Topic: How To Invest

Pat: Thank you for all of your past advice. Could you please give me your opinion on Milestone Apartment REIT? Thanks.

Article Excerpt

Milestone Apartment REIT, $14.99, symbol MST.UN on Toronto (Units outstanding: 60.4 million; Market cap: $906.1 million; www.milestonereit.com), holds 61 “garden-style” apartment properties containing 20,232 units in 14 cities throughout the U.S. Southeast and Southwest. Milestone continues to grow by acquisition. In the first half of 2015, it purchased buildings in Orlando, Atlanta and Kansas City for a total of $101.3 million (all amounts except unit price and market cap in U.S. dollars). In all, these properties contain 819 units. At the same time, the trust is selling older properties to improve the overall quality of its portfolio. The REIT’s new properties increased its revenue by 22.8% in the three months ended June 30, 2015, to $54.8 million from $44.6 million a year earlier. Cash flow jumped 34.3%, to $14.9 million from $11.1 million. The trust sold units to fund these purchases. As a result, cash flow per unit rose…