SINGAPORE INDUSTRIAL REIT PERFORMANCE DURING THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC

Abstract

As the devastating economic and social impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic are felt across the world, companies scramble to ensure the short-term viability of their business. Singapore’s REIT industry, which has been coined for its steady growth and long-term stability, has not been spared from the clutches of this global crisis. An understanding of the impacts of COVID-19 infections on industrial S-REIT return performance will be established in this study. Primarily, this study aims to isolate the impact of local COVID-19 cases on industrial S-REIT performance. By extension, it also aims to understand whether firm-specific characteristics have an impact on the stock market returns of industrial S-REITs during the global pandemic. By focusing on the first three quarters of 2020 when major COVID-19 related developments occurred, it was found via a pooled OLS regression that the number of daily COVID-19 local COVID-19 infections have a significant impact on the stock market returns of industrial S-REITs. On the other hand, the market capitalisation and price-to-book ratio of each firm have no significant impact on the stock market returns of the S-REITs. The outcome of this paper is crucial in enhancing the pool of global as well as local research surrounding the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic; a greater understanding of the interconnectedness between this crisis and the industrial S-REIT industry will be achieved in tandem too.