I've looked at purchasing CLW a couple of times over the past...

I've looked at purchasing CLW a couple of times over the past twelve months. I thought CLW was supposed to be a conservative, long WALE REIT but the exposure to retail through the David Jones building last year concerned me; as did the capital raisings. It's extremely disappointing and, as marri and noomxx say, it looks like empire-building. It's no wonder CHC, the fund manager has announced it will beat profit forecasts. I don't have an issue with the decisions made to aggressively expand a REIT like I've been seeing in this fund. My issue is that CLW is supposed to be conservative and focused on slowly adding value to unit holders. Every time it raises capital at NTA it weighs on the share price.

With the funds I was going to put into CLW l purchased Charter Hall's CQE REIT instead. The side by side comparison is interesting. The WALE of CQE is actually the same as this long WALE REIT -- 14.3 years -- big surprise. Debt is much lower. Occupancy rate is a whisker higher. Up until recently it was trading under NTA with higher growth forecasted than CLW. Dividend is a percentage lower though. The CQE share price has not been handicapped by these constant dilutions either.

The big winner here is Charter Hall -- which is trading at under most of the investment houses' target prices (for whatever that's worth). I'd have no issues with GPT or Goodman (just for example) doing what CLW has been doing. I'm struggling to see how unit holders are benefiting from these transactions in what's supposed to be a boring, predictable, dependable REIT.

If one is looking for boring and predictable, with some industry tail winds, low debt and favourable financials, CQE to me, is what CLW *should* be. CLW seems to have lost its way; or perhaps I misunderstand its purpose.