No. of Recommendations: 2
I previously mentioned that quite a few REITs in the US in the 1990s arbitraged 'property market reality' against 'stock market' opinion with success to raise their NAV and their share price. There's an example or two in the UK as well.
In 2017 British Land did a buyback into a 30% discount to NAV.
https://www.investorschronicle.co.uk/content/081b7...https://uk.marketscreener.com/quote/stock/THE-BRIT...In this case, British Land had sold off a 50% stake in a prestige building for greater than NAV price earlier in 2017 to raise cash. The day the buyback was launched, the price of BLND was 604p, forecast NAV for 2018 was around 900p.
Three months later, the price was 680p. Six months later, the price was 695p.
... notably, many years later, the price is now 402p :-)
The lesson to me seems to be that these situations are extremely tradeable as medium term (12-36 month) plays, but one should not get carried away with enthusiasm. As Jim notes, for the long term holder, structural decline or management cashing in the wrong things, should always be kept in mind as potential worries down the line in any stock including REITs.
As always I have checked facts to the best of my ability, please excuse any errors or inaccuracies you discover.
TRS
