CURRENCY RISK MANAGEMENT PRACTICES BY AUSTRALIAN LISTED PROPERTY TRUSTS

Many Australian listed property trusts (LPTs) have significant levels of international property in their portfolios and have adopted a range of currency risk management strategies to mitigate some of this LPT risk due to their international property exposure. A survey of LPTs with international property is used to assess the characteristics of their international property portfolios and their currency risk management strategies for both capital and income risk management. In addition to the natural hedging strategies, increased use is being made of hedging procedures for both capital and income risk management. Different risk management strategies were also evident, depending on whether the LPT had a 100 % international property portfolio or a merged domestic/international property portfolio