Hi JemmaI think the good points about UOS management are that...

Hi Jemma

I think the good points about UOS management are that they have been essentially unchanged for decades so know the business and people intimately, they are major shareholders so are aligned with smaller shareholders, and are consistently conservative in reporting so the only surprises we get are small upward revisions.

Yes - UOS has become a holding company type structure with UOA Development (UOADB) as the main generator of revenue. Other revenue is from retained property and a share in the UOA REIT. UOADB is developing Bangsar South and also has other development sites.

The benefits of directly investing in UOADB are that it is more liquid and you have ability to take a higher dividend payout ratio if you don't want to use the UOADB DRP.

Potential benefit is that you can have more focussed exposure on the development works if you feel this is likely to be a stronger area of growth than retained rental properties/REIT.

The negative is that it costs more. In buying UOS shares at current prices, you're buying UOS's 68% holding in UOADB at a discount to UOADB market prices. You lose some flexibility in that you have to buy a share of everything UOS is doing and UOS decides how to participate or not in the UOADB DRP, but in my opinion, the discount available far outweighs the negatives. In fact, I prefer the integrated approach of UOS. It's very helpful having a steady income stream from rental properties as support to choppy development revenues.