Fears Over Coronavirus Trigger Fall In Asia Pacific REITs; Hotel Down 13%

By Jeroen Vreeker, Index Analyst for Global Property Research

March 4, 2020- Fears over the coronavirus triggered a 7.3% fall in the share prices of Asia Pacific REITs in the last week of February 2020. Ultimately, the GPR/APREA Composite REIT Index closed the month 7.5% down with at country level only Taiwan (1.4%) and Malaysia (1.1%) in positive territory. The regional REITs underperformed the regional equities that only lost 6.0%. The table below shows the total return performances realized in the previous month for the various currencies available for the GPR/APREA Composite REIT Index.

Given an unchanged composition, the comprehensive GPR/APREA Composite REIT Index continued to cover 170 Asia Pacific REITs with a combined free-float market capitalization of USD 301.2 billion as at February 29, 2020.

Besides the gains for Taiwan and Malaysia, the February 2020 returns were negative and ranged from -4.6% for China to -8.0% for Japan. Please find below the performances in USD terms of the GPR/APREA Composite REIT Index and country sub-set indices: