Real Estate Exposure and Asset Intensity

Abstract

Executive Summary. Real estate accounts for a significant proportion of the corporate assets of publicly listed companies. The real estate exposure of publicly traded companies in land scare economies such as Hong Kong and Singapore is particularly high. This study explores the real estate exposure of listed companies in Singapore where non-real estate companies are classified by their real estate asset intensity. A six-factor Arbitrage Pricing Theory (APT) model, capturing changes in real estate prices, industrial production, expected inflation, unanticipated inflation, risk premium and term structure, shows that real estate exposure is priced. In addition, the real estate risk premium is found to vary across companies with different real estate asset intensity. A close linkage is also established between real estate exposure and various industries. Other than the real estate-intensive industries such as real estate, hotel and construction, conglomerates and financial companies also have a high exposure to real estate. Interestingly, our analysis shows that real estate exposure, which is computationally tedious to determine, can be proxied by real estate asset intensity, a simple accounting measure. The implications for portfolio management in a land-scare market are examined.