Headlines

l  Y’day: NKY +0.41%, HSI +1.42%, SHCOMP -0.63%, KOSPI +0.57%

l  Overnight: Dow +1.05%, SPX +1.4%, Nasdaq +2.13%

l  US rallied strongly w/ SPX closing just shy of record high despite stimulus talks breaking down

l  MSCI Aug review announced w/ 18 add / 14 deletes (Notable sell flow for Shui on land – 272 HK)

l  OIL: WTI rises to the highest lvl in 5 mths as US crude inventory dropped

l  US: Pelosi & Mnuchin discussions ylded no progress on nxt round of coronavirus relief

l  US: High CPI print (core 1.6%yy vs 1.1%yy e) stopped the recent rise in real ylds

l  US: Fed Rosengren & Kaplan reminded Fed still has “glass half empty view”. 

l  …Both critical of govt’s handling of virus / rush to re-open had backfired as recovery has been muted

l  US: Simon Property, Brookfield near J.C. Penny deal: DJ

l  US: Retailer Lucky Brand’s $191m bankruptcy sale approved

l  CN: Xinhua reports that China to boost credit support to small trade firms

l  CN: PBoC said to tighten real estate financing (Tencent)

l  HK: Li Ka Shing acqd 400,000 CKA (1113) Aug10,11

l  HK: Reports 62 new COVID cases on 12^th. 30+ prelim cases so today’s number should be lower

l  JP: BOJ injects Y1.2b via J-REITs buying & ETFs facility. (BOJ)

Today:  Everyone’s focused on value vs growth.  But whatever your bent, I think the relative value of Link & Fortune is just too wide to other prop names in HK now.  All eyes on Swire Prop results later today – if no negative surprises it could catch up to some of its landlord peers too.  In Japan the BOJ is still buying J-REITs.  I continue to like Invesco Office where the BoJ is a long way from 10% cap vs Nippon Building where they are almost at 10%.  In China, news the PBoC is tightening real estate financing of higher levered developers might impact those names today.

Finally: 300 of the world’s top business people were quizzed to find out what they did to use every second out of their day & still leave time for themselves.  Today’s a great day for a refresher & to choose to commit to actually doing it.  I started yesterday & I got more done…  Good luck.
1) Decline more meetings.  If you were sick, would the meeting be rescheduled?  If no, then you’re not likely to have enough of an impact to make it worth your while. 
2) Never multi-task. Switching b/w tasks diminishes your intellectual capacity by 10 IQ points (Glenn Wilson). Completing a task in one go takes less time and energy to than if you stop & start (Carlson’s Law).  To test this, time yourself saying the alphabet, then counting to 26.  Then time yourself saying a1b2c3etc.   

3) If a task will take <2mins to complete, do it immediately. You’ll save yourself the time you’d have wasted re-reading it later or trying to squeeze it somewhere else into your schedule.

4) Make a list:  Russian psychologist Bluma Zeigarnik says unfinished tasks takes up more space in your brain than completed ones. A jumbled mental list of stuff you need to do each day clouds your mind & stops you concentrating.  Use lists obsessively.  One study showed that people who write down tasks (vs just thinking about them) achieved, on average, 40% more of their goals.
5) Stop answering the phone.

6) Keeping your inbox empty keeps your mind calm. Check your emails not more than 3x a day (for example at 10am, 2pm & 6pm). Most employees do it every 15 minutes! Think of it like laundry: you don’t wash clothes individually, you wait until you’ve got enough for a full load.

7) Do the big / important jobs 1^st.  In ‘The 7 Habits Of Highly Effective People’, Stephen Covey uses the ‘Big rocks in the jar 1^st’ metaphor.  Elsewhere known elsewhere as The Rule Of 3. B/f they start work each morning, top entrepreneurs focus instead on identifying the 3 most important tasks to complete that day.

8) Jog 30 feet to spark your motivation

9) Don’t read work emails outside of office hours. It’ll feeding that cloud of intrusive thoughts w/ unfinished mental to-dos.

10) Take a proper break. Charles Darwin divided his working day into just 3x 90-minute sessions.  A break isn’t just time spent not working or being lazy, it’s fundamental for efficiency and creativity.

