BT global property gets debut rating

As Colonial First State’s global listed property offering languishes with Morningstar’s lowest ‘avoid’ rating following the loss of its team to Perennial, BT’s global listed property strategy has been given a debut rating of ‘investment grade’ by the researcher.

BT launched the strategy in July 2004, but it initially invested solely in North America and was therefore not considered a global strategy.

In May last year the strategy’s focus was expanded to include BT’s Asian and AEW’s European strategies and it was shifted to the UBS Global Real Estate Investors ex-Australia Index. Previously the strategy had resided on the Morgan Stanley REIT Index, although Morningstar did not qualitatively rate it on that index.

According to a report from the research released last week, the strategy has outperformed the UBS Index’s 8.42 per cent return by 1.85 per cent in the six months to the end of December 2005, and outperformed the benchmark in each of its three geographies.

“We’d caution it’s still early days for BT’s Asian and AEW’s European strategies, which are unproven when compared to AEW’s US strategy,” the research report said.

Meanwhile, BT’s Australian listed property offering remains on ‘hold’ following the resignation last August of Antoinette Plater, who was replaced in the role of head of property securities by Peter Davidson, a relative newcomer to global property investment.

Davidson also holds the role of portfolio manager for the global strategy, giving him ultimate say in regional allocations, although he receives advice from long-time North American portfolio manager Matthew Troxell, European portfolio manager Robert Oosterkamp, and AEW’s research area.