Investment Moats

Reviewing Manulife US REIT’s 2019 Full Year Result

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Yesterday, Manulife US REIT announced its full-year results. This was the first result since their acquisition of Capitol Mall in Sacramento.

The results was not a good one.

Dividend per unit fell 5.9% from 1.53 cents in Q4 2018 to 1.44 in Q4 2019.

Before Jagjit (the previous CFO) left, he told us to focus on the adjusted DPU. Due to the numerous acquisitions, it would be difficult to track what is the dividends based on the enlarged outstanding unit base.

So let me focus on it.

The Adjusted DPU dropped 4.6% from 1.53 cents to 1.46 cents.

Since this was a six-figure position for me, let me provide some updates. This will be a short update since I have written enough about Manulife US REIT.

Michelson’s Lower Occupancy

Management updated in their financial statements that much of the fall in DPU was due to Michelson, their Trophy asset in Orange County.

I ask if the fall in DPU it was due to other attributable reason but management reveal it was mainly due to Michelson.

Last quarter, Michelson’s occupancy was 96% but this quarter it was reported as 90%.

From what we understand there was a vacancy in mid-October. So the vacancy period was about 75 days.

Not just that, the newest acquisition Capitol Mall only contribute for 60 days while the outstanding unit base increased due to the placement and preferential offering.

These factors caused the majority of the fall in DPU.

Management had a tenant ready to sign up. They are one of the biggest co-sharing company in the world. But at that time, the co-sharing company was embroiled in enough controversies.

Management deliberated and decided to cut from this tenant. Too high of an amount of co-sharing tenant would affect an office building’s valuation. In this case, management would rather lease to some longer-term tenants with lesser problems.

They are still leasing it out and are optimistic given the level of enquiries they have gotten.

Strong Leasing Momentum

In the reporting year of 2019, Manulife US REIT renewed 9% of their portfolio leases. The overall rental reversion was 0.5%.

This looks pathetic until you exclude Michelson’s rent reversion. Then it would be a very good 12%.

Michelson’s rental escalation ran past the market rent. As such on average, the lease was renewed on average 12% below the previous passing rent.

Management also reported that year to date in 2020, they managed to renew a further 70,000 sq ft of space in Plaza, Peachtree, and Figueroa.

From what I understood the rent reversion is good for these leases signed up on January 2020. From what I understood, the rent reversion is in a low double-digit.

We Should see Michelson’s Cash Flow Being Restored Next Time.

While Michelson’s rental reversion looks disastrous, in truth, if you have own Michelson 10 years ago, you would not be unhappy your passing rent outrun the market rent. But since we own it for a shorter duration, we have to bear the painful drop in rental revenue.

The cash flow should come back due to the rental escalation.

I tried to ask how long do they expect the cash flow to get back to where it was but no clear guidance was given.

Because within an office building there are many leases, and the leases expire at different time, it is difficult to forecast clearly how long.

Major Mortgage Maturing in 2020

Management updated that in 2020, there is one major mortgage loan that will mature and needs to refinance.

The current interest rate is about 2.45% and likely the interest cost will go up unless interest rate change quite drastically.

Management will be patient to see whether they can get a better interest rate, but if they refinance during this period, their interest rate will be slightly below 3.0%. Not too bad.

FTSE EPRA Nareit Developed Asia Index Incursion the Tailwind They Need

Manulife US REIT share price crossed above $1, rising to a high of $1.05 upon their incursion into the FTSE EPRA Nareit Developed Asia Index.

The incursion into the index would mean that funds who wish to beat or at least keep pace with the index would need to consider the REIT.

From what I understand, they have received attention from regional funds in Thailand, Korea and even in the USA.

The shareholding mix has evolved from more retail and private banking to more institutional.

Future Acquisitions Funding Will Likely Not be too Deeply Discount

Since the shareholding mix is shifting towards more fund and institution centric, it is likely future capital raising will either be placement or preferential offering.

This is because large funds prefer capital raising that is not too dilutive.

This will be better for the minority shareholders as they do not have to be forced to inject more capital in the REIT. As long as the acquisitions improve the DPU, existing shareholders will benefit from an enlarged portfolio.

A Preference for More Resilient Tenants then Technology Tenants

One of the main differences between Keppel Pacific Oak and Manulife US REIT is the former is very much focus on buildings with greater exposure to companies in the technology space.

Manulife US REIT took a different route in preferring tenants who they believe are more resilient. The buildings were carefully chosen such that their key tenants lease their office spaces to be the headquarters.

In more challenging times, tenants tend to consolidate around the headquarters and based on their observations, companies tend to not move away from their headquarters.

Lower Cost of Capital, Greater Interest Points to More Acquisitions in 2020

Manulife US REIT’s current dividend yield is below 6%. In the past at 7%, there are fewer office prospects that would be a value add acquisitions.

At a dividend yield of 5.6%, more office portfolios of greater quality, in more vibrant cities becomes available to be acquired.

Sometimes, you need to know to a certain degree that your capital raising is largely successful for you to confidently purchase a property.

Greater interest from more institutions should ensure that capital raising via placement is less discounted.

Summary

The USD has been quite strong recently and Manulife US REIT can be seen as a proxy to get exposure to the USD.

Manulife US REIT’s 2019 total return was good but for 2 quarters the DPU has dropped.

I tried to explain to the management what investors who do not have access to them see.

There isn’t a lot of metrics that reflect decent, competent management more than DPU growth. I was hoping that last quarter’s 1.48 cents in DPU was just a blip, due mainly to the acquisitions, but this was followed on with an even lower DPU.

Manulife US REIT’s DPU has languished around this range for some time.

As shareholders, I wonder if it is too much to ask if there are some ways to reflect the virtues of an average annual rental escalation of 2.1% a year.

Due to the acquisitions and unit dilutions that comes along with it, investors practically do not see the result of these escalations.

My last DPU projection after the acquisition now looks like a very stupid estimate (annualized 6.28 cents DPU). If they make another acquisition, I am basically going to not do any DPU estimation but just observe if the DPU ever picks up.

I do think that in this low yield environment, there is a high probability Manulife’s dividend yield has more room to be compressed. I suspect Manulife US REIT may have this sweet spot of operating in an environment where there are quite a fair bit of accretive targets.

This might allow the REIT to grow bigger.

Management has also indicated that they are also open to selling their offices if they get an outstanding offers. With a larger portfolio, this may allow them more flexibility to sell one or two properties.

Do Like Me on Facebook. I share some tidbits that is not on the blog post there often. You can also choose to subscribe to my content via email below.

I break down my resources according to these topics:

  1. Building Your Wealth Foundation – If you know and apply these simple financial concepts, your long term wealth should be pretty well managed. Find out what they are
  2. Active Investing – For the active stock investors. My deeper thoughts from my stock investing experience
  3. Learning about REITs – My Free “Course” on REIT Investing for Beginners and Seasoned Investors
  4. Dividend Stock Tracker – Track all the common 4-10% yielding dividend stocks in SG
  5. Free Stock Portfolio Tracking Google Sheets that many love
  6. Retirement Planning, Financial Independence and Spending down money – My deep dive into how much you need to achieve these, and the different ways you can be financially free
  7. Providend – Where I work doing research. Fee-Only Advisory. No Commissions. Financial Independence Advisers and Retirement Specialists. No charge for the first meeting to understand how it works

Singapore Savings Bonds SSB March 2020 Issue Yields 1.71% for 10 Year and 1.43% for 1 Year

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Here is a higher yielding, safe way to save your money that you have no idea when you will need to use it, or your emergency fund.

The March 2020’s SSB bonds yield an interest rate of 1.71%/yr for the next 10 years. You can apply through ATM or Internet Banking via the three banks (UOB,OCBC, DBS)

However, if you only hold the SSB bonds for 1 year, with 2 semi-annual payments, your interest rate is 1.43%/yr.

$10,000 will grow to $11,720 in 10 years.

This bond is backed by the Singapore Government and its available to Singaporeans.

A single person can own not more than SG$200,000 worth of Singapore Savings Bonds. You can also use your Supplementary Retirement Scheme (SRS) account to purchase.

You can find out more information about the SSB here.

Note that every month, there will be a new issue you can subscribe to via ATM. The 1 to 10-year yield you will get will differ from this month’s ladder as shown above.

Last month’s bond yields 1.75%/yr for 10 years and 1.54%/yr for 1 year.

Here is the current historical SSB 10 Year Yield Curve with the 1 Year Yield Curve since Oct 2015 when SSB was started (Click on the chart, move over the line to see the actual yield for that month):

The Application and Redemption Schedule

You will apply for the bonds through the month. At the end of the month, you will know how much of the bond you applied was successful.

Here is the schedule for application and redemption if you wish to sell:

Click to see larger schedule

You have 02 to about 25th of the month (technically the 4th day from the last working day of the month) to apply or decide to redeem the SSB that you wish to redeem.

