Pubs and REITs

Lots of other people seem to be doing so and at one point the pub sector seemed to be about to be going through a significant re-rating on the strength of the announcements. After all, pub companies own lots of real estate and their share prices don’t appear to reflect the value of that property – all sounds like a no brainer. Well sorry to be a spoilsport, but lets take a reality check: just as the property companies who converted to REITs have found over the last 18 months, a change in tax status doesn’t change the market in which you operate. It improves your balance sheet, it makes i...