RMZ Grows to 144 Equity REITs

NEW YORK CITY—Five equity REITs, including three that have gone public in the past six months, have been added to the MSCI US REIT Index, locally based MSCI Inc. said Tuesday. Columbia Property Trust, NorthStar Realty Finance, Paramount Group, STORE Capital and Xenia Hotels & Resorts all will appear in the RMZ as of May 29, brining the total to 144 REIT securities.

New York City-based PGRE and Scottsdale, AZ-based STOR each made their initial public offerings following the completion of MSCI's semi-annual Index Review for November 2014. “As a newly public REIT, being added to the index is an important milestone for STORE and reflects the results we have achieved since our IPO,” which was oversubscribed at $585 million, says Chris Volk, STOR's president and CEO. For its part, PGRE, an office landlord with properties on both coasts, held the largest IPO the REIT sector has seen to date, going public with the sale of $2.6 billion of shares.

Formerly known as the Morgan Stanley REIT Index, the RMZ has mainly grown steadily over the past decade since being renamed in May 2005, with even the global financial crisis of 2008 not doing much to slow the momentum. Beginning with the November '08 review, the index has added 45 REITs including the five latest, while four have been deleted, according to MSCI data.

This past November, the review saw four REITs added and one deleted. That broke a two-year streak of five REITs being added into the index every six months, with no deletions. May 2012 saw no changes to the index, while five were added six months earlier.

MSCI's US REIT Index is a free float market capitalization weighted benchmark that is comprised of equity REIT securities that belong to the MSCI US Investable Market 2500 Index. The index is designed to cover about two-thirds of the value of the entire US REIT market. To be eligible for inclusion, REITs must have a market capitalization of at least $100 million, with enough shares and trading volume to be considered liquid.