Chambers Street Properties and Star Bulk Carriers

Continuing to try to address some notes we get from readers we wanted to touch briefly on REIT Chambers Street Properties (ticker:CSG) and the 8% Senior Notes of Star Bulk Carriers(ticker:SBLKL).

Reader Tim wrote to thank us for touching on Vanguard Natural Resources earlier today and asked about REIT Chambers Street Properties(ticker:CSG).

Chambers Street Properties is in the 2014 Model Portfolio and is in 1 personal account of ours as well.  As our reader noted CSG pretty much flies under the radar even though they are a large company as REIT’s go–having assets of $3.4 billion.  The company was formed in 2004 and has a global portfolio of properties in the industrial and office REIT spaces.  Globally they have properties in the UK, Germany and France.  Shares have traded in the $7.31 to $8.27 52 week range trading at $8.15 now and carrying a current yield of 6.26%.  As an added bonus they pay their dividend monthly (this is of no true advantage, but for some reason we love the monthly dividends that hit our accounts).  Can you tell we love CSG–well we do.  Their website is here.

Our reader Mike asks about Star Bulk Carriers 8% Senior Notes (ticker:SBLKL) as they were off 4% today.  As you know they released earnings today and personally I thought they were just fine.  There was real net income and this was above estimates, but the revenues were below estimates and I guess today investors were focused on the top line and not the bottom line.  This is ridiculous given that Star is going through mergers and ship acquisitions (purchasing quite a few ships from bankrupt carrier Excel) and taking any numbers to heart now is premature.  Remember that MLP Oaktree Capital Management (ticker:OAK) holds a 57% share of Star Bulk Carriers and these folks are not fools (at least with $93 billion in assets we assume they aren’t) and are unlikely to watch their investment go up in smoke.  Are we over concerned with the price action of the senior notes–NO, but we do watch it closely as they have a massive ‘new build’ program going (35 ships) and these types of activities can burn cash like crazy.  We wrote on this issue a week ago when we took a small position–you can find that short note here.  Star Bulk Carriers earnings are here.