On November 26, 2023, the relevant authorities and the official website of the Shenzhen Stock Exchange showed that Huaxia China Resources Commercial Assets Closed Infrastructure Securities Investment Fund (hereinafter referred to as "China Resources Commercial REIT") has officially obtained the approval of the relevant authorities for registration and registered in the Shenzhen Stock Exchange.
Prior to October 20, the relevant departments issued the "Decision on amending Article 50 of the Guidelines on Public Offering of Infrastructure Securities Investment Funds (Trial)" to expand the asset types of public offering REITs to consumer infrastructure. Only about a month after the release of the document, China Resources Commercial REIT was officially approved as the first batch of consumer infrastructure public REITs. Industry insiders said that this fully reflects the strong support of the relevant departments for the issuance of high-quality projects and the development of the REITs market, and is optimistic about the future development potential of the market.
Relevant data show that the first batch of enterprises to declare consumer infrastructure public offering REITs are 4, and the total underlying assets involved in them are estimated to be about 14 billion yuan, of which the initiator of China Resources Commercial REIT is China Resources Land, the underlying assets are Qingdao Wangxiang City, and the project valuation is 8.147 billion yuan, accounting for half of the total valuation of the first batch of projects. As a result, it has received higher attention from investors.
Qingdao Mixc City is located in Hong Kong Middle Road Business District of Shinan District, which is known as the core business district of Qingdao. It is not only the core business district of Qingdao, but also the only place for domestic and foreign tourists to travel and consume in Qingdao.
As one of the shopping centers with the largest construction area and the most brands in Shandong Province, the commercial construction area of Qingdao Mixc City is about 301,000 square meters, with obvious location advantages, double subway cover, convenient transportation and customers covering the whole area of Qingdao. The project opened in 2015, with a compound annual growth rate of 7.6% in passenger traffic from 2016 to 2022, and a compound growth rate of 15% in operating revenue in the past three years.
In the first half of this year, Qingdao Wangxiang City seized the opportunity of consumption recovery, and its operating income increased by 10.9% to 331 million yuan in the first half of the year (to restore the impact of rent reduction), and the average rental rate exceeded 98%, which remained stable and high.
"Projects with such core business areas, large flow of people, stable rental rates and sound operations are more likely to be approved." A fund manager told the media that investors are more concerned about projects whose underlying assets are located in the core business circle of high-level cities, mature and stable, and have competitive advantages, but more importantly, they can maintain stable returns and have the potential for sustained growth in the future.
The recruitment prospectus of China Resources Commercial REIT also emphasizes that excellent operational management and a deep member base are the keys to the project's continued performance growth in the future.
As the operation and management side of Qingdao Vientiane City, CR Vientiane Life has established six core capabilities of excellent brand investment, lean operation, large membership system, digital intelligent operation, platform empowerment and excellent team, which will continue to help the development of Qingdao Vientiane City.
Thanks to its operational capabilities, Qingdao City is significantly ahead of other local shopping malls in terms of membership development. Since its opening in 2015, Qingdao City has accumulated more than one million members, accounting for 10% of Qingdao's resident population. The huge membership scale and deep membership operation system also fully guarantee the stable operation and long-term value-added potential of the project in the future.
At present, with the public offering REITs steadily entering the normal issuance stage, the industry generally believes that the development pattern of China's public offering REITs market "IPO" + "expansion" will gradually take shape, such as China Resources Land and other strong, stable promoters with sufficient quality assets, also have higher possibility of "expansion" in the future, and attract more investors' attention.On the one hand, as a leading urban investment and development operator in the industry, China Resources Land insists on consolidating the "3+1" integrated business portfolio model, and has been deeply engaged in operational real estate business for more than 20 years, and is one of the earliest developers to develop shopping center business in China. It has cultivated three commercial product lines of "Vientiane City", "Wanxiang Hui" and "Vientiane World" as well as a large number of high-quality commercial assets.
This means that in addition to the initial asset of Qingdao Vientiane City, there are a large number of high-quality commercial projects that can be used as underlying assets to enter the pool in the future. Media personnel learned from various sources that as of the end of June 2023, China Resources Land holds 67 shopping centers in the Ying, and another 47 shopping centers under construction are planned to open before the end of 2026, with an asset management scale of more than 200 billion yuan, and there are about 20 quasi-assets that meet the current consumer REITs issuance standards. And mainly focus on first - and second-tier cities or provincial capitals and other high-level cities, the future or will have the opportunity to launch the expansion plan, for China Resources commercial REIT and public REITs market to bring greater imagination space.
On the other hand, China Resources Land has adhered to long-term and steady development for nearly 30 years, which also makes investors feel more secure.