SharesQ too low for 2 Canadian REITs

[DenisD47]

I think the shares outstanding for two Canadian REITs (CRT.UN:CN and HOM.UN:CN) are too low. Here are the current numbers and my estimate of the missing shares:

Ticker           CRT.UN:CN   HOM.UN:CN
Last                 16.64        15.4
MktCap             1753.92     465.288
SharesQ            105.404      30.213
SharesCur(0)       105.404      30.213
Missing Shares     126.286      21.672

For CRT.UN:CN, the information is on page 31 of the 2021 First-Quarter Report which can be found at:

2021-First-Quarter-Report-to-Unitholders_EN.pdf

As at March 31, 2021, CT REIT had a total of 105,403,878 Units outstanding, 33,989,508 of which were held by CTC, and 126,286,321 Class B LP Units outstanding (together with a corresponding number of Special Voting Units, as hereinafter defined), all of which were held by CTC.

Class B LP Units are economically equivalent to Units

For HOM.UN:CN, the information is in the 2021 First-Quarter Results press release which can be found at:
https://money.tmx.com/en/quote/HOM.UN/news/8654458455432087/BSR_REIT_Announces_Q1_2021_Financial_Results

As of March 31, 2021, the total number of REIT Units outstanding was 30,213,484. There were also 21,671,838 Class B Units of BSR Trust, LLC outstanding, which are redeemable for REIT Units on a one-for-one basis.

[yuvaltaylor]

I think the reason that both our data providers excluded the class B shares is as follows:

For CTC, since all the Class B LP units are held by CTC, they would not be considered shares outstanding. They’re treasury shares.

The Class B units of BSR Trust are basically warrants, which are not normally counted in shares outstanding either.

I hate to cite Wikipedia as a source, but it offers the most concise explanation of what are and what aren’t considered shares outstanding that I could find. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shares_outstanding

[DenisD47]

Thanks for your reply Yuval.

For CTC, since all the Class B LP units are held by CTC, they would not be considered shares outstanding. They’re treasury shares.

CTC (Canadian Tire Corporation) is not the same as CRT.UN:CN (CT REIT). And, if they were treasury shares, the 34 million ordinary units held by CTC would be treasury shares too.

CT REIT was spun off from CTC a few years ago. HOM.UN:CN is fairly new as well.

To my uneducated eye, CHP.UN:CN (Choice Properties REIT) has a similar structure to these two REITs: units and exchangeable units. FactSet includes the exchangeable units in SharesQ. Compustat (when I looked at it about a year ago) does not. I guess it’s a grey area. But you’d think that FactSet would want to be consistent.