Interface News reporter | Ji Yao
On the evening of May 24th, the official website of the Shanghai and Shenzhen Stock Exchange showed that the project status of Hua'an Bailian Consumer REIT and China Merchants Highway REIT had been updated to "pass", meaning that two more public offerings REITs had been approved. On the same day, the REIT of Huaxia Dayue City Shopping Center has been officially declared.
Since October 20, 2023, the CSRC document instructs the expansion of the pilot asset types of public offering REITs to consumer infrastructure. So far, four consumer REITs have been established, namely, OUTLETS REIT REIT, Jinmao Shopping Mall REIT, CICC India REIT, and China Resources REIT.
Huaan Bailian Consumer REIT is the first consumer REITs in Shanghai, the fund manager is Huaan Fund, and the original equity holder is Shanghai Bailian Group Co., Ltd. The underlying asset of the REIT is another shopping mall in Shanghai, with a floor area of 12.Microsoftpinballarcade.500,000 square meters. The total share raised is 1 billion, and it is planned to raise about 2.332 billion yuan. According to the data, the annual occupancy rate of the shopping mall in the above-mentioned city is more than 95% in the past five years, and the historical occupancy rate of the project is 100% before 2020. Since 2023, the project as a whole has been in a period of recovery. In 2023, the sales volume of the project was 1.075 billion yuan and the operating income was 253 million yuan, a substantial increase over the previous year.
Huaxia Dayue City Shopping Center REIT fund manager is Huaxia Fund, the original interest is Zhuoyuan Real Estate (Chengdu) Co., Ltd., a subsidiary of Dayue City holding Group Co., Ltd., the actual controller is Cofco Group, and the underlying asset is Chengdu Dayue City, which is controlled by Huaxia Dayue City Holdings. Cofco is a large state-owned enterprise directly under the central government, and Dayue City Holdings is its real estate investment and management platform, with a layout of nearly 40 core first-and second-tier cities across the country, with total assets of nearly 200 billion yuan.
The REIT fund manager of China Merchants Highway is China Merchants Fund, and the original interest holder is China Merchants Highway Network Technology Holdings Co., Ltd. The underlying asset of the project is the Bofu Expressway Project in Anhui Province. According to the latest feedback inquiry, the asset valuation has been lowered from 4.281 billion yuan to 3.775 billion yuan.
The highway REITs project involving ICBC Credit Suisse Fund has also been approved by ICBC Hebei Expressway REIT in April. At present, a total of 9 expressways REITs have been listed on the market, with an issuance scale of 48.763 billion yuan.
Recently, the six expressway REITs projects of Huatai Jiangsu Traffic Control REIT, Guojin Railway Construction REIT, Zhejiang Merchants Shanghai-Hangzhou-Ningbo REIT, Huaxia Yuexiu Expressway, Ping an Guangzhou Guanghe REIT and Huaxia Zhongjiajian REIT have released April operation data. Data show that the monthly highway traffic and toll revenue of each REITs have declined. However, trading in the secondary market is still enthusiastic, with highway REITs leading the way for the year as a whole.
In addition, Huaxia Special Electric New Energy REIT and Huatai Baowan Logistics REIT were also approved this month.
Since the beginning of this year, the public offering of REITs has been accelerated, and there are still many products in the stage of inquiry and feedback, and the REITs market will be further expanded in the future.
The first batch of public REITs has been approved for three years, and Wind data show that so far, 36 public REITs have been established. By the end of the first quarter of 2024, the total size of 36 public REITs (IPO + expansion) is 124.8 billion yuan.
The latest figures show that insurance companies, products and asset management plans collectively held more than 1.2 billion public REITs products by the end of 2023, an increase of more than 35 per cent year-on-year. Public FOF has included REITs in the scope of investment. As of the first quarter, nearly 60% of public FOF included REITs in the scope of investment. The market value of REITs held by public FOF is about 44 million yuan, an increase of more than 36% compared with the previous quarter.
Industry insiders believe that from the perspective of asset performance-to-price ratio, policy aspect, asset supply side and so on, public offering REITs, as a high-quality asset with high dividend, is attracting more diversified investors to participate in investment. And accompanied byMicrosoftpinballarcadeChina's "steady growth" policy continues to work, and the fundamentals of public REITs are expected to be further repaired, and the investment value of this kind of assets is still worthy of attention.
A public offering REITs product department said that the bond market interest rate center downward, the "asset shortage", non-bank institutions allocation pressure is still large, the lack of dangerous assets, REITs may become an important direction of long-term capital allocation. However, in the current development stage of public offering REITs, there are still asset scope, asset valuation, pricing mechanism, transaction structure, management responsibility and incentive mechanism, tax and other problems, which still need to be discussed and solved in depth.