< The 2016 All-Europe Research Team
Osmaan Malik & team
UBS
First-place appearances: 5
Total appearances: 41
Team debut: 1986
Unranked the past three years, UBS’s European property squad roars back to claim second place on this roster and post its best showing since 2006. Newcomer Osmaan Malik, 34, manages the sector coverage. “I see UBS real estate research as having been reborn under Osmaan and his team,” one admirer declares. “There is an underlying theme to his research, which flows through in terms of consideration about stock specifics.” Malik graduated from England’s University of Leeds with a bachelor’s degree in psychology. He tracked this sector at J.P. Morgan Cazenove for ten years before jumping to his current firm in October 2013. His two-person, London-based crew is looking to add a third team member in the first quarter of this year and to expand its coverage beyond the current count of 34 companies. Looking forward, the analysts are constructive on the group. “We think quantitative easing provides helpful tailwinds for real estate, and while bond yields are low, it is helpful for real estate pricing. But the ultimate aim of QE is to stoke inflation, and real estate captures inflation through higher rents,” explains Malik. Valuations aren’t stretched in the U.K., he adds, and “exciting stories” can be found in continental Europe, particularly in Germany and Spain. “Finally, consolidation seems here to stay, particularly if valuations remain compelling.” As for specific companies, UBS’s duo likes Hispania Activos Inmobiliarios, noting that the property manager is “tapping the Spanish real estate recovery, with a management team that can unpick complex deals and whose incentives are well aligned with shareholders’,” Malik says. Hispania’s shares closed at €11.17 in mid-January, and the analysts believe that a price of €15 is justified. Among German players they prefer residential real estate investor ADO Properties, which boasts a high-quality Berlin portfolio, they advise, and is trading at a discount to peers. Their price objective for ADO is €30, indicating a potential upside of 23.4 percent compared with its value in mid-January.
