The massive sell-down in Mar brought many REITs to rare, multi-year lows. This re-ignited my interest in REITs, as I have been out of them for many years due to their increasing debt levels and decreasing yields. However, I passed up the opportunity while I analysed what could be the impact of COVID-19 on REITs. Despite the massive government interventions, things do not look good for retail and F&B companies. And when tenants struggle, their landlords will also suffer. In this blog post, I will examine the potential impact of COVID-19 on 2 retail companies and 2 F&B companies.

Before we begin, it is good to recap what are the measures the government has taken to cushion the impact on retail and F&B companies.

Through 4 extraordinary budgets, the government will provide support to wages via the Job Support Scheme (JSS). The level of wage support varies across industries.