GPR launches emerging markets Index

Global Property Research announced the launch on Thursday of a Emerging Markets Index, a subset of the GPR General Index.

The new index will track the performance of 41 listed property stocks in emerging markets. Included properties span four continents, including two Brazilian property stocks. GPR rules stipulate that companies included need to derive at least 25% of their operational turnover from (rental income generating) investment activities.

The newly developed index is a full market cap-weighted. The total market capitalization as of 30 September 2008 amounts to $ 20.1bn, of which around 42% is assigned to South Africa.

In September the European Public Real Estate Association (Epra) announced that the FTSE EPRA/NAREIT Global Real Estate Index series is being expanded to cover 20 developing countries.

GPR said this week that its General Emerging Markets Index will be available on a daily basis with three layers of aggregation: world, continent and country. The index is back-tested to 31 January 1986, when the first emerging country entered the GPR General Index. The GPR General Emerging Markets Index is calculated in 37 currencies, but only the EUR, LOC and USD denominated indices are published on Bloomberg and Reuters.

The new index arises from the increased demand from Europe and the US investors for an Emerging Markets index, according to the statement. The Emerging Markets are considered as a separate asset class with its own distinctive risk return profile. These markets have also seen very high GDP and population growth in recent years and are increasingly challenging the developed markets.