The capital credit value components

In early 2007, further banks were granted licences to trade the NCREIF property index and are planning to launch a US platform to trade property derivatives (Four more banks, 2007). By December 2007, seven banks were licensed to trade derivatives on the NCREIF commercial property index. Besides Credit Suisse, Bank of America, Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs, Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch and Morgan Stanley are involved. The traded volume reached US$ 300 million by late 2007. More banks are expected to sign up for a licence contract within a few months (Banks move, 2007; Property derivatives, 2007). Given the potential, hedge funds and insurance companies are also starting to show interest in developing the US market for property derivatives.

Credit Suisse initially offered three basic trades to investors: Price Return Swaps on the capital value return component of the NPI, Property Type Swaps on the total return by property type subindices (for all reported property types except hotels, as hotels comprise only less than 3% of the overall index) and Total Rate of Return Swaps for the NPI total return:

In a Price Return Swap, the capital value return component, published quarterly by NCREIF, is exchanged against a fixed spread. The fixed spread is used to balance demand on both the long and short sides of the trade (see Chapter 8 on the property spread).

A Property Type Swap on the total return by property type subindices is a total rate of return swap transaction in which an investor takes a long position in one property type and a short position in a different property type, based on the respective property type subindices. Depending on the property type swap that is entered into, the investor will either pay or receive a fixed spread to enter into this swap. The fixed spread will be determined by supply and demand in the market, and therefore could be positive, negative or zero.

In a Total Rate of Return Swap for the NPI total return the quarterly total return published by NCREIF is exchanged against a three-month LIBOR plus or minus a spread. The spread is used to balance demand on both the long and short sides of the trade.

All trades are notional based. This means that they are unfunded and the only cash needed upfront to enter the trades are margin requirements necessary to manage counterparty risk evaluated on a counterparty-by-counterparty basis. The trades settle quarterly and have a maturity of two to three years. In April 2007, the property company CBRE claimed that the first trade on a US subindex had been closed.