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This paper examines the evolution and impact of property development activities on REIT performance. The paper provides insights on whether REITs should venture into property development in addition to their core-business of holding income producing properties.

This paper charts and highlights the evolution of development activities of US REITs from 1992 to 2020. The Tobin's Q of property developing REITs and non-property developing REITs are compared using univariate analysis.

Development activities of US REITs grew dramatically during the run up to global financial crisis (GFC) in 2008. The level of development activities has dropped since the GFC and it has not return to its pre-crisis peak. In comparison, development activities of listed property investment companies and homebuilders are less volatile over the same period. The data reveals that property developing REITs enjoy significantly higher Tobin's Q as compared to their non-developing counterparts.

Our graphical evidence from a market without development restriction suggests that development restriction in other REIT regimes has it value in limit REITs' excessive risk-taking tendency during a booming property market. The positive relationship between Tobin's Q and the existence of property development activity support the value creation of this business activity to REITs.

This paper raises overbuilding as a potential cause of the underperformance of the REIT sector during the GFC.

Corporate real estate (CRE) refers to the land and buildings owned by companies not primarily in the real estate business. Given a large concentration of corporate wealth in real estate and that management is committed to increasing shareholders’ wealth, this paper identifies and discusses three major issues regarding the authors’ understanding of strategic CRE analysis and management from the perspectives of end‐users, corporate finance and capital markets. The paper reviews recent studies and evidence related to these questions and considers future research that promises to be challenging and fruitful.

Despite its rapid development in the last decade, facilities management (FM) stills suffers from an identity crisis as the definition and scope of FM remains a contentious issue. To this end, three fundamental issues are re‐examined in this paper: what FM constitutes; what a facility manager is; and how the FM profession can be enhanced. These issues remain critical as they represent the building blocks of the FM discipline. Without a common platform, the development of FM is likely to be fragmented. An evaluation of the definitions of FM provided in the past suggests that the focus of FM is clearly on the workplace. The key issues confronting FM are the location, type, quantity, quality, content and allocation of the workspace. A professional facilities manager is one who is formally trained and whose main responsibility is the strategic management of the workplace. Three factors are suggested to be important for the development of FM as a professional discipline. They include a clear role and scope of FM in the industry and firm, contribution to the bottom‐line of the firm, and development of specialist knowledge and toolbox for addressing the problems of strategic workplace management. Some potential areas for theoretical developments have been suggested in this paper.

This paper aims to address two questions related to the magnetism or drawing power of suburban malls: first, does physical size matter, and second, what is the externalities effect of housing a Cineplex within a shopping center?

The study was carried out through an extensive survey covering 1,283 shoppers in nine selected suburban shopping centers in Singapore. The effects of physical size and the presence of Cineplex on the magnetism on the selected suburban shopping centers are evaluated using analysis of variance (ANOVA) tests. Their effect on shopping duration and expenditure pattern is also empirically tested using a recursive simultaneous equations model.

The survey results affirm that both physical size and the presence of a Cineplex enhance the magnetism of suburban shopping centers. A larger shopping center can facilitate a greater variety of shops and create a more pleasant environment for the shoppers, thus enticing shoppers to visit and stay longer. Cinema patrons prefer to watch movies at Cineplex located in shopping centers. Controlling for the endogenous relationship between duration of visit and amount spent in the shopping center, the regression results show that, while physical size and Cineplex have a positive effect on the duration of visit, they do not necessarily have a direct effect on the amount spent by the patrons in the shopping center.

One of the main challenges for mall owners and managers located outside the traditional shopping belt is how to attract shoppers to patronize their malls. While the impact of shopping center size on retail rents and center attractiveness has been addressed in the literature, this paper adds some new insights into the field. The focus on whether the presence of a cinema complex within a shopping center affects its magnetism or not is novel.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between the state of development in the capital market and the debt ratios of 579 property companies publicly listed in 13 countries.

A total of two indices are first constructed to measure the maturity of the debt and equity capital market in each country from 1994 to 2007. Panel regressions are then carried out to examine the impact of capital market maturity on the financial gearing of property companies.

The authors observe that the maturity of the capital market is correlated with the stage of development of the respective economies. The panel regression results show that the maturity of the debt capital market has a significant and positive influence on the firms' capital structure. In contrast, developments in the equity capital market have an inverse impact on the debt ratios of property companies.

Overall, the development of the capital markets is good for capital intensive property companies who may face challenges to obtain external funding in transition economies with underdeveloped capital markets. As the capital markets of these economies mature, coupled with improvements in the legal and institutional framework, property companies will have more scope to raise capital to expand their operations.

The paper offers international evidence on, first, the capital structure practices of property companies in different regions, and second, how capital market development influences the firms' financing decisions.