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REITs in 2022 appear well positioned to benefit from a sustained demand recovery, the inflation-hedging characteristics of real estate and attractive relative valuations.

Key takeaways:

  • We believe a strengthening economy should provide a healthy backdrop for many property types.
  • Real estate has historically performed well in inflationary environments despite potential interest rate increases.
  • REITs remain attractively valued compared with equities, suggesting room to grow.

Strong fundamentals supporting REITs

The global economic rebound of 2021, fueled by fiscal and monetary stimulus, economic reopenings and strong consumer spending, should provide a solid foundation for global real estate securities in 2022.

That said, supply-chain constraints and wage increases could temper growth and keep upward pressure on inflation, leading to rising interest rates. But while sharp increases in interest rates may unsettle markets in the near term, the direction of the economy and job growth tend to have a greater impact on REIT returns than rising rates.

In fact, an expanding economy typically drives stronger demand, which often leads to higher occupancy levels, giving landlords greater negotiating leverage to raise rents. Rising rents, in turn, have the potential to generate higher property cash flows, distributions and property values.

This report was originally published in https://www.cohenandsteers.com/insights/read/reits-forces-aligned-for-growth-in-2022

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The Q4 2021 Knight Frank Data Centre Report continues our growing coverage of the Asia Pacific region. Market analysis includes both established data centre hubs such as Singapore, Hong Kong, Mumbai, Sydney, Seoul, and Tokyo; and fast growth markets including Hanoi, Bangkok, Shanghai, and Kuala Lumpur – to provide the most wide-ranging view of the region.

The momentum of Q3 carried into the fourth quarter, with several major announcements across key markets in Asia Pacific. Total supply (live, phased, and under construction) in APAC increased almost 185MW in Q4, bringing total capacity in the region to over 7,900MW. Take-up was around 120MW, moderating slightly from Q3 but in line with previous quarters. For the whole of 2021, IT capacity across APAC grew by over 1,500MW.

The gigawatt markets of Tokyo and Shanghai added significant capacity in 2021, adding between 300MW to 400MW each, to their respective markets. In Q4, AirTrunk’s TOK1 facility opened in Tokyo, with its first phase up to 60MW. STT also announced its plan for two data centres in Inzai totalling 60MW. In addition, Stack Infrastructure’s has plans for a 36MW campus, and Colt has secured land for two sites in Inzai and Northern Tokyo for 45MW.

The Chinese authorities have announced the setting up of four mega clusters of data centres in the north and west of the country. This was followed by an announcement of a further 10 national data centre clusters as part of a broader strategy to transport data from eastern regions of China to western regions for storage and calculation. On the back of government plans to classify data centres as infrastructure assets for easier access to funding, India also saw several major new investments into data centre platforms, including Hiranani-Yotta and Kotak-Sify.

In Southeast Asia, Singapore lifted its hold on new data centre builds after a two-year moratorium. Under a new pilot program, up to 60MW of capacity will be made available in 2022, to developments of between 10 to 30MW each. As part of the consideration, applicants for new data centre facilities will need to commit to achieving a PUE of below 1.3 and obtain Singapore’s Green Mark for Data Centres-Platinum certification – in addition to adding strategic value for Singapore. We expect this pathfinder approach to serve as a model to other countries looking to find the right balance between their digitalization and sustainability goals.

Growing interest is also seen in emerging APAC markets like Seoul, Osaka, Ho Chi Minh, and Bangkok.

This article was originally published in https://www.knightfrank.com/

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The emergence of a fifth wave of COVID-19 in Hong Kong, together with continued strict border controls, has seen investors and corporations looking to adopt new strategies to manage the new normal in commercial real estate business operations.

In our Hong Kong Market Direction 2022 report, we highlight six factors we see impacting the future direction of the commercial real estate market in the Year of The Tiger:

  1. ESG Is Too Important to Be Ignored
  2. Bargain Hunting for Premium Office Properties
  3. Developers to Enrich Landbanks in the Northern Metropolis
  4. Automation and Warehouses are Connecting
  5. Healthy Lifestyles to Forge New Demand for Fitness Centers
  6. Growing Needs for Quality Virtual Conferencing and Collaborative Workspaces
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SS&C Intralinks’ new report, Gender Diversity and Dealmaking 2022, draws on data from more than 11,000 M&A deals announced between 2010 and 2021 and features commentary from senior dealmakers to understand this trend.

Download the new report to understand:

  • Why women CEOs outperformed men during the pandemic on post-deal share price, ROE, EBIT/sales and EBITDA/sales
  • How short-term investor reaction to deals announced by female leaders has slightly improved since our first report
  • Innovative female CEO M&A strategies and decision-making, such as managing risk by leveraging more advisors and structuring cash-only or all-stock deals
  • Significant gender-based differences in acquisition target types and deal processes
  • Why the pandemic has improved perceptions of female CEOs and diversity

This report was originally published in https://www3.intralinks.com/gender-diversity-and-dealmaking-2022

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Bolstered by increasing biotech investments and accelerating healthcare research, the biomedical sciences (BMS) industry has experienced strong growth in recent years, further reinforcing Singapore’s position as a leading biomedical science hub at the heart of Asia.

This report provides an overview of Singapore’s BMS industry and its real estate requirements with the focus on key drivers for the industry, demand, future supply and rentals of life science properties.

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Supply chains and more specifically, the disruption of supply chains have never been more in the spotlight than since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Supply chain teams around the world have been called upon to rapidly adapt to volatile conditions as lockdowns swept across the globe causing scarcity of product, which has also been subsequently compounded by acute bottlenecks.

