Thought Leadership
Starlight Capital publishes whitepapers and educational series to help advisors and investors understand the financial landscape.
September 2024
Why Invest in Real Estate?
Dennis Mitchell, CEO & CIO, explains why investors should consider investing in real estate today. Real estate offers a blend of tax-efficient income and inflation-linked growth, making them a staple in diversified investment portfolios.
August 2024
Dividend Growth Investing with Starlight Capital
Sean Tascatan, Senior Portfolio Manager, Starlight Dividend Growth Class, explains the benefits of dividend growth investing. Learn how Sean creates a concentrated portfolio of high-quality companies with the ability to consistently grow their dividends by 10%+ annually.
July 2024
Managing Reinvestment Risk in Client Portfolios
When interest rates fall, short-term cash and money market returns, previously favoured during post-pandemic rate hikes, also decline, requiring a re-balancing of client portfolios. Holding onto low-yield investments can result in lower distributions and missed opportunities for portfolio growth. Real estate, infrastructure and dividend growth stocks can offer rising and tax-efficient income as interest rates fall.
April 2024
Dividend Growth Stocks vs. High Yield Stocks: Which is Better for Long-Term Performance
Investors often face a choice between Dividend Growth stocks and High Yield stocks when seeking income-generating investments. While High Yield stocks offer attractive immediate returns, Dividend Growth stocks provide superior long-term benefits, including income growth, capital appreciation, and lower volatility. Sean Tascatan, Senior Portfolio Manager, Starlight Dividend Growth Class explains dividend growth stocks vs. high yield stocks— which is better for long-term performance?
January 2024
Why invest in infrastructure in 2024?
Hisham Yakub, Senior Portfolio Manager, Starlight Global Infrastructure Fund, explains how infrastructure assets can help meet Canadian investors’ need for risk-adjusted total returns, portfolio diversification, income, and inflation protection. He explains why now is the time to invest in global infrastructure and which long-term, structural drivers he sees driving performance.
December 2023
The Case for Cell Tower REITs
Dennis Mitchell, CEO & CIO, explains how Cell Tower REITs work, including what drives predictable long-term revenue and cash flow growth and why we believe they are an attractive investment for Canadian investors.
November 2023
The Current Opportunity in Infrastructure Part 3: Digital Connectivity
It is often cited that 75 percent of the infrastructure that will be in place in 2050 doesn’t exist today. Digital infrastructure consists of the equipment that transmits, processes and stores data, the facilities that house that equipment, and the networks that connect them all. Part 3 focuses on how digital connectivity presents an investment opportunity in infrastructure.
August 2023
The Current Opportunity in Infrastructure – Part 2: Infrastructure Renewal
It is often cited that 75 percent of the infrastructure that will be in place in 2050 doesn’t exist today. In the US, meaningful action was not taken on bridging the infrastructure gap at the national level until President Biden passed the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act in November 2021 to renew existing infrastructure over the next decade. Given the prolonged period of underinvestment, it follows that the current opportunity to invest in renewing infrastructure is generational. Part 2 focuses on how infrastructure renewal presents an investment opportunity in infrastructure.
August 2023
The Current Opportunity in Infrastructure – Part 1: Decarbonization
It is often cited that 75 percent of the infrastructure that will be in place in 2050 doesn’t exist today. This backlog of critical infrastructure development is a catalyst for long-duration investment opportunities that should provide investment returns above historical levels for the infrastructure asset class. Part 1 focuses on how decarbonization presents an investment opportunity in infrastructure.
June 2023
Real Assets and Real Income
Starlight Global Real Estate Fund and Starlight Global Infrastructure Fund are designed to provide investors with tax-efficient distributions supported by strong dividend and distribution growth from the underlying investments.
January 2022
Insight Series: Tower REITs drive margins and return on capital
Publicly-traded Tower REITs generally own a network of vertical tower structures upon which their tenants, large telecommunications firms, place their communications equipment. The Tower REIT benefits from increased utilization of their tower network, which drives margins
and return on capital.
September 2020
The Time for Infrastructure is Now
Pension funds, endowments, insurance companies and other institutional asset managers have allocated capital to infrastructure for decades. They covet infrastructure for the long term, contractual revenue streams, inflation-linked growth, diversification benefits and downside protection. However, for many investors, infrastructure is still a new sector and under-represented in their portfolios.
February 2020
Insight Series: Midstream energy firms deliver 36%+ returns in 2019, without the commodity price risk
Midstream businesses sit between the production of energy resources and their ultimate distribution to end markets. Essentially, they connect energy supply with energy demand by providing several key intermediary services, including gathering, processing, refining, marketing, storage and transportation.
