Mike Prew
Mike Prew is managing director at Jefferies.
InsightJefferies Mike Prew on how policy is switching to defusing inflation
The REIT index has rebounded 25% from an October low point after the Trussonomics Budget, when we saw 50% discounts to net asset value (NAV) reminiscent of the 2008 global financial crisis (GFC).
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REITs look ripe for consolidation
It was mini-Budget remorse last week when chancellor Jeremy Hunt pressed Ctrl+Alt+Del on Trussonomics, and 10-year gilts fell back to 4%, from a recent 4.5% peak.
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It’s time for REITs to take shelter
The words of the Rolling Stones 1969 hit Gimme Shelter sum up the situation faced by REITs today: “A storm is threatening/My very life today/If I don’t get some shelter/I’m gonna fade away.” They face unusually uncertain times.
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Mind the valuation ‘practice gap’
Ginger Rogers did everything Fred Astaire did, but ‘backwards and in high heels’, which is how we see equity markets trying to decipher commercial property valuations.
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The green office bottleneck
If asked in a job interview where you thought you’d be in five years’ time and you replied holed up in my flat on Zoom calls, living on takeouts and waiting for a global pandemic to pass, you probably wouldn’t have got the job.
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Climate is REITs’ biggest challenge
George Bernard Shaw said “beware of false knowledge; it is more dangerous than ignorance”, and the real estate industry is having to gen up on climate change fast.
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Tough times for British Land and Landsec
We read REITs’ reports and accounts from back to front for those interesting notes tucked away. This year, both Landsec’s and British Land’s reports include new data on portfolio energy performance.
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Why offices need to think green
As Morticia Addams, the fictional 1930s cartoon character from The New Yorker, observed: “Normal is an illusion. What is normal for the spider is chaos for the fly.” You can’t self-isolate against climate change and behind the three ‘Rs’ of reflation, reopening and reoccupation, buildings are going green — fast.
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Nuggets of value amid the chaos
Elizabethan theatres were closed during the plague in 1592, so Shakespeare turned his quill to writing sonnets. The lesson is that people are adaptable, which can be seen in the way that the real estate industry is preparing for the post-pandemic world.
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Tail no longer wagging the dog
Five years ago, we were stonewalled on our ‘sell retail’ theme, but after intu’s collapse and Hammerson’s £525m rights issue, it’s now a trade the shoeshine boy knows about.
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This time REITs are well prepared
“How did you go bankrupt?” “Two ways. Gradually and then suddenly” is a quote from Ernest Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises.
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This will be a short, sharp shock
Economist John Maynard Keynes said: “When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?” when he changed his mind in a debate.
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The latest twists in my sobriety
So Brexit is oven ready, but what will it taste like? REITs rebounded 30% at the end of last year on the Conservatives’ election victory, twice the rise in the equity market. We issued our 2020 Outlook note memorandum ‘Re-selling the Dodo REITs’ and view the recent rebound in share ...
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Feet of clay cannot keep walking
REITs’ share prices rebounded 5% in a Brexit relief bounce as the receding risk of no deal drove up the value of sterling against the US dollar.
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Stockholm syndrome for REITs?
Are REITs suffering from Stockholm syndrome, the unusual bond that sometimes develops between hostages and their captors? REIT chief executives seem to be mesmerised by property valuations that aren’t the same as prices. Consequently, they risk buying shares back at the wrong prices and not selling their businesses at the ...
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‘Cinderella moment’ for industry
The real estate market has had its ‘Cinderella moment’. Midnight has struck, exposing the REIT ‘pumpkin eaters’ left holding unsaleable assets at high valuations. Retail values cracked but REITs portrayed this as a one-off.
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Big bad wolf will blow REITs down
REITs are like the fable of the three little pigs who built three houses of straw, sticks and bricks. The big bad wolf was only unable to destroy the house made of bricks. For straw, read shopping centres. For sticks, read offices. For bricks, read the alternatives of ‘beds (student ...
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Big REITs have much to fear from retail horror show
Buying REIT shares is like breaking into a bank that’s already been robbed. The real estate market usually creates problems for REITs, but that could reverse in this cycle.
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‘Forrest Gump’ asset management leaves you with too many soft-centre chocolates
The good detective’s ABC mantra is ‘accept nothing, believe nobody, challenge everything’, but it seems REIT shareholders are overly reliant on appraisers’ asset valuations and audited accounts even as auditing standards have re-entered the spotlight.
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Enjoy the rest of your bubble – it’s going to burst soon
‘Black-box thinking’ is what the airline industry deploys to make flying safer and to reassure people it is the safest form of travel. Lessons learnt from past failures become industry-wide protocols.