Your bond will be in your CDP on the 1st of the next month. You will see your cash in your bank account linked to your CDP account on the 1st of next month.

How does the Singapore Savings Bonds Compare versus SGS Bonds versus Singapore Treasury Bills?

Singapore savings bonds, is like a “unit trust” or a “fund” of SGS Bonds.

But what is the difference between you buying SGS Bonds and its sister the T-Bills directly?

Both the SGS Bonds and T-Bills are also issued by the Government and are AAA rated.

Here is an MAS detailed comparison of the three:

SGS Bonds versus Singapore T-bills versus Singapore Savings Bonds
Click to see bigger comparison table

What is this Singapore Savings Bonds? Read my past write-ups:

  1. This Singapore Savings Bonds: Liquidity, Higher Returns and Government Backing. Dream?
  2. More details of the Singapore Savings Bond. Looks like my Emergency Funds now
  3. Singapore Savings Bonds Max Holding Limit is $200,000 for now. Apply via DBS, OCBC, UOB ATM
  4. Singapore Savings Bonds’ Inflation Protection Abilities
  5. Some instructions on how to apply for the Singapore Savings Bonds

Past Issues of SSB and their Rates:

Do Like Me on Facebook. I share some tidbits that is not on the blog post there often. You can also choose to subscribe to my content via email below.

I break down my resources according to these topics:

  1. Building Your Wealth Foundation – If you know and apply these simple financial concepts, your long term wealth should be pretty well managed. Find out what they are
  2. Active Investing – For the active stock investors. My deeper thoughts from my stock investing experience
  3. Learning about REITs – My Free “Course” on REIT Investing for Beginners and Seasoned Investors
  4. Dividend Stock Tracker – Track all the common 4-10% yielding dividend stocks in SG
  5. Free Stock Portfolio Tracking Google Sheets that many love
  6. Retirement Planning, Financial Independence and Spending down money – My deep dive into how much you need to achieve these, and the different ways you can be financially free
  7. Providend – Where I work doing research. Fee-Only Advisory. No Commissions. Financial Independence Advisers and Retirement Specialists. No charge for the first meeting to understand how it works

8.88% FD Interest! – This is how your parents came home from a bank with an unexpected investment.

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My more financially savvy friends told me that among the stuff that really messed them off the most, it is when their parents go to their local bank branches.

My friends have a lot more control over their finances.

But they cannot just upload their better understanding of financial products and the financial world into their parent’s (siblings & relatives as well!) brains.

When their parents go into a bank to carry out some simple banking needs, they would come home with an endowment plan, structured product or a few unit-trust funds.

I have been proposition products in this way in the past, most recently 2 months ago at a UOB bank branch.

The danger about this to parents is that:

  1. These are not simple no-risk financial assets. They carry a certain level of risk. Parent’s risk expectation may be wildly different from what is communicated
  2. Not much needs analysis was usually carried out. The selling of products is based on how much spare savings the prospect has. There is no comprehensive evaluation of the prospect’s financial situation and what are his or her immediate and longer-term financial needs.
  3. Some of their parents needed retirement income instead of something that will force them to save.

Once their parents committed to the policy or fund or structured product, early surrender of these policies would have caused capital loss (unless your parents decide to cancel the policy during the free-look 14-day period).

A friend of mine was at Bedok Central yesterday morning and saw something that left him pretty disgusted.

He was outside the POSB Bank and observed that the bank have engaged someone to set up a booth where free coconut water was given out.

You can watch a snippet of the scene he observed here:

Do you want a fixed deposit that yields up to 8.88% interest?

A female emcee was on the mic repeatedly informing passersby of a great deal that is only available at the POSB Bank.

You can clearly hear in English “Over here at POSB Bank, we have fixed deposits with interest rates of up to 8.88%“.

A fixed deposit that gives you an interest of 8.88% is VERY appealing to anyone (including me). This is especially in the low-yield environment we are in.

Let’s just say that one of the reasons you may have come to read this post may be that you do not wish to miss out on some extremely high interest fixed deposit as well!

But in our current investment climate, it is very hard to get such a high 8.88% interest without taking some form of risks.

Considered this:

  1. If you look at the dividend yield of blue-chip dividend stocks and REITs in Singapore, only a minority of these risky stocks have yields in excess of 8.88%
  2. My list of safe, short term savings options may be a little outdated, but their interest rates have been less than 3%.
  3. The US or Global High Yield Bond Yields around 5%

If investments with risks do not yield 8.88%, how do you find safe fixed deposits that yield 8.88%?

