Read recently – the only people interested in returning to the office full time are:
- Extroverts
- Those with an interest in commercial property
It gave me a chuckle, and then I paused to think about how true it is.
I’m currently in the office only a couple of days a week. My employer has a flexible work policy in place so I’m in for the weekly management meeting and for a day were my team go to lunch. Our office has about 90 staff and unless they come in other days there are generally only about 20 in on any day.
Wotso is the provider of flexible office space in suburban and regional Australia. Offering space to 1,300 businesses and 4,200 people in 18 sites. In summary, it’s a REIT.
Why am I even looking at this one, there is one of their spaces just ‘round the corner from our now underutilised office.
If the staff levels have dropped like our office, this sure makes for a tough space in which to operate. Interestingly though, the don’t appears to be thinking like this with the business adding three new sites in FY21 – two in Sydney (Brookvale and Penrith) and a third in downtown Newcastle.
The statutory loss for FY21 is a significant improvement from FY20. The financial notes point to post lockdowns they have seen rapid return to pre COVID occupancy levels. There are no properties in previously lockdown Victoria which likely lessened the impact.
During FY21 BWR were stapled to shares of Wotso and Planloc to form stapled securities meaning BWR, Wotso and Planloc are now a package deal with the stapled name being Wotso Property.
What is to like:
- High insider ownership
- Reasonably stable, competent team
What is not to like:
- Interest payment ratio to earnings
- Large one-off items
- Confused shareholding/ board (Blackwall Fund Services, responsible entity for Blackwall Property Trust, Wotso and Planloc share the same board members
For several years, I have held REITs in Singapore with pleasing results. This one though for me is tapping a different market and just seem to be in the too hard basket.
