Sentinel Property Group and Sentinel Retail Trust

Hi All,

For my SMSF I'm looking into unlisted property trusts, and came across these guys.

http://www.sentinelpg.com.au/
http://www.sentinelcountrywide.com.au/

Has anyone had any experience with them?

Good/bad?

Any good results?

 

Can't speak for sentinel specifically, but for a bit of a guide to a variety of unlisted property funds available for investment check out the below.

https://www.pir.com.au/unlisted

 

Thanks mate I'll have a look

I'm going to check out the sentinel options a bit more too.

 

Hi Dan,
Newbie here.Not an early bird but still looking out for the proverbial worm.
I am looking at the Sentinel group too and their latest offerings.
Any recommendations will be appreciated

 

Hi mbaig

I haven't invested yet, I'm waiting for their next property and will analyse what they are buying when it comes.

At the moment my smsf is still all shares (unfortunately!)

There is also another thread on here about property trusts as well.

Some risk involved with their loans if something like the GFC happens again can lose a lot. So I'm only going to invest less than 10% net assets.

Fill in the enquiry form on their site and you can ask questions when they call you.

You need accountants certificate to certify sophisticated, either 2.5m net asset or 250kpa gross income (my accountant includes rents in this)

Minimum 100k invest
To exit the investment can be difficult, so a 5+ year term must be suitable. The returns have been good historically but they are pretty much a post-gfc record.

 

I just received an email from Sentinel as I am on their list however haven't invested with them as such.

My problem is that they amalgamate assets into various trusts. I am comfortable with one asset (upon which due diligence can be undertaken on a specific basis) per trust. Also the latest home maker offering from them has a gearing level of 60-65 %. For non liquid investment this is very high in my opinion. What happens when rates rise or security covenants are changed as far as interest coverage or asset re-valuation? Also read their information memorandum's very carefully and especially the trust deed. I find their out performance fees to be excessive. I nearly invested in one of their offerings a while back (The Rocket building in Robina). Great asset and locale however the trust deed put me off big time. In the end they didn't acquire the whole thing anyway. They went halves with another property trust firm.

I have invested in unlisted property trusts in the past and currently hold two. One is a shopping centre and the other an A grade office building in Parramatta which just settled. I have met with the manager and spoken over the phone a few times. It is a small boutique firm and I am very comfortable with the trust deed and the assets they secure. The net returns are suitable for me and the building write very handy. My investments though are multiples of six figures. For those with much less to invest look at listed offerings.

In the past I have held numerous listed REIT's which I sold down heavily in February this year as I did with most of my share portfolio. These might be more suitable for those who require liquidity but understand the underlying performs like a share; read volatility. Unlisted trusts don't have the volatility of the listed counterparts. In the listed space I only hold National Storage and Finbar. The latter is a bit of a REIT and a developer type stock..

Those looking in this space whether it's Sentinel or others must be very comfortable with a lack of liquidity and I urge you to read all PDS or IM's carefully. I find that the calibre of buildings worth investing in usually start at $100,000 minimum. Most require you to be a sophisticated investor under the definitions of minimum net worth and/or minimum annual income for preceding two years which needs to be certified by your accountant.

 

Thanks @Player that's great info!

 

Thank you Dan and Player,
Sentinel has come out with a new offering and seems they have another offering in the pipeline.
Will go through the trust deeds though.

 

thankyou for the feedback. I was looking at investing with them also. Its great to hear your understanding as I'm a new investor.

 

@Player
I am really interested in what your issues with the trust deed were.
Full disclosure I am currently looking at starting up a unlisted property fund and have found certain aspects of Sentinel's offerings to be very attractive, monthly distributions, management fees based off rental (not sure about this anymore), and the assets they invest in.

However when I was watching some of the promo vids from sentinel's CEO/managing director I was very concerned with his attitude towards finance/gearing, granted when rates are going down you can be bullish, but if I remember correctly he stated that he borrows as much as he can from the banks/lenders.

Hope this doesn't hijack the OP's thread but it is a very interesting topic

 

As mentioned in my post, it was the way the outperform fees were scaled and structured in that particular investment.

They are quite aggressive with gearing as you have discovered from their videos. I have a feeling that with circa $1 billion in assets under management they might be looking at listing.

As an unlisted investment however I also don't like how they lump other assets of a similar nature together. With any investment such as this, to my modality of thinking, due diligence is done on an asset not on a portfolio. If investors prefer the latter they should look at listed REIT's.

Merely my 0.02.............................

 

IMHO he seemed a lot more than aggressive about gearing, though it is easy to see why he does it... 11% monthly distributions!!! Sounds fantastic when you compare it to other investments.

 

Heya, sorry to bring up an old thread but sentinel have just invested $100M in Darwin office space. Seems like a strange move?

The Darwin office market is Kaput....Which means buying now happens at a discount. But still seems like a very risky move?

Anyone know anything about this?

 

Very interesting indeed. I saw this in the AFR. I understand this shop to be very much like CorVal, Centuria. Very counter-cyclical, which is not a bad thing if they know what they are doing. I personally haven't used them, but they have a decent track record to my understanding. Some of their yields are pretty damn high - must be pretty highly geared. I prefer unlisted trusts with ~40% gearing or less.

 

Pretty much the old school limits on gearing.

 

make sure you read fine prints on redemption rules and how they pay their yield
lot of people got caught out during credit squeeze and downturn and cant take their money out
or if there is a large withdraw they can freeze further withdraw so the first guys who cashed out
wins the rest get their cash locked up for a god knows how long

 

That's right. The old stuff was structured so poorly. Providing daily liquidity on illiquid, unlisted assets... These days, they generally have a fixed 5-7 year lock up period (so they should) with defined exit strategy and voting.

 

Latest offering is a cracker shopping centre in Darwin

Sentinel’s northern exposure lands $420m Darwin mall

No Cookies | NT News

It is Ohh, so tempting. 7% distributions BUT I cannot stomach the out perform on exit. The hurdle is 8% IRR. They're going to take 20 percent of your upside from day dot. So frustrating. This is probably the best asset they have on their books to date.

Anyone partaking?

 

Wouldn’t touch sentinel again. I invested in their DFO cairns fund and like I said in the other thread, will hopefully be out soon.

Not only has their distribution forecast in the original IM been off by a mile but since the start of covid they have ceased all distributions with barely any communications. I had to call them and chase up what was happening with this fund, Only to be given a bunch of waffle with no idea when distributions will recommence. Was told we would be sent out official communication about the future of this fund shortly. This was months ago now and nothing. In my opinion this is total disregard for their investors.

I have invested in over 15 different unlisted property trusts and this mob are the only ones who are still using covid as an excuse for not paying out distributions.

Investor beware.

 

That is the risk. I have outlined my thoughts on them above several years ago. Sorry to hear of your experience. As I mentioned, it is so tempting, BUT their fee schedule and low (actually no) hurdle is not my cup of tea. I've not invested at all. They do have a lot of fan boys.

Your warnings should be considered by others. I have been lucky. Last two I have invested in were text book perfect. Small manager. Stand alone assets per trust.

Thanks for sharing your experiences.