11) Ditch 80 per cent of your work.  In the late 19th century Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto came up with a rule that ‘80% of the effects are produced by 20% of the causes’.  By concentrating on 20% of the work that really matters, we can achieve almost as much as if we spent 5x longer on every detail. (Daily Mail)

PBoC said to tighten real estate financing (Tencent) PBoC has reportedly issued the "345" rule to control the scale of interest-bearing liabilities by developers. The rules are set against 3 "red lines", namely: 1) the debt-to-asset ratio after excluding advance receipts is greater than 70%; 2) net gearing is greater than 100%; 3) the cash to short-term debt ratio is less than 1. Developers will be divided into 4 categories depending on the criteria above, and there will be cap on growth in the scale of interest-bearing liabilities (5% higher growth will be allowed for each category as compared to the next). Specifically, for developers crossing the all the “third lines”, the scale of interest-bearing liabilities is capped at end June 2019 level, which could not be raised; for developers crossing two out of the three “third lines”, growth of interest-bearing liabilities is capped at 5%; for developers crossing one out of the three “third lines”, growth of interest-bearing liabilities is capped at 10%; for developers not crossing any of the three “third lines”, growth of interest-bearing liabilities is capped at 15%.

Standing Committee of the National People's Congress passed the deed tax law w/ tax rate 3%-5%. But experts say the disc tax rate anncd in 2016 still effect: <90m², 1% tax; >90m² & 1^st home, 1.5%; >90m² & 2^nd home, 2%, except Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, & Shenzhen. (The Paper) The deed tax rate set in the new deed tax law is the same as in the deed tax temporary regulation enacted in 1997. So far, the preferential deed tax rate for home transaction still applies, which ranges from 1-3%. Thus, the new deed tax law should be neutral to home transactions.

Times Neighborhood interim results (Announcement)  1H20 revenues +54% to Rmb702bn; attributable core net profit +76.2% to Rmb84.2bn. 30 June  contracted GFA 105.9 mn sqm vs 58.0 mn sqm as at end-19.

Leshan (T3 city in Sichuan Province), vowed to overhaul prop mkt to address irregular conduct (The paper)

Beijing prohibits urban residents from buying rural home-sites & houses built on rural home-sites (Guandian)

Top-5 China commercial banks to shift mortgage rate benchmark to LPR for all existing mortgage loans (Sina) 

Economist Fan Gang says the most important demand of real estate is the demand of population migration, when talking a/b "inner circulation". (The Paper)

7 provinces/cities rolled out tightening polices, incl Shenzhen, Hangzhou, Nanjing, Dongguan, Ningbo, Zhengzhou, & Inner Mongolia. (The Paper)

Invsmt in BJ office mkt remains strong in 2Q; 1H total invsmt ↑ to Rmb27b ($3.9b), per JLL. (CN Daily)

Shanghai lists a commercial, resi, office site in North Bund w/ starting price Rmb2b, fl price Rmb46,000m², total construction area 45,000m². (The Paper)

China’s SCPG signs agreement to mng Blackstone’s Westlink Mall in west Shanghai. Blackstone purchased VivoCity Shanghai mall & adjacent office twrs from Mapletree for $1.2b in Nov 2018, & then rebranded the mall as Westlink. SCPG is a unit of China Vanke Co. that operates malls. (Winshang)

Yanlord Land 1H Revenue Rmb9.12b, NI Rmb492.9m, 1H basic EPS Rmb25.52cts. No div recommended for the period; Group generally declares div on an annual basis. 1H Fair val gain on invsmt props ↓Rmb483m to Rmb308m. (Co)

Li Ka Shing Foundation bought total 400,000 CK Asset shrs @ avg price HK$41.1833/sh & HK$41.5522/sh on Aug 10 & 11. Li Ka-shing’s stake↑to 35.33% from 35.32%, Victor Li’s↑to 35.40% from 35.39%. (HKEX)

CKA to provide bridge loan to Goldin (530 HK) (Apple Daily)  Per Debtwire, Goldin may obtain a bridge loan from CKA w/ its Kowloon East office building as collateral, in order to get approval from its existing debt holders to delay the due date for HK$3.4bn of borrowings to mid Sept.

