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This study aims to investigate the impact of corporate diversification and growth opportunities on the performance of real estate investment trusts (REIT) in Malaysia and Singapore before and during the pandemic.

The sample consists of 33 public-listed REITs across Singapore and Malaysia. A dynamic panel system generalized method of moments (DPS-GMM) estimation is used to account for unobservable factors and a relatively short sample period (2009–2022).

Results indicate that the impact of diversification is contingent on the market where the REIT is based and other institutional factors. The estimates also show that diversified REITs are better able to weather period of economic uncertainty.

We provided a definitive answer as to why corporate diversification leads to conflicting outcomes – market and institutional factors, strategic intent and the overall economic environment. We also show that the impact of typical firm controls (i.e. free cash, size) can differ. Future firm-level work should thus study similar phenomenon more contextually and carefully consider these varying effects.

The literature is divided on the impact of diversification on firm performance. By using a two-country sample, we show conclusive evidence that this contradictory outcome is due to market and institutional factors. We also show evidence that strategic intent is an important factor that influences the outcomes of diversification, regardless of market. We also infer that excess cash aids the resilience of the firm, contrary to the negative perception of excess cash during normal times. Firm size, in contrast, does not contribute to firm performance during a crisis.

This study aims to present the financial performance of companies and investment areas in the real estate investment trust (REIT) industry.

A fuzzy model for financial performance measurement (FM-FPM) was proposed through the collaboration of fuzzy axiomatic design (FAD) and fuzzy entropy weighting (FEW). For the data, financial ratios were used, and their importance and functional requirements were collected via a questionnaire survey.

The FM-FPM is a beneficial model to be used for a REIT industry based on the structured procedures of FAD and FEW techniques. It can be suitable to regularly evaluate the performance of REITs and their investment areas in financial means, especially in today’s turbulent business environment. The Turkish market that was considered to show the practical applicability of the FM-FPM demonstrated specifically that diversified real estate was found to rank first, followed by mixed-buildings, warehouses, shopping malls and hotels, respectively.

The FM-FPM can be employed for REIT industries in other countries and adapted to different industries. However, more respondents or a different set of criteria might lead to different outputs.

The FM-FPM may guide REIT managers and investors while making their decisions and controlling the performance of REITs and investment areas.

The FM-FPM may encourage low- and middle-income investors to make good use of their savings.

The research is first (1) to offer a FPM model in order to determine investable areas in a REIT industry and (2) to employ multiple criteria decision-making tools in order to measure the financial performance of individual companies and investment areas in a REIT industry.

Referring to “behavioural finance” and “normative model” theories, this study explores the relative significance of behavioural heuristic biases in the investment decisions of real estate investment trusts (REITs) when compared with the conventional normative decision factors, with an ultimate aim to identify the significant behavioural factors that should be avoided to ensure rational asset acquisitions and market efficiency.

A triangulation approach was adopted. Qualitative multiple case studies were conducted, with four cases selected from Australian and New Zealand REITs across the industry, to identify what normative and behavioural finance factors are involved in investment decisions. This formed the basis for the subsequent expert review survey to explore how significant the behavioural factors were manifested in the judgement when compared with the normative factors.

Three out of four theoretical behavioural factors manifested themselves in the investment decisions: investor sentiment, anchoring factors and overconfidence. The overall impact of these three behavioural factors was that they were as significant as normative factors in investment decisions. The heuristic availability of information was found to have no significant effect on experienced REIT fund managers.

The findings were based on four multiple cases and an expert review survey of six frontline fund managers, which form a baseline upon which further research can be conducted to widen the scope of research to cover all REITs in Australasia so that the results can become more robust to benefit the entire market in the region.

As behavioural factors are significant in the decision-making process, REIT fund managers should raise awareness to avoid the significant behavioural factors identified, in particular investor sentiment, which was found to be the most significant one.

This study confirms the relative significance of behavioural factors in property investment decisions within the context of Australasian REITs and alerts fund managers to the ways they should follow to ensure rational investments and market efficiency. It also extends the scale of existing studies to cover not only Australia but also New Zealand for the benefit of the entire Australasian market.

Given the evolving market integration, this study aims to explore the connectedness of 12 real estate investment trusts (REITs) during the COVID-19 period.

The connectedness of 12 REITs was examined by considering three sample periods: full period, COVID peak period and COVID recovery period by using the quantile vector autoregressive (VAR) approach.

The findings ascertain that REIT markets are sensitive to COVID, revealing significant connectedness during each sample period. The USA and The Netherlands are the major shock transmitters; thus, these countries are relatively better options for the predictive behavior of the rest of the REIT markets. In contrast, Hong Kong and Japan are the least favorable REIT markets with higher shock-receiving potential.

