Asia Pacific REITs Finish 3.7% Lower In Q1 Despite 3.4% Gain In March
Trends in the early part of the pandemic have reversed, as the industrial sector posted the worst performance while the hotel sector led wins during the quarter
By Jeroen Vreeker, Managing Director at Global Property Research
Asia Pacific REITs finished the first quarter of the year 3.7% lower in USD terms, with the GPR/APREA Composite REIT Index returning -7.2% in January 2022, 0.3% in February 2022 and 3.4% in March 2022.
Thailand (-2.3%) and Taiwan (-2.7%) turned out to be the negative outliers last month while gains ranged from 0.5% for China to 6.0% for Singapore. There was outperformance for the GPR/APREA Composite REIT Index versus regional equities, 3.4% versus -0.5% in March 2022 and in the first quarter (-3.7% versus -5.9%) respectively.
The table below shows the total return performances realised in the previous month and in the first quarter for the various currencies available for the GPR/APREA Composite REIT Index.
| EUR | JPY | LOC | USD | |
| GPR/APREA Composite REIT Index | 4.4% | 8.9% | 4.4% | 3.4% |
| EUR | JPY | LOC | USD | |
| GPR/APREA Composite REIT Index | -1.6% | 1.5% | -2.5% | -3.7% |
Taking the sector perspective, gains during the month of March 2022 ranged from 1.7% for Office to 6.8% for Healthcare:
| DIV | HCR | HOT | IND | OFF | OTH | RES | RET | |
| GPR/APREA Composite REIT Index | 2.4% | 6.8% | 5.2% | 3.7% | 1.7% | n/a | 3.7% | 4.4% |
Meanwhile, for the first three months of 2022, the total return performances realised for the various sectors available for the GPR/APREA Composite REIT Index show a mixed bag with Industrial (-10.1%) and Hotel (5.2%) on the two sides of the spectrum.
| DIV | HCR | HOT | IND | OFF | OTH | RES | RET | |
| GPR/APREA Composite REIT Index | -3.9% | -2.3% | 5.4% | -10.1% | -1.1% | n/a | -5.2% | 1.2% |
The comprehensive GPR/APREA Composite REIT Index covered 183 Asia Pacific REITs with a combined free float market capitalisation of US$329.5 billion as at 31 March 2022. Following the latest quarterly rebalancing of the GPR/APREA index series, which took effect on 21 March 2022 start of trading, Newmark Property REIT (Australia), Newmark Property REIT (Australia), RAM Essential Services Property Fund (Australia), Daiwa House Logistics Trust ((classified to) Japan), Filinvest REIT Corp. (Philippines), MREIT Inc. (Philippines) and Digital Core REIT (Singapore) were added to the GPR/APREA Composite REIT Index.
