12 June RNS29 Jul 2024 07:45
SREI has outperformed the benchmark on a rolling three-year basis with a 5.5% per annum total return compared to the benchmark's 0.8% per annum.
Schroder Real Estate (SREI) and its closest peers continue to trade on wide discounts to NAV, in SREI's case c. 26%, which may be a signal that investors are happy to sit on the fence until a rate cut actually comes, unsure of whether property assets really are at attractive valuations. Two things strike us, the first is that SREI's net initial yield is about 200bp higher than 10-year gilts, and the estimated rental value (ERV), 8.4%, is clearly much higher than that. The spread between property yields and the 10-year gilt is an age-old rule of thumb for property investors, with 200bps often seen as the 'right' number. Earlier on in the interest rate cycle, our analysis suggested that UK REITs share prices were actually at about the right level, as opposed to being undervalued, compared to gilts at the time, but this calculation has shifted now, with SREI's yield at NAV now being at the 'right' level, and therefore one can suggest, based on long-established convention, that the share price, a discount of 26% to the NAV, and the dividend yield of over 8%, undervalues the portfolio. The second thing that strikes us is that SREI's portfolio valuation levelled off in the final quarter of the year, and while one must of course treat this as just one small datapoint, it's interesting that it occurred just as the net initial yield reached our so-called 'right' level.