First REIT again?

I have been monitoring First REIT for sometime after exiting it for a tidy profit a while back. First REITs had been consistently giving out good dividends. Its yield was relatively high compared to the other REITs and it also had a very low gearing of 15%. During the recession, the price dipped quite a bit but slowly recovered and I decided to lock in some profits and sold my entire stake in it.

The reasons for exiting it are mainly twofold. While it is a healthcare REIT, it does not really have a parent company to back it up. That is unless u consider Lippo to be its parent. The other thing that weighs heavily on my mind is that majority of its assets are based in Indonesia. There are thus country risks involved. And that is perhaps the reason why it is trading at a seemingly more attractive valuation than the other REITs counters. Personally, I did not want to hold something that was overly exposed and narrowly focused. And that was why I decided to exit it. A stock is cheap for certain reasons and the same applies to First REIT. It reminds me a bit of various s-chip shares I had held over the years because it was cheap when compared to its peers. Remember Unifood and Pfood?

The decision I took then was to start investing in blue chip companies and avoid stocks that were of a higher risk. And that will remain my strategy at least for the time being. I hope to liquidate my small cap stocks slowly and transfer them to bigger and better blue chips. Of course, we are in the midst of an expansion right now so I will perhaps wait a little longer before I start refocusing my efforts.

Though I was tempted to enter into First REiT recently, I shall resist it for the moment.