Global Property Research has created a series of property indices, which take account of the cost of currency hedging. The GPR 250 Hedged Index Series, the company says, is the first property share index to assume a currency hedge strategy in benchmark calculations.
Demand for a hedged property index has emerged as a result of developments in the market over the last few years.
Investors have increasingly focused on property markets worldwide, partly because of their relative outperformance compared with other asset classes, says GPR.
The consolidation of global listed property companies has cut the number of companies and forced investors to broaden their investment area. This, in turn, has led to property investors having to hedge their foreign currency exposure, says GPR.
The GPR 250 Hedged Index Series takes the GPR 250 Index Series as a starting point. The total hedged return is the sum of the total unhedged return of the GPR 250 and the hedged impact. The hedged impact consists of the costs of a forward contract minus the change in the spot exchange rate.
The index will be calculated on a monthly basis and will have five layers of aggregation – world, continent, country, region and zone. It is available in euro and US dollar denominations.