G2000 store at Harbour City taken over by court (Apple Daily) Clothing retailer G2000 store at Harbour City closed y’day after a bailiff took possession of the store to collect overdue rent.  G2000 indicated that, even though sales have fallen by 70% after the pandemic, its landlord did not offer any or much rent relief.

HK Ferry / Empire launches 123 units in Seacoast Royale, Tuen Mun, effective price HK$12,796-20,629/ft². Will start sales as soon as nxt w/e. Co already sold 369 units in 1^st 2 rounds for HK$1.7b. (HKET)

Wingtai / Manhattan sold the Magnum House in La Vetta resi project for HK$180m, a record high in the project. (HKET)

Condo, HDB rents in July see 1^st uptick since Feb but demand shows Covid-19 impact, per SRX HDB rents ↑1.4%MoM in July, a bigger rate of increase than the small 0.4% rise for private condo & apts. (Biz Times)

Combined BTO sales exercise sees >7,800 flats launched in 8 estates. (Biz Times)

City Devts 1H NI S$3.1m, revenue S$1.07b, net gearing ratio 50%. Says has cash reserves S$2.7b. Maintains a strong liquidity position cash + bank facilities totalling S$4b. (Co)  

Eagle Hospitality Trust was issued a breach notice by sponsor Urban Common, who claimed funds it had injected into the co are outstanding & due for repayment.  Urban Common claimed it provided “millions of dollars in excess of the audited hotel income” to subsidize rent & other reserves paid by the hotels under the master lease agmts.  Also claimed it has a plan to provide financial support to Eagle Hospitality, but has been unable as lack of cooperation.  Sponsor said hasn’t benefited financially since Reit IPO. (Biz Times)

GuocoLand appointed Sim Chee Wah as its new group CFO, effective Tuesday. Mr Sim replaces former group CFO Lim Yoke Tuan who resigned in July to "pursue other career opportunities". (Biz Times)

Frasers Centrepoint Trust issued 827,060 units on 11 Aug as payment of S$1.97m acqn fee, in connection w/ acqn by FCT Hldgs (Sigma) of 48,229 shrs in the capital of PGIM Real Estate AsiaRetail Fund @ issue price S$2.3848/unit. (Co)

Ascendas Reit sets up S$7b Euro medium-term securities program. (Biz Times)

Ascendas Pte Ltd’s deemed interest in Ascendas India Trust ↓to 15.98% from 21.19%. CapitaLand Financial Ltd becoming a substantial sh/ldr of Ascendas India Trust w/ 5.21% deemed interest hldg. (Co)

Australia to close Northern Territory to visitors from Covid-19 hotspots for a further 18 mths. (Biz Times)

Charter Hall Retail FY NI A$44.2m, FY revenue A$206.1m, operating earnings A$142.7m. NPI A$146.4m. Won't give FY21 guidance. (Co)

Goodman FY operating profit matches ests. FY operating profit A$1.06b, statutory profit A$1.5b, final div A$0.15/sh. FY revenue, other income A$2.63b. (Co)

Auckland re-enters lvl 3 lockdown a/f 1^st local Covid-19 case in 102 days. (Biz Times)

BOJ injects Y1.2b via J-REITs buying & ETFs facility. (BOJ)

Embassy Group in talks w/ Indospace, ESR to monetise warehousing biz. Sources said enterprise value of the deal cld be ₹17b - ₹20b. (Mint)

SM Prime will extend mall tenant support “as long as it takes”. SM supports tenants via rental waivers, collection of rent as % of sales instead of fixed amt, up to 50% disc on fixed rentals & co footing at least half of shared costs. (BBG)

Supalai 2Q profit Bt420m vs 2Q19’s Bt766m, 1H profit Bt1.17b vs 1H19 Bt2.29b. Co anncd cash div Bt0.5/sh, ex-div date 25 Aug, payment date 9 Sep. (Co)

Malaysia ↑gearing limit for REITs to 60% from 50% to allow greater cash flow flexibility, effective immediately, until Dec 31, 2022. (NST)  

* My pa holdings: BAC US, 1 HK, 6 HK, ST SP, TEAM US, GOOGL US, AMZN US