Wariness among Reit managers, trustees as contentious merger proposals move forward

CCT makes curious clarification; Sabana's trustee keeps mum; and annual report addendum shines light on director independence

Ben Paul

Published Sun, Sep 27, 2020 · 09:50 PM

S-Reits

THIS past week, there were at least three corporate announcements that would have piqued the interest of investors following the spate of real estate investment trust (Reit) mergers in the local market.

The strangest one, in my view, was from the manager of CapitaLand Commercial Trust (CCT), which is scheduled to seek unitholder approval to merge with CapitaLand Mall Trust (CMT) at an EGM on Sept 29.

The announcement sought to "clarify" a Sept 21 story in this newspaper headlined: "CCT: merger with CMT is between two equals, not a takeover".

The manager of CCT wanted it to be known tha…