September 2019
Insight Series: E-commerce helps industrial REITs deliver total returns of 30%+
E-commerce is driving the demand for more modern logistics and distribution facilities across the globe, sending industrial REIT total returns to over 30%. Our Insight Series continues with a closer look at Prologis Inc. - the largest industrial REIT in the world.
July 2019
Insight Series: Payment networks - global e-commerce leverage produces cash flow and dividend growth
In a world of 3.3% global GDP growth, e-commerce will drive annual global payments revenues growth to 9%. Our Insight Series continues with a look at Visa, the world’s largest payment network with U.S. $11.2 trillion of volumes in 2018.
June 2019
Insight Series: Mortgage REITs – attractive double-digit yields
Mortgage REITs acquire real estate-related debt and generally provide liquidity and/or funding for both residential and commercial property owners by either purchasing or originating new mortgages. They typically generate revenues from the interest earned by investing in a pool of mortgage loans.
May 2019
Insight Series: Airport cash flows soar above the clouds
In many European and Asian countries airports are operated by public companies under long-term concessions. Airports have two distinct businesses and three general regulatory models that drive the overall attractiveness of the concession.
April 2019
Insight Series: Macro trends drive data centre utilization
Data Centres are purpose-built facilities designed to house servers and network equipment. Data centre utilization is driven by global macro trends such as big data, e-commerce, cloud computing, the internet of things, social media, gaming/e-sports, streaming and general business or personal computing.
March 2019
Insight Series: Traffic and toll growth drive toll road appreciation
Toll road companies generate long-term returns based on proposed tolls, anticipated traffic levels and the duration of the concession.
September 2018
Focused Business Investing
Focused Business Investing attempts to build a concentrated portfolio of high-quality businesses that will generate superior risk-adjusted returns over the long term. The focus is on companies with strong, recurring free cash flow from irreplaceable assets, capitalized with low levels of debt and run by management teams that behave like true stewards of investor capital. However, this must be done only when these companies are priced to deliver sufficient return for the risk incurred.
September 2018
The case for global real estate
Real estate firms generate long-term cash-flow streams with leverage to rising economic output. This is confirmed by the long-term outperformance of REITs over the last 25 years, compared to both global stocks and global bonds. The outperformance of REITs over this time period is often linked to declining interest rates, however it’s important to note that global equities outperformed global bonds during this time period. Global equities were also levered to falling interest rates and, certainly, to rising economic output. The outperformance of REITs during this time period is a function of their structure and the unique attributes of REITs.
September 2018
The case for global infrastructure
Infrastructure assets provide essential services that allow global cities to function. The almost inelastic demand for their services results in consistent revenue, margin and cash flow growth. Global macro trends such as population growth, urbanization and digitization drive the continued utilization of these assets. Infrastructure businesses add to portfolio diversification because of their low correlation to other asset classes. Infrastructure assets have historically outperformed equities and remain under-allocated to by most investors.
September 2018
Rising interest rates and impact on REITs
Since 1975 there have been six periods where the U.S. 10-year bond yield has risen significantly. During four of those time periods, REITs generated positive returns and during three of those periods, REITs outperformed stocks. Rising long-bond yields are usually associated with increased economic output and inflation, both of which are likely to be positive for REITs. Increased economic growth should result in the demand for more real estate as employment rises. As occupancies rise rents should follow, resulting in increased REIT cash flows, distributions and valuations.
September 2018
How REITs generate growth
At Starlight, we attempt to add value by concentrating our investments into high-quality REITs with multiple value creation levers at their disposal. REITs with more growth potential should outperform through the cycle but their value is especially important when economic activity accelerates, and inflation expectations and spot rates rise. Purchased when they offer us sufficient return for the risk incurred these investments should yield us strong risk-adjusted returns over the long term.
Views expressed regarding a particular company, security, industry or market sector should not be considered an indication of trading intent of any mutual funds managed by Starlight Capital. These views are not to be considered as investment advice nor should they be considered a recommendation to buy or sell. Documents (including press releases) regarding the various investment funds that are managed or advised by Starlight Capital are provided for information purposes only and cannot be relied on to be complete, exhaustive or error-free unless the complete set of documents for any given investment fund with respect to which information is being sought is reviewed and then only on SEDAR (www.sedar.com).
Forward-looking statements
Any “forward-looking” statements contained in this Website represent Starlight’s views of possible future events or circumstances and are based on our observations and analysis of current events and trends. These statements are generally expressed in the future tense and may not be expressly identified as forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are based on assumptions made by Starlight regarding our beliefs and opinions, and are subject to a number of mitigating factors. Forward-looking statements may prove to be incorrect. Economic and market conditions may change, which may materially impact the views of Starlight, our actual course of conduct and the success of our intended investment strategies.
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