The redesign of supply chain and logistics networks in light of geopolitical, technological, demographic and urbanisation trends has been especially prevalent over recent years to optimise the combination of supplier, manufacturing, inventory, storage, and distribution flows to meet the needs of customers in the most cost-effective way.

This report, The Role of Asia Pacific in Global Supply Chains External Link, is the first in a series by Cushman & Wakefield focussing on the impacts of disruption, customer buying behaviour and the underlying megatrends on the design of supply chain and logistics networks.

This report was originally published in https://www.cushmanwakefield.com/en/insights/the-role-of-asia-pacific-in-global-supply-chains

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Cushman & Wakefield’s 2022 Signal Report shows that recovery in all regions and sectors of the global real estate market will hit a new record in 2022. In this global report, our Global Head of Capital Markets Insights and Head of Investment Strategy for EMEA Capital Markets provide a quarter-by-quarter guide to investments in Commercial Real Estate (CRE) in 2022. 

Key Takeaways:

1. Activity in the global real estate market hit a new record in 2021 with a stunning Q4 that drove an annual increase of 55%. Demand will be just as strong this year and while rising rates, geopolitical tensions and finding the right opportunities will remain an issue, activity in the first half of the year could yet exceed 2021 and a 3% uplift is forecast for the year overall. 

2. Uncertainty will add to the weight of money targeting liquid, core safe-haven markets but could also somewhat delay the rise in interest rates so widely expected and feared in the market. What is more, this comes against a still favorable backdrop for real estate in terms of the dynamics of investor demand and the structural shifts driving the need for more or different space.

3. The occupier market’s recovery will be slowed by uncertainty and the persistence of COVID-19, but in no way stopped. Indeed, while capital markets are leading the recovery, occupiers will be driving performance as economic activity, jobs growth and a focus on talent and innovation drive the imperative to get real estate right, resulting in renewed demand, rent inflation and further disparity between good and average assets.

4. What constitutes the “right asset” is evolving due to structural changes within technology and talent, as well as a brighter spotlight on ESG considerations. Many older assets are still relevant however and much of what worked pre-pandemic will still work as market health returns.

5. Inflation will continue to pressure global interest rates, though markets have already priced in significant monetary tightening. While the yield gap is closing, real estate will remain attractive thanks to its relative income and potential for the right assets to act as an inflation hedge.  

6. A return to the old normal is not apparent and the shift from the pandemic is slower than anticipated due to the Omicron variant and the fact that businesses are taking advantage of this time to rethink how they operate and use space.

7. Sheds, beds, meds and niche assets will see a further increase in allocations – growing from a position of immaturity in some regions – while more traditional sectors offer a key route to access stock due to scale. However, investors must approach all sectors via a range of structures and capital routes to find opportunities and take advantage of all performance potential.

8. As a result of new user patterns and a demand for greater sustainability, reworking existing stock and building more effectively will be a priority – and an opportunity – on a global basis, especially in core markets with less focus on ESG to date.

9. The longer-term redesign of supply chains will refocus demand in all regions as well as capitalize on growth in low-cost emerging markets globally.

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To address climate change, leading real estate funds and companies around the world are setting decarbonization and net-zero targets. These targets can differ widely and consist of many elements, and some may be more credible than others. In this report — which builds on our net-zero report for companies, “Breaking Down Corporate Net-Zero Climate Targets” — we outline an approach for evaluating real estate funds’ and companies’ decarbonization and net-zero targets. It aims to help the industry set net-zero commitments, as well as support asset owners in evaluating decarbonization targets of companies and funds they invest in. It argues that best practices for decarbonization and achieving net-zero are:

  • Comprehensive: Include all significant sources of emissions, even those that may be hard to quantify, including Scope 3 emissions from tenant-controlled energy use and development activities.
  • Ambitious: Pursue absolute reductions in the short and long term, in line with accepted, science-based pathways.
  • Feasible: Demonstrate progress toward goals, supported by a robust business strategy

This report was originally published in https://www.msci.com/www/research-paper/breaking-down-real-estate-net/03021835623

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What can Artificial Intelligence (AI) offer the built environment in our age of climate emergency? At the heart of Deep Reinforcement Learning is an agent and an environment. Just as we are starting to learn that our actions within our environment have consequences on an immense, planetary scale, innovative AI is learning too – and faster than us.

By using Deep Reinforcement Learning to optimise the energy efficiency of HVAC systems in the built environment, we can minimise the negative impact of our own actions without sacrificing occupant comfort. As businesses all over the world attempt to transition to Net Zero, this technology has a pivotal role to play.

But why is Deep Reinforcement Learning the best way to optimise HVAC performance?

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Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs) and Infrastructure Investment Trusts (InvITs) are conceptually like mutual funds in that funds are raised (backed by a sponsor) from institutional and retail investors which is then invested in infrastructure or real estate projects. The income earned from such projects is periodically distributed (at least 90% of net distributable cash flows (NDCF)) to unitholders. However, unlike mutual funds, they also have characteristics of a business enterprise considering they also raise debt and through a Trustee and an Investment Manager, are actively involved in projects to maximize returns to unitholders.

The rising emergence and popularity of REITs/InvITs in India is a welcome development for capital thirsty sectors, e.g., infrastructure (roads and highways, ports, railways, etc.), power, real estate, etc. With a view to increasing private participation supported by favorable government policies (e.g., enabling investment by foreign portfolio investors) and long- term investment outlook, many marquee investors including sovereign and pension funds are continuing to raise their stakes in such assets. Investors benefit from generating regular cash distributions, stable yield and an opportunity for sponsor(s) to expand their asset base.

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