A new global index has been launched to track property stocks.
The European Public Real Estate Association (EPRA), the National Association of Real Estate Investment Trusts (NAREIT) and Euronext announced the new benchmark – the EPRA/NAREIT Global Real Estate Index.
The index combines the existing EPRA European index with new indices in North America and Asia. Stocks will be weighted according to free float, and the inclusion criteria are designed to reflect the preferences of institutional investors, the three parties said in a statement.
The index contains about 250 publicly quoted property companies in 21 countries across Europe, North America and Asia. Nick van Ommen, CEO of EPRA, says the new index was a natural expansion of the EPRA Europe index.
“It is a major step forward in the development of the global real estate equity sector, providing institutional investors with the information and analytical tools they need,” he said.
As well as a comprehensive range of sub-indices, the providers would also give individual investors a customised service, he said. The index would be distributed through established data vendors including Reuters, Bloomberg and Datastream as well as the websites of EPRA, NAREIT and Euronext.