The study recommends implications for real estate industry agents and investors to evaluate and anticipate the direction of return connectedness at each phase of the pandemic, such that they can incorporate those global REITs less vulnerable to unplanned crises. Apart from these implications, the study is limited to the global REIT markets and only focused on the period of COVID-19, excluding the concept of other financial and health crises.

This study uses a novel approach of the quantile-based VAR to determine the connectedness among REITs. Furthermore, the present work is a pioneer study because it is targeting different time periods of the pandemic. Additionally, the outcomes of the study are valuable for investors, policymakers and portfolio managers to formulate future development strategies and consolidate REITs during the period of crisis.

Real estate investment trusts (REITs) have shown great potential in addressing the current contradiction between underinvestment and sustainable development of urban regeneration in China, as well as in further facilitating the transformation and upgrading of China's urban development. In this regard, this study aims to investigate critical success factors (CSFs) and explore the relationships among these factors, and serve as a reference to provide recommendations and strategies for the successful implementation and sustainable development of urban regeneration REITs.

In this study, an integrated total interpretive structural modeling–matriced impact croises multiplication applique (TISM–MICMAC) approach using the TISM technique and MICMAC analysis is then implemented to explore the relationships among CSFs, demonstrate the hierarchical structure and classify these factors into clusters based on calculated driving powers and dependence.

This study has determined a final list of 11 CSFs through literature review and expert survey. The TISM model demonstrates a six-level hierarchical structure encompassing the influence transmission paths of CSFs, in which the most significant factors and links are established, while the MICMAC analysis further classifies CSFs into four clusters as a complement for the findings of the TISM technique.

This study offers practical implications for governments, individual and institutional investors, REITs and property managers, and other stakeholders concluded in urban regeneration REITs. The final list of determined CSFs can serve as the decision points for management and control of the implementation processes, while the findings of the TISM–MICMAC approach can be a significant reference to provide strategies for optimization and enhancement of urban regeneration REITs.

This study is a novel attempt to use both the TISM technique and MICMAC analysis to investigate CSFs for the implementation of urban regeneration REITs, and to address the theoretical and methodological research gaps in the existing literature.

In periods of economic distress, expectations for businesses change and there is a heightened need for reporting quality. This study investigates the impact of crises on earnings management in the real estate sector.

The data consisted of financial statements from 2005 to 2021 from real estate firms listed on 10 European stock exchanges. Estimated discretionary accruals from four standard accruals models were used as a proxy for earnings management, using cross-sectional industry and firm fixed effects models. The authors examined earnings management during three crises: the financial crisis (2008–2009), the debt crisis (2011–2012) and the COVID-19 pandemic (2020–2021).

The results showed less earnings management during the COVID-19 crisis and more earnings management during the financial crisis, though with slightly weaker evidence. The authors did not find significant evidence of earnings management related to the debt crisis. These results suggest that stakeholders in the real estate sector should be extra vigilant in crisis periods.

This study is the first to investigate earnings management in European real estate firms, focusing on the impact of crises.

The real estate markets may be significantly influenced by the uncertainty in global economic policy. This paper aims to evaluate the time-varying connectedness between global economic policy uncertainty and regional real estate markets to understand how regional real estate markets and uncertainty in global economic policy are related throughout time.

The current study includes the monthly data from April 2007 to August 2022 of major regions (i.e. Asia Pacific, Europe, Africa, North America and Latin America). Moreover, the authors use the time-varying parameter vector auto-regression (TVP-VAR) approach for the analysis.

The finding revealed a significant level of connectedness among global economic policy uncertainty and selected regional real estate markets. The result highlights more than 80% connectivity between the two variables, which makes the current study valuable. Furthermore, results determine Africa and North America are the shock transmitters; thus, they are considered safe-haven for investors to invest in these markets.

The main novelty is that this research highlights the time-varying connectedness between global economic policy uncertainty and five regional real estate markets (Africa, Asian Pacific, Europe, Latin America and North America) using TVP-VAR. Furthermore, the authors used the standard and poor daily real estate investment trust (REIT) indices for the selected REIT markets. Finally, this research suggests practical implications for real estate investors, property developers, stakeholders, policymakers and managers to revise their current policies to maintain the real estate market stability during economic and political uncertainty or in other uncertain situations.

Management soundness is essential for the effectiveness of any industry, most especially in any Islamic financial sector, whereby fairness and justice are the key factors to be observed. This paper aims to examine the management soundness of the takaful industry regarding their asset quality, re-takaful and actuarial and earning and profitability.

This study obtained quarterly data from 2019Q1 to 2021Q4 from the Islamic Financial Services Board across Malaysia, Brunei, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and the United Arab Emirates. The panel data modelling with random-effect and fixed-effect estimators were used for the analysis.

The finding revealed a strong relationship between re-takaful and earnings with management soundness and a weak relationship between asset quality and management soundness. In addition, the result established a significant and strong association between management soundness and earnings and profitability. Therefore, re-takaful and profitability contributed more to the management soundness of the takaful industry than asset quality during the study. An increase in earnings and profitability to enable the takaful industry to pay the claims, especially in calamity, and more focus on the quality of the asset they invested in could enable the smooth running of their day-to-day business affairs.

More attention is required on the quality of assets in their portfolio for the sustainability of the takaful industry to fulfil their underlying objectives. Management soundness in the takaful industry should address the challenges of managerial lathery, which some studies linked with operational inefficiency because of unskilled personnel in the takaful industry. This could benefit takaful clients, irrespective of religion, to attain their associated share of benefits from the Islamic insurance industry.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first empirical study that examined the effectiveness of takaful management across Malaysia, Brunei, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and the United Arab Emirates.

Over a long period, even low inflation has an impact on portfolio value and households’ purchasing power. In such a context, inflation hedging should remain an important issue for investors. In particular, long-term investors, who are concerned with the protection of their wealth, seek to hold effective hedging assets. This study aims to demonstrate that residential assets in “Grand Paris” are a hedge against inflation and particularly against its unexpected component.

In this study, the physical residential markets in 127 communes in Paris and the Parisian first-ring suburbs are considered as potential asset classes. We simplified the analysis by clustering the 127 communes into five homogenous groups using ascending hierarchical classification (AHC). Then, we test the hedging ability of these groups within a mixed asset portfolios using both correlation and regression analysis.

This paper presents an analysis of the “Grand Paris” housing market and its inflation hedging ability with comparison to other financial asset classes. Results show that the five housing groups act as a highly positive hedge against unexpected inflation. Furthermore, cash and bonds seem to provide, respectively, a partial and an over hedge against unexpected inflation. Stocks act as a perverse hedge against unexpected inflation and provide no significant hedge against expected inflation. Also, indirect listed real estate demonstrates little correlation with inflation, which makes us reject its hedging ability contrary to physical residential real estate.

The inflation topic: although several researches exist that question the hedging property of real estate, very few concentrate on physical residential assets and to the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the only one that targets the “Grand Paris” area. Residential assets of the “Grand Paris” communes are confirmed to be a hedge against inflation and particularly against its unexpected component thanks to its capital appreciation rather than income one. Also, we show that the listed real estate in France (Sociétés d’Investissement Immobilier Cotée) does not provide the same hedging properties contrary to the US real estate investment trusts (REITs) who demonstrate this ability. Listed real estate could thus not be used interchangeably with housing to protect from inflation in the French market.

Protection of investors against inflation and in particular in the face of its return to France in 2022. Reassuring promoters and investors of the interest of residential investment projects in “Greater Paris” and of the potential that this holds.

Inflation takes a chunk out of the purchasing power of money and thereby erodes the real value of people’s finance. Investors and households who seek protection from inflation erosion should invest in direct housing, and in particular within areas that are experiencing an effective metropolization process.

The originality of the study is precisely relative to the geographical area studied. The latter has experienced favorable economic conditions for several years and offers interesting fundamentals to explore and exploit in investment strategies that prove capable of protecting against imminent inflation. The database is specific to this project and has been built through the compilation of several sources and with the support of BNP Paribas Real Estate.

Surprisingly little is known of the various methods of security analysis used by financial analysts with industry-specific knowledge. Financial analysts’ industry knowledge is a favored and appreciated attribute by fund managers and institutional investors. Understanding analysts’ use of industry-specific valuation models, which are the main value drivers within different industries, will enhance our understanding of important aspects of value creation in these industries. This paper contributes to the broader understanding of how financial analysts in various industries approach valuation, offering insights that can be beneficial to a wide range of stakeholders in the financial market.

This paper systematically reviews existing research to consolidate the current understanding of analysts’ use of valuation models and factors. It aims to demystify what can often be seen as a “black box”, shedding light on the valuation tools employed by financial analysts across diverse industries.

The use of industry-specific valuation models and factors by analysts is a subject of considerable interest to both academics and investors. The predominant model in several industries is P/E, with some exceptions. Notably, EV/EBITDA is favored in the telecom, energy and materials sectors, while the capital goods industry primarily relies on P/CF. In the REITs sector, P/AFFO is the most commonly employed model. In specific sectors like pharmaceuticals, energy and telecom, DCF is utilized. However, theoretical models like RIM and AEG find limited use among analysts.

This is the first paper systematically reviewing the research on analyst’s use of industry-specific stock valuation methods. It serves as a foundation for future research in this field and is likely to be of interest to academics, analysts, fund managers and investors.