU decrease by 11.4%. At current DPU, PRIME REIT is giving US 6 cents per share; factoring the decrease, this means a future DPU of US 5.3 cents per share.

Valuation

Currently PRIME REIT is at US$0.42, based on my estimation it is at 12.6% dividend yield. In my view, this is too cheap. A reasonable yield for US office REIT is in the region of 9-10% yield which is about US 55 cents.

Given this, I will be adding to my position in PRIME REIT in the next few market days.

<Currently Vested in PRIME REIT>

OCBC Fixed Deposit or 6 month T bills for CPF OA

This is probably on many Singaporeans minds now on what they want to do with their CPF OA above $20,000. Let's summarise the current offerings:

OCBC 8 months Fixed Deposit - 3.88% vs

Singapore T-Bills 6 months- 3.85-4.00% (Depends on competitive tranche results)

To be honest, there is not much to compare between them. T bills are only worth if the 6 months tranche results are 4% and above. If it is too difficult to think of a magic number, just sign up for the OCBC 8 months FD with your excess CPF OA. It's definitely better than being indecisive and leaving the money in CPF OA which is the lowest interest.

When to put in the Fixed Deposit with OCBC?

The answer is definitely the first week of the calendar month. This is because CPF counts the the lowest account balance clocked for that particular. So do it at the first week or two of the calendar month. This is so that when the money is returned to you by OCBC after 8 months, it will likely be returned on the latter part of the month, minimising CPF interest lost.

For now, just wait to see if the upcoming T bills for Feb 2023 is 4% and above. If not, just queue up for OCBC Fixed Deposits at the start of March. Dont leave your CPF OA in CPF, otherwise, your FIRE will be slower.

Tesla - A Definite Sell at $190 Price With Huge Downside

Given the recent uptrend and rebound optimism over Tesla, the value proposition of Tesla based on its fundamental of earnings has changed. At current prices of $190, the company is a definite sell with a large downside.

Recent Developments

Tesla Investors would be aware of the news that Tesla has slashed prices of its car models to gain market share. The question to many is what is the impact of margins to Tesla. Fortunately, I came across an article which shows the profit margins of EV makers.

Source: https://www.visualcapitalist.com/charted-teslas-unrivaled-profit-margins/

With the implmented $5,000 price cut by Tesla, the profit margins made by each car will be halved. Even adding the cost savings derived from producing more cars, I doubt, it will be able to cover the current profit margin earned from making a car (US $9,574). Ford too is engaging in the price war

Tesla Recent Earnings

Tesla's earning per shares for 2022 is US$3.70 per share. With 2023 signalling a price war among the EV makers, but orders for Tesla vehicles will increase, I expect Tesla to maintain its US$3.70 per share earnings.

However, earnings will not grow as fast as they are in the future. At current prices of $190, Tesla is priced at 50 times PE. If Tesla is able to almost double its earnings every year, yes 50 P/E is reasonable; however, Tesla's profit is now fairly large and are engaging in a price war with EV makers. This will slash the margins they earn from their cars and put a downwards pressure on net earnings.

A 50 times P/E for Tesla is downright expensive. With conventional automakers priced at single digit to 10 times P/E, the best Tesla can be valued is only at 20 times price earnings.

Downside of 50%

With that, the target price of Tesla is in the $90s range, I expect Tesla share prices to fall 50% over this year as reality over its earnings capabilities set in.

<Author is neither short nor invested in Tesla at the time of publication>

Target Price for Grab Holdings (2023): A sell with -50% downside

On 9 January 2022, I had initated coverage of Grab when its share price was at $6.80. My fair value estimate was a $2.25-$3.00 range.

A year has passed and we did see Grab's share price falling along with the US Tech bust and for a few months, the market value did trade at around my fair value range. Given that a year has passed, it is a good opportunity to update my fair value of Grab.

What has Changed

Grab has changed its focus from growing at all cost to one focused on profitability and margins. A few changes are:

(i) Reduction in commission given to its riders

(ii) Removal of low value financial transactions in Grabpay that was enabled for use as AXS transactions in Singapore.

All in all, the company expects continued improvement at the EBITDA level. To shareholders, this is good news as the company is now focused on profitability, however, this will come at the expense of a slow growth in GMV, TPV figures.

Digital banking/Fintech

On the fintech front, Grab has started its GXS bank. However, it seems that another online bank ("Trust" bank set up by NTUC/Standard Chartered) has turned up and is fighting GXS and Sea Group's Marin bank. From the looks of it, it is unlikely none of them will be the 'winner takes all' and it is safe to assume it will be a tie scenario. Thus the fair value of Grab's fintech is reduced from US$8 billion to US$3 billion (the scenario of a tie mentioned in my 2022 write up).

Delivery

Nothing has changed and I expect it to be worth US$4 billion.

Mobility

Margins for mobility has improved greatly with the latest quarterly loss standing at US$100 million. I feel Grab may be able to turn this around and be able to report a US$200 milllion in annual profits, hence I am abscribing a US$2 billion valuation. 

Valuation of Grab

Based on the above, on a sum of parts valuation, Grab's value should be US$9 billion.

Moving forth with Grab stopping its unprofitable expansion plans and focusing on margin improvements, I expect losses to be reduced to the US$1 billion range. With reported equity at US$6.6 billion, this means a an expected equity value at about US$5.6 billion. 

