FINANCIAL PERFORMANCE OF REAL ESTATE INVESTMENT TRUST (REITs): EVIDENCE FROM ASIAN REITS

Abstract

We analyse the financial performance proxy by sustainable growth rate, dividend yield and return on asset of Asian Real Estate Investment Trust (A-REITs) over the period of 2007 to 2016. The sample consist of 75 listed A-REITs from four countries which are Malaysia, Singapore, Japan and Hong Kong. Our analysis shows that the distributions of the financial performance for A-REITs are not equal for Malaysia, Singapore, Japan and Hong Kong using Independent Sample Kruskal-Wallis test. Represents by unbalance data retrieved from Bloomberg’s database, Hong Kong is rank highest in term of sustainable growth performance than the others three countries. We also found Malaysia REITs provide more stable dividend yield and return on asset among the four countries. Generally, Japan REITS has the lowest mean rank for all the three indicators of financial performance. The findings of the study will have important implications for investors who intend to use Asian REITs as an alternative for international diversification purpose by diversify the property type and geographical risks in their portfolios.