European Property
The Phantom of Recovery
Top pick Unibail-Rodamco; stock to avoid IVG; and 7
rating changes
Property
Harm MeijerAC
(44-20) 7325-9248
harm.m.meijer@jpmorgan.com
Osmaan Malik, CFA
(44-20) 7325-6084
osmaan.malik@jpmorgan.com
J.P. Morgan Securities Ltd.
For Specialist Sales advice, please
contact
Tim Leckie
(44-20) 7325-6310
timothy.x.leckie@jpmorgan.com
See page 70 for analyst certification and important disclosures, including non-US analyst disclosures.
J.P. Morgan does and seeks to do business with companies covered in its research reports. As a result, investors should be aware that the firm may
have a conflict of interest that could affect the objectivity of this report. Investors should consider this report as only a single factor in making their
investment decision.
Table 1: Rating changes
Company
Old
Rating
New
Rating
Derwent London N UW
Great Portland N UW
alstria OW N
Beni Stabili N UW
Fonciere dRegions OW N
Klepierre N OW
Source: J.P. Morgan.
After falling 69% from its high on 19 Feb 07, the sector recently rebounded
20% from its low on 21 Nov 08 with ‘issue’ stocks jumping as much as 100%.
Despite a glimmer of hope — we downgrade our price targets on 14 stocks by
an average of only 3% — we unfortunately don’t believe we are there yet and
see the latest moves up as chasing a phantom of recovery:
• 1. The sector is 15% too expensive, on our estimates, with risks skewed to
the downside (our bull case: +28%; our bear case: -47%).
• 2. In particular, stocks of company’s with perceived ‘issues’, like IVG,
Metrovacesa, Pirelli RE and REALIA, look overvalued. Our top pick
remains Unibail-Rodamco while our preferred pair trades are a) long
Shaftesbury, short GPOR; b) long Unibail, short Pirelli RE; and c) long
VastNed OI, short IVG.
• 3. 70% of our coverage faces loan covenant or financing issues, which is
troubling, in particular as we estimate that the average Loan-to-Value on
UK investment property will rise to 102% in 2009, i.e. negative equity.
We and our UK Banks team believe that this may result in a debt
restructuring via the creation of a good and bad bank, which may happen
rather sooner than later.
• 4. Companies need to take action. We estimate 34% of our coverage
universe of 32 companies needs equity issues while 53% are likely to cut
dividends. We believe that companies have generally been too passive so
far, and don’t understand why equity raisings have been virtually nonexistent
given attractive pricing and generally the modest amounts needed of
only about