Industries – REITs: Third

THIRD TEAM

Hiroshi ToriiNikko Cordial Securities

Hiroshi Torii, who joined Nikko Cordial Securities in October from Daiwa Securities Group, slips one notch to third place. “That guy made me a lot of money,” applauds one happy investor. Two of Torii’s top picks back up the buy-sider’s assertion: Last April’s upgrade from neutral to buy on Japan Hotel and Resort, at ¥176,600, on the view that improvement of the hotel occupancy rate would produce a marked recovery in per-share dividends; and a June buy rating on Advance Residence Investment Corp., at ¥115,000, on the thesis that its shares were undervalued. In mid-January, after Japan Hotel had rocketed 65.1 percent, to ¥291,600, and ADR had soared 57.2 percent, to ¥180,800, Torii downgraded the Tokyo-based real estate investment trusts to neutral, on valuation. By late February, Japan Hotel shares had tumbled 12.3 percent, to ¥255,700, and ADR had fallen 6.1 percent, to ¥169,700; during the same period the sector slipped 2.3 percent.

Polling and tabulation of data as well as reporting on the sector profiles were completed before the March 11 Tohoku earthquake.