New hospitality REIT IPO

New hospitality REIT IPO: Spore’s Kum family plans to list a hospitality REIT on SGX to raise ~S$450m. M&L REIT will own assets in AU, JPY and Spore. These assets could incl the Sheraton Four Points hotel in Sydney and the Ibis Spore hotel. Listing is expected in 2Q11…

The mkt may some interest switching out from other hospitality REITs like Ascott Residence Trust and CDLH Trust. Note M&L’s $450m freefloat is closer to ART’s $700m rather than CDREIT’s $1.3b. CDREIT investors may be reluctant to switch out given its underperformance in the last 3 months (-6% vs sector) and Spore focus. In comparison, ART (-3.6% vs sector) has 73% of its assets outside Spore.