Allco Commercial Reit
My very first equity investment was in Allco Commercial Reit way back in October 2007. I recall choosing this because it's P/B was among the lowest of the Reits listed on SGX and yet its dividend yield was relatively higher than most. To me then, it seemed like a no-brainer!
I can't recall much but shortly afterwards, financial crisis of 2008/09 happened and everything went red. I can't recall what was the lowest price it went to but it must have been bad. I was actually quite chill about it because I wasn't only invested in this counter and since I was still collecting dividend from it, I thought I would sit tight and observe. In fact I recall I was constantly on the look out to invest into more companies! Eventually Fraser and Neave came and bought over the Reit! So the Reit was renamed Frasers Commercial Trust and I sold it in October 2010, exactly 3 years later.
On hindsight it wasn't a good investment call right from the beginning as I did not know why the Reit had low P/B. Neither did I fully appreciate its business or the properties it held, how steady would the dividend be. So I decided to sell then at price of $0.155 per share. I bought into the Reit with $7,299.6 and got back $6,789.78 + $724.84 in dividend. So my total profit was $214.93, less than 1% return per year! Over the years the Reit underwent many changes and is now know as Frasers Logistics and Commercial Trust, selling currently for around $1.10+ per share! So again on hindsight, I made another mistake of selling too early, without fully understanding the potential of the Trust. Two mistakes in one investment, Ouch!
Journey so far
It has been more than 10 years since I started investing directly in equities listed on SGX. I'm glad to have embarked on this journey. Despite many mistakes I have made, as the graph below illustrates, portfolio value has been growing steadily over the years. More importantly, dividends collected has also been steadily increasing. Hopefully despite the Covid-19 situation, dividend collected this year can finally cross the $10,000 per year mark!
Covid-19 has been very scary. It has affected many many people worldwide in many many ways. But I am also very fortunate that my wife and I are able to work from home, and hence we continue to draw a salary. In fact, have being using the opportunity provided to invest more! How will this impact the portfolio value in future? Only time will tell!
Till then, hope the world can work together and overcome this challenge soon. I do not know how soon things will return to normal, but I strongly believe that once again "this too will pass". So I shall keep calm and collect dividends!
