Data centers as an asset class. Evaluation of specialized REITs

Masters Thesis from the year 2020 in the subject Business economics - Miscellaneous, grade: 1,7, University of Regensburg (International Real Estate Business School, Institut für Immobilienwirtschaft), course: Immobilien, language: English, abstract: The main part of this thesis will be a comprehensive empirical analysis of the performance, risks and portfolio benefits of data center REITs relative to other commercial REIT sectors and major financial asset classes. The focus will be on the comparison of REIT sectors respectively property types, as this topic has rarely been dealt with in literature so far. Following research questions were formulated: How do investments in data center REITs compare to investment in other REIT sectors and major financial asset classes in terms of risk and return? How do data center REITs act in a portfolio and which benefits can be gained from including them in a portfolio of different REITs respectively different financial assets? Due to the facts that data center REITs specialize in in a property type, which requires tremendous specific knowledge and the simultaneously very supporting settings stated above, the following hypotheses will be examined: Data center REITs achieved higher returns but also higher risk than other REIT sectors and financial assets in the past. Data center REITs play a substantial role in a portfolio, that can be at-tributed in particular to the outperformance of other REIT sectors and financial assets.