The key reason why I have joined SIC is because it is more tax efficient than an ordinary company. Look at it this way. The rebates to shareholders (i.e. dividends) in the case of a cooperative are paid out ABOVE THE LINE i.e. before payment of income taxes. This is allowed under section 19A of the Income Tax Act. When you receive the dividends, you only pay 5% withholding tax which is a final tax i.e. no further taxes are due from the investor.
In effect what this means is that since in the case of a company dividends would have been below the line, the dividends would have suffered 30% tax and a further 5% withholding tax on dividends when paid to you. So by investing in SIC, you save 30% corporation taxes which you would otherwise have suffered.
Now imagine all the gains SIC is making from the sales of land, apartments etc which are only taxed at 5%! SIC is in effect operating like a REIT without the difficulties associated with obtaining CMA approvals etc.
One other thing that I differ with MaichBlack's analysis. While he is looking at the valuation of the shares, he is not looking at the fundamentals of SIC i.e. what is the PBV or PE ratios. Bearing in mind that the amount of land and Work In Progress associated with the apartments they are constructing, in fact their balance sheet is undervalued rather than overvalued. The methodology of pricing the shares may be wrong but until we know what is the PBV and PE, we cannot say whether the share is actually overvalued or not.