Asia Pacific’s REITs Close 2022 In The Red With Industrials The Worst Hit
The hotel sector was the best performing for the year following an impressive 10.6% gain in December..
By Jeroen Vreeker, Managing Director at Global Property Research
Jan 4, 2023- 2022 was tumultuous; characterised by geopolitical tensions, interest rate hikes and inflation concerns. A turnaround that began in October 2022 turned out to be short-lived. A comparative analysis for the GPR/APREA Composite REIT Index showed that Asia Pacific REITs added 1.2% in USD terms in December 2022, which did not help much as the calendar year’s total return performance came to -17.8%. The table below shows the total return performances realised in the previous month for the various currencies available for the GPR/APREA Composite REIT Index.
| EUR | JPY | LOC | USD | |
| GPR/APREA Composite REIT Index | -2.4% | -4.3% | -1.9% | 1.2% |
Looking at sector performances for December 2022, Industrial (-0.4%) was the only one in negative territory while Hotel (10.6%) recorded the largest gain followed by HealthCare (3.3%) and Retail (2.9%):
| DIV | HCR | HOT | IND | OFF | OTH | RES | RET | |
| GPR/APREA Composite REIT Index | 1.1% | 3.3% | 10.6% | -0.4% | 0.2% | n/a | 2.4% | 2.9% |
The December 2022 total return performance was broadly positive with gains ranging from 0.3% for Malaysia to 14.1% for Hong Kong, the exceptions being Taiwan (-1.0%) and Australia (-1.5%). Below are the performances in USD terms of the GPR/APREA Composite REIT Index and country sub-set indices:
USD-denominated data as per December 31, 2022
Looking at performances on an annual basis, the table below shows the total return performances realised throughout 2022 for the various currencies as well as USD-denominated sector performances available for the GPR/APREA Composite REIT Index. The January-December period saw regional REITs marginally underperforming general equities (-17.8% versus -16.9%).
| EUR | JPY | LOC | USD | |
| GPR/APREA Composite REIT Index | -12.4% | -5.8% | -11.3% | -17.8% |
| DIV | HCR | HOT | IND | OFF | OTH | RES | RET | |
| GPR/APREA Composite REIT Index | -14.4% | -15.8% | 9.8% | -27.9% | -18.8% | n/a | -16.9% | -6.8% |
The GPR/APREA Composite REIT Index covered 183 Asia Pacific REITs with a combined free float market capitalisation of USD 273.8 billion as at December 31, 2022. Following the latest quarterly rebalancing of the GPR/APREA index series, two additional REITs (SF REIT (HKG) and KIP REIT (MYS)) entered with effect from December 19, 2022.
