Education needed to make 'foreign Reits' more welcome in the local market

There is a prejudice institutional funds based in Singapore sometimes have towards Singapore real estate investment trusts (S-Reits) that hold foreign assets, but as more of such instruments join the local bourse, their attitude may have to change.

This comes as the Singapore Exchange continues to woo more of such foreign-asset S-Reits to list here. The market expects Reit listings to form a significant part of the initial public offering (IPO) pipeline this year.

The hard numbers also show that foreign-asset S-Reits have done better than their "local" counterparts on the stock market this year.

After the correction in end-January and early February, most S-Reits are still under water. Index stocks and institutions' favourites such as CapitaLand's, Frasers Property's and Mapletree's st…