Rising rents boost RioCan

Article Excerpt

RIOCAN REAL ESTATE INVESTMENT TRUST $25.36 (Toronto symbol REI.UN; Units outstanding: 319.4 million; Market cap: $8.1 billion; TSINetwork Rating: Average; Dividend yield: 5.6%; www.riocan.com) is Canada’s largest real estate investment trust. In the three months ended September 30, 2015, RioCan’s cash flow rose 2.3%, to $0.44 a unit from $0.43 a year earlier. Revenue gained 4.5%, to $320.6 million from $306.9 million. The trust continues to do a good job of hanging onto tenants and renewing leases at higher rates: rents on renewals rose 8.6% in Canada and 9.8% in the U.S. RioCan ended the quarter with a 94.0% occupancy rate, down from 97.0% a year earlier. However, that’s mainly because Target closed all of its Canadian stores in April 2015. Target had 26 locations in RioCan’s malls that together supplied 1.9% of the trust’s annual revenue. RioCan is now negotiating new leases for these stores with other retailers. RioCan is a buy. buy…