The lady emcee clearly said in both English and Chinese the “interest rate” is 8.88% and not dividend yield or returns.

I did a search, and I could not find anywhere on DBS or POSB website that has a fixed deposit that yields 8.88%.

It is likely this is not a simple product such as a super low risk to no risk fixed deposit. If it is, they should let me know. I will help them market it as well.

Update: Some of my readers have let me know that they encountered the same thing in POSB branches at Yew Tee, AMK.

On further probing, the product is described as a regular premium savings plans. So this is a form of insurance endowment plan. Still, not much is known how to get 8.88%.

It is likely a combination of DBS Multiplier and doing a few different things. Will update more if I know more.

And this is what disgusts my friend.

How Ethical is This Way of Lead Generation?

Bedok is a matured estate.

Majority of those who bank at physical branches are the folks who are more comfortable banking in brick and mortar and likely less trusting or savvy with online banking.

They tend to be the older folks.

They put out coconut water outside the bank branch to attract folks to queue and the relationship managers would station close by to ask them questions. The relationship became transactional, as you would reciprocate to listen to them since you are going to consume their coconut water.

Then after this, they decide to sit down with this RM to hear more about what he or she has to say. The RM can be rather persuasive.

Aside from reciprocating the goodwill shown to them for providing the water, the biggest problem for many people is that they are really bad at saying no and walking away.

The RM will just go on and on and you will eventually fall into the mode where you will think, “Aiya just buy la, this product don’t sound too bad.”

It is quite disappointing to me that they stoop so low as to keep drumming that “fixed deposit interest rate of up to 8.88%” on the loudspeaker over and over again.

Policy-wise, they would not have done anything wrong because as long as they explain the risk of the product before the consumer signs and purchase the product, they are compliant.

You can understand why some of my friends would rather accompany their parents to the bank branches.

To be honest, I expected this kind of practice from insurance companies. We have seen some insurance agents use high returns (without telling them what are the products) to attract leads to them, and that reflects their overall character.

But this is POSB we are talking about.

The older folks trust them based on the brand name that they have built up.

To end this, let me just say that… not all financial products sold are not fundamentally sound. In this blog, I have frequently profiled endowment plans, the range of returns you could possibly get from endowments. At Providend, unit trusts are the recommended investment instruments.

There is a lack of more comprehensive planning.

Endowments lock up your money for a certain durations. There can be short term volatility in the equity unit trust such that when a person needs the money, the value then was inadequate for their needs.

A lot of this can be better planned if holistic planning is carried out.

But if these fixed deposits are truly no-risk deposits, then you do not need so much planning.

Do Like Me on Facebook. I share some tidbits that is not on the blog post there often. You can also choose to subscribe to my content via email below.

I break down my resources according to these topics:

  1. Building Your Wealth Foundation – If you know and apply these simple financial concepts, your long term wealth should be pretty well managed. Find out what they are
  2. Active Investing – For the active stock investors. My deeper thoughts from my stock investing experience
  3. Learning about REITs – My Free “Course” on REIT Investing for Beginners and Seasoned Investors
  4. Dividend Stock Tracker – Track all the common 4-10% yielding dividend stocks in SG
  5. Free Stock Portfolio Tracking Google Sheets that many love
  6. Retirement Planning, Financial Independence and Spending down money – My deep dive into how much you need to achieve these, and the different ways you can be financially free
  7. Providend – Where I work doing research. Fee-Only Advisory. No Commissions. Financial Independence Advisers and Retirement Specialists. No charge for the first meeting to understand how it works

Topping Up Your CPF Life to Enhanced Retirement Sum (ERS) Might not make Much Difference

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In last week’s article, I showed readers 2 different approaches to plan for how much do you need if you wish to retire at 55 years old so that you will have an income stream till 90 years old.

We acknowledge that at some point, our CPF Life annuity income will be available for us to spend and thus will have to be factored into our planning.

The 2 approaches were:

  1. Plan to have an income stream that provides $5,000 a month, that is inflation-adjusted outright for the 35-year duration
  2. Break up into 2 portions. The first portion is to provide predictable income for the first 10 years and the second portion to do the first approach but over a 25-year duration

We deduce that approach 1 is definitely safer but you will need to set aside more money, which may mean you working longer for that security. The second approach is more optimized because we can compute conservatively which portion of your expenses is funded by which portion of your wealth.

The second approach utilizes less money.

The difference between the two approaches narrows if your income needs are higher. This is because if you require such a high income, the proportion of the income from CPF Life is lesser and therefore matters less.

