The Chairman of the London Stock Exchange, Christopher Gibson-Smith, highlighted the hard work of the exchange and the U.K. property industry and government to achieve the launch of U.K. REITs on Jan. 1. “With a total of 16 companies having already converted to REITs or confirmed their intention to convert, as well as a dedicated new index, U.K. REITs are off to a good start as an asset class.”
Concurrent with the launch, the FTSE Group restructured its U.K. sub-index within the FTSE EPRA/NAREIT Global Real Estate Index. FTSE’s Director, Partnerships, Melvyn Lee, says the firm split the previous U.K. sub-index into the FTSE EPRA/NAREIT U.K. REITs Index and the FTSE EPRA/NAREIT U.K. Non-REITs Index.
“At the end of 2006, we agreed to create two new indices, the REIT index with the nine companies that announced their intention to convert at the beginning of January, and the non-REIT index with the remaining property companies,” Lee says. The FTSE EPRA/NAREIT U.K. REIT Index consists of British Land Co., Brixton, Great Portland Estates, Hammerson, Land Securities Group, Liberty International, Primary Health Properties, Slough Estates and Workspace Group.
Lee says the two indexes will be reviewed quarterly, at which time any subsequent conversions will be reflected.
The commencement of the new REIT regime was also marked at the London Stock Exchange, where several senior figures in the U.K. REIT industry convened to open the stock market on Jan. 4. The London Stock Exchange and The REITs and Quoted Property Group (REITA) report that seven other companies have confirmed their intention to adopt REIT status: Big Yellow Self Storage,
Derwent Valley
, London Merchant Securities,
McKay Securities
, MuckLow (A&J) Group, Shaftesbury and Warner Estate Holdings.
