SINGAPORE (Nov 8): Religare Institutional Research has started Manulife US Real Estate Investment Trust with a “buy” recommendation and target price of 95 UScents, given its exposure to the US office market which continues to recover from the global financial crisis. To recap, Manulife’s portfolio has a weighted average lease expiry of 6.1 years. The REIT also has a pipeline of potential acquisition targets arising from its sponsor’s US$8 billion in assets under management in US, where 75% of them are office properties. The brokerage thus coined the REIT as one of the “best proxies” to the “growing US economy and appreciating US dollar” as it is said to be more tax-efficient than US-listed REITs. Shares in Manulife are trading unchanged at 84 cents.

Source: The Edge Markets November 08, 2016 08:55 UTC