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Strategies & Market Trends : 2026 TeoTwawKi ... 2032 Darkest Interregnum -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?


To: pezz who wrote (18116)5/8/2007 8:16:27 PM
From: TobagoJack  Read Replies (2) | Respond to of 217574
 
Hello Pezz, Yesterday’s Report:

(1) Last Friday and yesterday I purchased a wallop of a REIT share at domiciled in a recently broken democracy that also declared war on foreign ownership of assets of all sorts as well as slapped on capital controls to try to stem the rise of its currency against the USD (yes, the government has been trying to use unconventional means to break its currency’s rise against the paper of the largest spendthrift debtor that is your government – imagine that). Price paid, Thai Baht 10/shr and below.

The REIT is known as Samui Airport Property Fund, and its symbol and its basic gumph is here stocks.us.reuters.com . Ignore the dividend yield info on the link provided. The beast promised a yield of 10%, with no tax bite, though do have some curency issues as detailed below.

I bought a wallop because I like Asian real estate, especially where I like to go achamchen.com , particularly where the currency is rising against the USD, and that the schema is a monopoly that an airport on a up and coming super mega resort island is, and that the beast is a dedicated platform to charge a entry toll on all visitors – highway robbery can be profitable and usually are not investment-able.

If it was the USA, buying a piece of Honolulu airport yielding at 10% would probably be a good move.

What follows is amalgamated from a series of back and forth e-mails with parties out there:

Basically, this is a Thailand-listed real estate investment trust (REIT) paying at least a 10% annual dividend (tax free, paid out quarterly) whose only asset is a small airport on Koh Samui -- a major high-end tourist island (quite similar to Phuket) with about 1m visitors/yr.

Why in the form of a REIT? Because the company that built/owned the airport (Bangkok Airways, a boutique but fast-growing airline in Thailand/Cambodia) needed to partially cash out of their airport so they could buy more airplanes to expand their airline.

Hence, they kept 33% of the REIT, and IPO investors bought up the other 66%.

The airport is a 100% monopoly, no other way to get there but take an airplane. The airport charges fees to each plane and each passenger, and visitor growth in the last few years has been +20%/year.

The IPO price was THB10/share, but since it listed at end of Nov 2006, it was just before the stupid capital controls were implemented (and then cancelled) in December and caused panic selling in Thailand , and the market declined 15% in one day. This airport has nothing to do with the Govt or capital controls, but still the share price languished deeply below the IPO price (at one point it was even selling for $7/share). The airline Bangkok Airways even bought more shares on the open market, and now they increased their stake to 41%.

They ought to overshoot their promised dividend per share of $1.01 (could be much more). Even if they just pay $1.01, that is still greater than 10% yield on the IPO price of $10.

They will announce/pay the first quarter dividend soon, and people will eventually recognize this is a very defensive, monopoly asset with good growth potential as more and more tourists come (not like other real estate where the rent is raised just once every few years).

There is already a new Four Seasons hotel, and Conrad + W hotels are coming. Many other 5 star hotels are already there, and multi-million condos are there too. The world's #1 female tennis player just bought a condo there.

At THB 10 or below it is an attractive bargain with superior yield and growth potential.

Regarding the Bank of Thailand reserve requirement on foreign currency going into Thailand, there is a one year holding period before you can fully repatriate the fund. There is a 30% withholding and this amount can only repatriate after one year.

The currency issue (i.e. the 30% reserve requirement, 1 yr holding period, etc.) should not be a problem so long as your broker's settlement companies are either HSBC or Citibank.

The central bank permits free buying and selling (i.e. no 30% rule, no 1 yr holding period) of REIT shares so long as you use a currency swap to exchange foreign currency into Thai baht.