REITs (Japan Assets) – BT

S’pore Reit buildings in Japan get away lightly

The damage unleashed by the earthquake and tsunami on the north-eastern coast of Japan has left most of the properties owned by Mapletree Logistics Trust, Parkway Life Real Estate Investment Trust (Reit) and Global Logistic Properties (GLP) relatively unscathed.

Mapletree Logistics Trust said yesterday that 13 out of its 14 properties in Japan ‘escaped with either no damage or minimal damage’. Its remaining property in Sendai – where devastation has been greatest – Sendai Centre, has been affected by the tsunami, the trust said.

The latest valuation has put the cost of reinstating the building at about 600 million yen, or about S$9 million. The trust’s manager, however, does not expect the cost of repairs to amount to that much.

‘Preliminary report suggests that the building is intact. However, the affected area has been cordoned off by the local authorities due to safety measures. The full extent of damage can only be ascertained when access into the property is allowed,’ the trust said in a filing on the Singapore Exchange yesterday.

Sendai Centre is the second smallest of the trust’s properties in Japan by revenue contribution, accounting for 0.7 per cent of its portfolio’s total gross revenue.

On Friday night, GLP said that damage to its property had been estimated at about 3.9 billion yen or US$47.5 million, with the likely loss of rental income coming up to 0.89 billion yen or US$10.8 million. In total, this accounts for less than one per cent of GLP’s US$6.3 billion portfolio of properties in Japan. The majority of the repairs to its properties will take place in the next 30 days.

‘The low level of losses are testimony to the quality of our portfolio and property management as well as the rapid response of our dedicated team in Japan,’ said Jeffrey Schwartz, deputy chairman of GLP, who had been visiting the operations in Japan when the earthquake took place.

Parkway Life Reit, which has 29 properties in Japan, said that none of them have been structurally affected. ‘In addition, none of our properties are located within the evacuation zones of the nuclear plants in Fukushima Prefecture, with our nearest property to the nuclear plant site at least 200 kilometres away,’ it said yesterday.

Saizen Reit, a firm with 22 properties in Sendai alone, said on Friday night that its manager, Japan Residential Assets Manager Limited, and asset manager, KK Tenyu Asset Management, were contacting local property managers to assess the extent of the impact, but that it was being hampered by ‘breakdown of telecommunications networks and power blackouts’.

The collective value of its properties in the three affected areas – Sendai, Koriyama and Morioka – stand at 5.88 billion yen, accounting for 15.5 per cent of its total portfolio value.

Mapletree Logistics Trust, Parkway Life Reit and GLP have said that all their staff in Japan are safe and accounted for.