What If We Topped Up CPF Retirement Account to Enhanced Retirement Sum (ERS)?

Those with CPF have the opportunity to top-up their CPF to not just their Full Retirement Sum (FRS) at age 55, but to the Enhanced Retirement Sum (ERS). We can top-up 50% of the FRS to the ERS limit.

For example, suppose you were born in 1960 and your FRS is $161,000 at age 55 in 2015. If you wish to you can top up $161,000/2 = $80,500 more so that you will have a total of $241,500 in your CPF Retirement Account.

A greater amount in our CPF Retirement Account would allow us to have a greater CPF Life Income Stream.

Slight Digress: While we are on the topic of CPF Retirement, do note that if you were born in 1960, if you wish to you can top-up to the prevailing BRS, FRS, ERS so that your income stream is larger.

For example, the current 2020 FRS is $181,000. The couple born in 1960 would just be 60 years old. They can top-up his CPF Retirement Account to $181,000 or $271,500 if they wish to get a greater income stream. There are no CAP there. (The hard FRS sum of $161,000 at 55 years old is there to help you identify the amount in your CPF OA and SA that you can freely take out at 55 years old. I think CPF would welcome you to top-up more into your CPF Retirement Account for a stronger retirement income stream.)

Ok, let us get back to the main topic again.

If we revisit the two approaches again:

  1. Plan to have an income stream that provides $5,000 a month, that is inflation-adjusted outright for the 35-year duration
  2. Break up into 2 portions. The first portion is to provide predictable income for the first 10 years and the second portion to do the first approach but over a 25-year duration

The first approach does not benefit much from topping up the ERS. This is because your portfolio at 55 years old have to provide the cash flow to give an inflation-adjusted $5,000 a month income from the very start.

In approach 1, the CPF is a good-to-have.

The second approach may benefit from the CPF Top-up to ERS because the CPF Life income is an integral part of the plan.

I think that having higher CPF Life Annuity may mean we need to set aside less in our cash portfolio because, in Singapore, there are not a lot of financial assets that have almost a 6% initial cash flow yield, backed by a strong entity, that continues as long as you are alive.

Approach 1: Provide a Retirement income stream for 35 years

Different initial safe withdrawal rate (3% to 4%) determines how much capital you need at 55 years old

In the previous post, under approach 1, we estimate based on a 3.25% initial safe withdrawal rate, the retiree needs to set aside $1.85 million.

Their combined CPF Life Income Stream at 65 years old if they choose the CPF Life Basic Plan is $2750 a month assuming they have $181,000 each in their CPF RA at 55 years old.

The couple can choose to top-up to ERS in their CPF Retirement Account any time from 55 years old onwards (if I am right). However, the CPF Life calculator is not so flexible to give us an estimated monthly income if you top-up after 55, so I will assume the couple top-up $90,500 each at 55 years old.

The couple topped up $181,000 more at 55 years old. The CPF Life Calculator estimates that based on this additional funding, and if CPF Life Basic Plan was chosen, the income would be bumped up by $1,212 a month.

In approach 1, this bump up does not matter so much because the couple could not spend the income until they get it at 65 years old. By spending $181,000 more, it does make their overall plan safer.

In total, the couple would need $1.85 mil + $181,000 = $2.03 million based on approach 1. Honestly, I cannot bring myself to tell people to fork out an additional $181,000 just to make their plan safer.

I am just not so sure if it is worth it.

Approach 2: A Cash Portion for first 10 years Plus an Income Stream from Portfolio for 25 years

My opinion is that topping-up your CPF Retirement Account to the ERS may matter more to Approach 2.

Let us take a look at the annual expenses of the couple that they need an income to cover, after factoring this new CPF Life Income of $3,962 a month versus $2,750 a month previously:

Annual Expenses Growth over 35 years and how CPF Life annuity and your portfolio work together to provide the retirement income

Wow ok.

At 65 years old, our cash portfolio will just have to cover $25,596 a year in expenses, compared to $40,140 a year previously.

We can determine how much capital we need at 65 years old to fund this $25,596 a year, by going back to our safe initial withdrawal rate table:

Capital needed to fund $25,596 on the initial year and then inflation-adjust the income every year for 25 years at various withdrawal rates.

In the last article, for approach 2, I used a 4% initial withdrawal rate so in this article I will stick with this.

This couple will need $639,892. (To be more safe, you could choose to accumulate $731,305 at a 3.5% initial withdrawal rate as well).

