Keppel DC Reit takes top spot again in governance rankings for trusts

KEPPEL DC Reit, a data centre real estate investment trust, has held on to its top spot in this year's Governance Index for Trusts (Gift), which assesses the governance practices and business risks of Singapore-listed Reits and business trusts (BT).

This year, however, Keppel DC Reit has to share that number 1 ranking with CapitaLand Commercial Trust, which moved up from eight place last year.

Two other trusts made significant gains to enter the top five, with Mapletree Commercial Trust and Mapletree Greater China Commercial Trust in joint third. Frasers Logistics & Industrial Trust, ranked for the first time, made an impressive debut at number five.

The Gift index is produced by corporate governance advocate Mak Yuen Teen and active investor Chew Yi Hong, and supported by the Singapore Exchange (SGX); it is into its second year.

"The trusts that have moved up the ranking this year have done it through improvement in their disclosure and governance practices, as some others that have done well last year have stagnated or lost some momentum," Prof Mak said.

The assessment process in Gift takes into account differences in business models of listed trusts, applicable regulatory requirements, the Code of Corporate Governance, and the Monetary Authority of Singapore's consultation paper on proposed enhancements to the regulatory regime governing Reits and Reit managers. 

For this second edition of Gift, 44 trusts were assessed including six stapled securities.

The trusts were assessed using publicly-available information from annual reports, websites, presentations and other announcements made by the trusts to the stock exchange, and news media reports. Anonymous emails to investor relations contacts provided by the trusts were also used to assess actual responsiveness to investors.

The full rankings are available at www.governanceforstakeholders.com.