In March this year, I wrote about the possibility of REITs having to raise capital through rights issues if Covid-19 were to cause severe declines in asset valuations (What Happened to REITs during the GFC?). Eight months on, this has not occurred, and although I believe that the likelihood of this has diminished, we cannot completely ignore it. In October, I initiated a position in Capitaland Mall Trust (CMT) at a price of $1.91, which has now merged with Capitaland Commercial Trust (CCT) to form Capitaland Integrated Commercial Trust (CICT). As a shareholder, I was curious to assess the likelihood of CICT having to raise capital through a rights issue, by analysing its gearing ratio and asset valuations.
I have not ran the numbers to determine the gearing ratio of the merged entity, although Kah Kiat at Dr Wealth has calculated that the pro-forma gearing for CICT would be 38.3% post-merger....