For comparison, here is how much capital you need based on the last article, if the annual income requirement is $40,140:

The capital difference between having a higher CPF Life and not is about $400,000! What this emphasizes more is that if your expenses are higher, your capital needs are higher.

How much capital do we need at 55 years old so that we can have $639,892 at 65 years old?

We need to see how much in our cash portfolio we need at 55 years to grow it to $639,892 at age 65.

Assuming a rate of return of 4.5% a year, at 55 years old, the couple will need $639,892/(1.045)^10 = $412,044. (If 3.5% initial withdrawal rate, then you will need $731,305/(1.045)^10 = $470,907)

Remember, we have to factor in a capital of $600,000 to fund 10 years of $60,000 a year spending before the CPF Life annuity income comes online.

Thus, the total capital needed equals to:

  1. First 10 years capital: $600,000
  2. Cash portfolio at 55 years old: $412,044
  3. Capital to top-up CPF RA to ERS at 55 years old: $181,000

The total comes up to $1.19 million.

Compare this to $1.24 million in my previous article.

Not a lot of difference apparently!

Ok, this is a surprise. I thought the difference by channeling more to CPF life might be greater. Turns out not a lot of difference!

Comparing the Two Retirement Income Planning Approaches

Again, if we compare the two approaches it will be $1.85 million versus $1.19 million.

Approach 2 requires less capital at age 55. If you are cash-strapped this one will be more worth it.

I cannot bring myself to include the CPF top-up for approach 1 since it didn’t really help the approach concept-wise.

What if Your Retirement Income Requirement is Higher?

In my previous article, I tried to work out the scenario if the couple needs $8,000 a month in the first year at 55 years old instead of $5,000 a month.

I shall not bore you with the calculations, so here is the total capital needed for Approach 2 if its $8,000 a month:

  1. First 10 years capital: $960,000
  2. Cash portfolio at 55 years old: $1,353,977
  3. Capital to top-up CPF RA to ERS at 55 years old: $181,000

The total comes up to $2.49 million. In the previous article, if we did not top-up to ERS, we would need $2.31 million.

Topping up to ERS seem to not work so well as the retirement income requirement goes up.

I was not expecting this. I think I better compute the difference between topping-up your CPF Retirement Account to ERS versus not topping up for different income requirements:

As you go up the income, the difference is almost the same. However, the same $53,132 in lump sum capital does not make much difference when your income requirement and subsequently capital gets rather large.

That said, suppose your additional income needs are $500 to $1000 a month. If you choose to top-up to ERS, your situation is better off than investing outside in terms of percentage (for example the capital you need is 10% less which is significant).

We can judge how significant is a $53k difference. For some couples, saving $53,132 more can be really tough thus topping-up ERS makes more sense.

Summary

It feels to me that we can conclude topping up versus not topping up your CPF Retirement account to Enhanced Retirement Sum does not make so much difference.

However, I would like to point out the difference:

  1. CPF Life is an annuity. It is backed by a government entity and is designed to hedge your longevity risk (outliving your income)
  2. Your cash portfolio is a probability-based income stream. While you can control how much income as a percentage of total capital you wish to spend a year, the robustness of the income stream depends on the markets giving you a set of returns similar to the past

These 2 features mean there is a role for both in your portfolio. For some retirees, they would rather base their income stream on the safety of a government-sponsored annuity scheme.

However, if your income requirement is so large, then you best get comfortable investing in an equity and bond portfolio because you are not going to find an instrument that gives you such a good annuity income yield.

CPF is a scheme that sought to help the second quartile of Singaporeans. If your needs are greater than that, then you need greater solutions.

Do Like Me on Facebook. I share some tidbits that is not on the blog post there often. You can also choose to subscribe to my content via email below.

I break down my resources according to these topics:

  1. Building Your Wealth Foundation – If you know and apply these simple financial concepts, your long term wealth should be pretty well managed. Find out what they are
  2. Active Investing – For the active stock investors. My deeper thoughts from my stock investing experience
  3. Learning about REITs – My Free “Course” on REIT Investing for Beginners and Seasoned Investors
  4. Dividend Stock Tracker – Track all the common 4-10% yielding dividend stocks in SG
  5. Free Stock Portfolio Tracking Google Sheets that many love
  6. Retirement Planning, Financial Independence and Spending down money – My deep dive into how much you need to achieve these, and the different ways you can be financially free
  7. Providend – Where I work doing research. Fee-Only Advisory. No Commissions. Financial Independence Advisers and Retirement Specialists. No charge for the first meeting to understand how it works