European REITs NAV discount: do investors believe in property appraisal?

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to analyse the NAV discount of European REITs listed in France, the Netherlands and the UK between 2003 and 2014, considering elements of both “rational” and “noise trader” approaches. Design/methodology/approach – The analysis examines the hypothesis that discounts (premiums) are the result of leverage, size, liquidity, risk, performance, investment activity and sentiment. The regressions are initially run against the traditional NAV discount, subsequently using the unlevered NAV discount measure introduced by Morri et al. (2005) in order to clean out the bias generated by the level of leverage. The NAV discount is then adjusted for investor sentiment (appraisal reduction) with the aim of better identifying firm-specific factors, considering distortions induced by sentiment. Findings – Higher liquidity commands lower discounts for French REITs, while Dutch and British REITs, which trade in markets characterized by a higher number of average daily transactions, do not seem to feature discounts resulting from liquidity. For all three samples, operational risk and performance are significant in explaining the NAV discount, the former having a positive relationship with the discount, and the latter a negative one. When measured using the average sector discount, sentiment has a profound effect on the discount, accounting alone for 10-15 per cent of the explanatory power of the model. Practical implications – REITs listed in different markets behave differently. When the discount is adjusted in order to remove the bias resulting from the level of debt, the relationship between leverage and the unlevered discount becomes less pronounced in all cases. Originality/value – The paper considers a new approach to NAV discount puzzle that takes into account market sentiment and appraisals.