dCold towards thousands of members of real estate investment companies: they have seen the price of their shares fall in recent quarters without being able to do much, with their money blocked. In the slumber of summer 2023, SCPI managers who invest mainly in offices announced a reduction in the share price. Encouraged by the Financial Markets Authority to evaluate their real estate assets to take into account – downwards – the evolution of the market, these SCPI, whose capitalization amounted to several billion euros, experienced a depreciation of their assets, under the effect of the increase in interest rates and the changes that the office real estate sector is going through, with the search for smaller spaces but located in the centers of urban areas.
This drop caused a wave of withdrawals of money deposited in these products sought for the regular income they provided and often distributed by large banking networks. “The market is very complicated and savers are a little lost”acknowledges Foulques de Sainte Marie, director of Mata Capital IM.
However, the SCPI landscape is far from completely devastated. “Some are in delicate situations, but, for a good part of the pending items, there has been no price reduction on the part, let alone a blockage. The market is fragmented »observes Frédéric Augusto of Stellium Placement. At the end of September, the value of shares pending withdrawal amounted to 2.6 billion euros, almost 3% of the total capitalization of the SCPI. “The situation of pending actions continues to be very varied depending on the players,” points out the French Association of Real Estate Investment Companies (Aspim). In fact, the phenomenon is very concentrated: of a total of 215 SCPI, 93 managed by only 18 management companies had shares pending redemption at the end of September. The crisis may be acute in some of them. “The shares pending withdrawal from the SCPI of La Française represent 7.63% of the total capitalization of the SCPI of the management company”underlines the analysis firm RocknData, which also indicates that SCPI specialized in offices represented 78% of withdrawal requests.
Panic
In certain SCPI, “There could be liquidity problems for another two or three years”estimates Louis Martial, deputy CEO of Consultim Asset Management. It is evident that those who need to get their money back quickly may encounter difficulties. “We can observe a movement of panic among some. It is important to know if this is a self-conscious seller, that is, one who needs money. Otherwise, it’s better to wait.” acknowledges Martin Alix, director of product development at Primonial. In reality, most of the outstanding actions come from life insurance companies that held SCPI on behalf of their clients. The latter have often already been reimbursed, because insurers must guarantee the liquidity of the funds.
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