Glass Lewis urges Sabana REIT unitholders to vote against Quarz’s resolutions

The proxy adviser recognised the REIT manager's strong performance over the past 5 years.

American proxy advisory services company, Glass Lewis, has urged unitholders of Sabana REIT to vote against the resolutions of Quarz.

Glass Lewis recognized that the Sabana REIT Manager “has delivered strong performance over the past five years with total unitholder returns of 55.9% since 2018, outperforming the STI Index, iEdgeS-REIT Index and FTSE ST All-Share REIT Index.”

“It is by now clear that removing the Sabana REIT Manager will not result in the size of cost savings outlined by Quarz – it has already admitted that its earlier calculations contained a ‘typo,’ and Sabana REIT will still need to pay ongoing management fees to the interim manager until a replacement can be appointed,” the ESR Group said in an open letter,

ESR Group also reiterated its call for unitholders to vote against the two resolutions of Quarz during its EGM on 7 August to protect their investment and save Sabana REIT from “value destruction.”

“The value destruction and uncertainty that we warned about has already started. Unitholders now have a choice to vote for stability and allow the Manager to focus on delivering returns, instead of dealing with ill-conceived proposals that are motivated by self-interests but jeopardise the interests of all other unitholders,” the ESR Group said.

Citing the Sabana REIT’s trustee, ESR Group underscored that |unitholders will be forced to bear all costs and weather at least 12 months of uncertainty and two or more EGMs, with an expected 75% approval threshold, related to the proposed internalisation, without any guarantee of success.”