Following up to the Mapletree Greater China Trust, now we have another retail trust coming to IPO. It is the Croesus Retail Trust which focuses on Japanese retail properties. This comes at the right time as the Japanese PM is pushing aggressive expansionary fiscal and monetary policies to boost the economy. Increasing spending generally bodes well for the retail sector.

The offering price is $0.93 per unit, giving it a market capitalization of about $375 mil to $414mil. The NAV of CRT is approximately $0.90 per unit, so the listing is pretty much at NAV. The interesting thing about CRT is that it positions itself as an Asia Pacific retail trust with an initial portfolio in Japan.

Business Trust vs REIT

While it is a business trust and not a REIT. The trust deed does contain certain restrictions similar to a REIT. There is a leverage limit ...