One last Stock purchase in 2020

Stock Purchase – Nexus Reit

Today I made what will most likely be my final stock purchase of the year. I wasn’t planning on buying anything today but had a bit of cash in the TFSA and decided to take a look at a REIT I had been following on and off for a while. The price had fallen into my target price range, and I thought what the hell, let’s end the year off with one last stock purchase.

Nexus REIT

Nexus REIT was formed when two former reit’s merged (Edgefront & Nobel). It currently trades on the TSX Venture exchange. The reason I started following Nexus was because I was actually a holder of Edgefront Reit for a couple of years before they merged. I sold off my shares before Nexus was created. If I recall correctly, I bought the Edgefront shares when they dipped to about $1.50 and sold them for $2.00 after a couple of years. Over those years I also collected the 8% dividend. Not too shabby.

Much like it’s predecessor Nexus has been trading in the $2.00-$2.20 range, and recently dipped to $1.90. It pays a hefty 8.37% dividend which is fully covered by AFFO even during the pandemic. The last time I checked the payout ratio was 82.4%. Recently Nexus Reit has made a couple of acquisitions paid for partly with cash, and partly with shares (with the shares being valued between $2-$2.20 on these deals). Morningstar also gives it a fair value of $2.12.

Nexus Reit has both office, industrial and retail spaces but plans to focus more on industrial going forward. This should help the stock price as well, as industrial Reits are all the rage right now. I believe the stock price has been beaten up because they are being labelled/priced mostly as a retail/office REIT instead of industrial. That said, over 60% of their retail spaces are occupied by solid tenants such as: Canadian Tire, Metro & Dollarama. They have also maintained occupancy rates close to 95% during the pandemic. I don’t expect huge capital appreciation of the stock price, but a slow and steady climb back to $2.00 and beyond is okay by me, especially as I can sit and collect the 8.37% dividend. Nexus Reit also has a conservative debt/total asset ratio of 47.7%. They have grown their total funds from operations year over year as well. I expect this to continue as we come out the pandemic hopefully by the end of 2021.

One last reason I purchased this stock is that they have recently been approved to be listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange. Once they get moved over they could get some support/noticed by a few of the bigger institutional investors who don’t typically (or aren’t allowed) to buy stocks on the venture exchange. They’ve been approved for a 4 to 1 stock consolidation for when they move over to the big boy exchange. That said, even if the move to the TSX doesn’t give the stock price a bump – I am completely happy to hold it and collect my dividend until the stock price gets back to fair value.

Stock Purchase & Future Dividends

I picked up 1087 shares of Nexus Reit at a price of $1.90 per share. This purchase will add $173.49 to my annual dividend income (Tax Free) and at the current share price allow me to drip 7 new shares each month. At the end of the day, this wasn’t a huge purchase, but every little bit helps get closer to achieving the goal of having dividends cover all my expenses.

Advertisement