Grab's share price is currently at US$3.86 (Market Cap: US$14.85 billion); therefore the low range expectation is for Grab to trade at its end 2023 value of US$5.6 billion or at the high range of its sum of parts value. This places the fair value/share price to be at US$1.50 - US$2.40.

Portfoilo Update: US PRIME REIT and Alphabet Purchases

Following from my thoughts about my write up on the SGX Listed US office REITs and the subsequent drop in share price of PRIME, I have increased my stake in US PRIME.

Due to the large price decrease specifically for PRIME, the reit is now sporting an estimated dividend yield of 14% (provided there are no sudden large decrease in occupancy). Hence I have increased my stake 16k to 73k shares. As many of my other investments do not provide dividends (only share buybacks), it offers me a chance to have an overall portfolio with dividends. 

Do take note US office REITs have a certain degree of risk because they are teetering on breaching MAS's regulatory limit for leverage ratio due to a higher risk free rate and declining occupancy for their properties. Hence there is a need to keep cash aside in case there are rights, I will be using the upcoming USD 3 cents dividend per share for this contingency. 

Alphabet Purchase

I have started looking towards USA and my first purchase on the US tech is Alphabet at a price of USD$89.50. Alphabet was chosen as it is one of the rare companies with a strong moat in the online search engine which in turn fuels online advertising. I am awaiting the rise in Goggle's Pixel line of mobile phones as well. Should it be good enough to take away market share from the iPhone, it will increase Alphabet's market share in the mobile online search engine which will add runway to its revenue growth. 

I expect Alphabet to continue growing its profits over the long term, 17x P/E for a company with considerable runway for profit growth has some degree of undervalue.

Target Price for Alibaba in 2023

Alibaba is a core position in my portfoilo forming a 56% weightage. Given this, I thought it would be good to explain why I continue to invest in Alibaba for the year of 2023 and my expectations for it.

Positive Core Earnings Growth Year on Year

Alibaba's core operations profitability grew by 10% from RMB 45 billion to RMB 50 billion using comparison of 1HFY2023 vs 1HFy2022 (Source: see Page 9, Line item 'Income from Operations'); thanks to the improved profitability from the international commerce business, local consumer services and cloud computing segments. Extrapolating from Alibaba's previous FY2022 core profits of RMB 69.6 billion, it is definitely possible that this year's profits will be RMB 77 billion or USD$11 billion.

Beyond this FY, it is likely Alibaba will continue to see earnings growth of 10% annually, a decrease from its annual 40-50% growth before COVID/Clamp down by China's government. At current P/E of 21.1, Alibaba is cheap.

China Reopening Theme

Unlike Pinduoduo which is an e commerce platform mainly for consumer staples and groceries, Alibaba positions itself as an e commerce that caters to all types of goods. Hence, it has a higher income senstiviety than Pinduoduo. With China reopening, I expect an improvement in economic conditions and in turn the affluence of the chinese consumer. Hence, Alibaba will be a beneficary.

Target Price for 2023

In my view, a P/E of 40 times for Alibaba based on this year's profits is definitely reasonable. Margins across its business segments are going to improve with an expectation of 10% annual growth in profits.

Hence, I expect to see Alibaba at around US$166 this year. However, should Alibaba outperform and clock in a larger than 10% profit growth in May 2023, a re-rating should happen (also applicable if the eventual "Income from operations" growth is less than 10%). 

ManuLife Valuation Loss, How about PRIME and Keppel Pac REIT?

Shortly after I had posted my previous write up, ManuLife announced a dreaded news that it has written down 10.9% of its asset value and is now at 49% leverage ratio, just shy of breaching the MAS regulatory limit of 50%.

The other 2 who has not announced the dreaded news are PRIME and Keppel (KORE). On context, the gearing for PRIME and KORE are 38.7% and 37.5% respectively. In my view, KORE is likely to report the larger of the writedowns and PRIME will become the least leveraged (and probably the safest US office REIT). Below is the main reason

Keppel has higher concentration risk in one city that is not doing well

Source: KORE AR (see page 65)

49% of KORE's asset value are concentrated in the city of Seattle. Among the cities, Seattle is not part of the sunbelt cities witnessing a resumption of return to office and increase in demand of office space (see Keppel Slides's page 17). What Keppel has omitted to present is that due to its property concentration in Seattle, their overall property valuation is affected adversely and probably to a larger extent than PRIME's.

Source: PRIME AR (see page 15)

Prime's portfoilo is more geographically diversified across USA with no city having a concentration of more than 20%. 

Hence I expect in the rounds of revaluation to come, barring any equity raising or private placement, PRIME REIT will become the lowest leveraged among the 3 US office REITs. All 3 REITs including ManuLife will be at the 43-50% leverage limit. As long as they don't buy more properties, PRIME and KORE unitholders should not see further equity raising. I reiterate among the 3, the risk of unitholders needing to fork out cash is as follows (from highest to lowest):

ManuLife > Keppel (KORE) > PRIME

What is Keppel's Advantage?

One thing advantegous to KORE is that its earliest debt maturity is end 2024 with only 13% of loans to renew by end 2024. PRIME on the other hand has 67% due in July 2024. Hence PRIME will have to pay a higher interest financing about 3 year earlier than KORE, assuming interest rates stay elevated in end July 2024 

This would affect the dividends unitholders receive but does not affect the event of requiring equity raising or private placement, which would dilute unitholders

<Author is vested in PRIME REIT>