The Financial Performance of Newly Launched Chinese Infrastructure REITs

This paper explores the financial performance of the first group of nine infrastructure real estate investment trusts (REITs) that went public in mainland China in June 2021. Under the short-term event study framework, this research compares the abnormal returns and correlations of nine Chinese REITs with three groups of competitors (i.e., 49 quasi-REITs, 54 infrastructure asset-backed securities (ABSs), and 132 Wind utility firms). Three approaches are used to evaluate the performance of REITs: Risk-return indicators (e.g., Sharpe ratios and Jensen's alphas) and raw returns measure the preliminary results, and panel data analyses capture the relative advantages of REITs over their competitors within the infrastructure industry. REITs are small-cap firms with the largest Sharpe ratios and greater diversification potential than the ABSs. Despite beating the market, they did not start to trade with a premium until the first month after their initial public offerings (IPOs). Post-event annualized abnormal returns are more than 15% against the ABSs and close to zero against Wind utility firms after controlling for key financial variables, and three mechanisms behind the REIT IPOs (i.e., asset type, taxation, and liquidity) are verified. Therefore, REITs outperform quasi-REITs and infrastructure ABSs as well as the market proxies, and their launch brought out favorable outcomes.