THE five largest office real estate investment trusts (Reits) on the local bourse with assets in Singapore have brought home an average negative total return of 3.2 per cent year-to-date as of May 3. This brings their one-year and three-year total returns to 14.3 per cent and 21.8 per cent respectively. They maintain a 5.6 per cent average distribution yield. The four that have reported their results for the first three months of 2018 averaged a distribution per unit (DPU) of 2.09 Singapore cents, down an average 4.5 per cent from the year-ago period. STRAITS Real Estate (SRE), a subsidiary of Straits Trading Company (STC), is exploring more investments in China’s retail scene, seemingly undeterred by the explosive growth of e-commerce there. This is because it finds that offline sales, including sales at shopping centres, have continued to expand despite the online competition, and Chinese retailers have in fact adapted ......