HIDE to hamper retail REITs
The Hotspots Identification for Dynamic Engagement (HIDE) system will likely hamper the growth of shopping malls and thereby retail real estate investment trusts (REITs).
With the elevating Covid19 cases, the government has published the first list of premises flagged as potential hotspots that were identified through the HIDE to help the public make reasonable travel plans and decisions before heading to a location or premises to avoid risks of getting infected by Covid-19.
The premises flagged as Covid19 hotspots by HIDE, include seven locations in Sabah and Sarawak.
“Subsequently, Senior Minister (Security) Datuk Seri Ismail Sabri Yaakob announced that all premises and bazaars listed in HIDE will close for three days from Monday, May 10, but then changed it to start from May 9 instead,” commented analysts at Public Investment Bank Bhd (PublicInvest Research) yesterday.
“As such, we estimate that the earnings for retail REITs such as IGB REIT and Sunway REIT could be lower by less than one per cent only due to the mandatory store closure. Our earnings estimates remain unchanged pending more clarity from the impact.”
PublicInvest Research understood that HIDE is “a Big Data Analytics and AI system” to predict specific MySejahtera premises that are at risk of becoming Covid-19 hotspots over a 7-day horizon.
The system leverages on MySejahtera check-ins and other existing healthcare databases to make these predictions. Everyday, the HIDE system will generate a list of predicted premises that will be published by the Ministry of Health to facilitate self-regulation by the public and businesses.
If no hotspots emerge in the premises after the implementation of pre-emptive actions, these premises will be removed from the HIDE list within a period of seven days after their listing. A list of premises removed from HIDE will be published daily.
Based on the maiden HIDE list, Kuala Lumpur has the most number of hotspot premises, followed by Selangor, Johor, Penang, Sarawak, Sabah, Putrajaya, Perak, Kelantan, Negeri Sembilan and Melaka.