Sponsor CapitaLand Investment’s (CLI) lodging business comprises platforms and management companies that handle properties owned by CLAS, CLI’s funds and third parties. In 1QFY2023, CLI had 161,000 units under management. Its lodging management fee-related earnings in 1Q2023 was $76 million, up 38% y-o-y.
Stapled securityholders of CapitaLand Ascott Trust (SGX:HMN
) (CLAS) can sleep easy with the knowledge that its manager is focused — not on AUM growth in the manner of many other S-REIT managers — but on stable distributions per stapled security (DPS).
CLAS became a stapled trust in 2019 when it acquired Ascendas Hospitality Trust (A-HTrust). A-HTrust comprised a REIT that held five properties and a business trust that owned nine properties. In A-HTrust’s case, the business trust was activated to manage the nine properties. In the Singapore stapled security context, business trusts are sometimes dormant but are activated to be master lessees of properties.
