Nancy Anderson, vice president of financial reporting and CFO at REALPAC, participated in a video interview at Nareit’s REITwise: 2019 Law, Accounting & Finance Conference in San Antonio.
Anderson noted that fundamentals are still “pretty strong” in the Canadian REIT market due to low vacancy and high demand. She said that 2018 marked the third consecutive year of record investment in Canada.
Meanwhile, Anderson explained that the Canadian REIT market may not yet be ready to expand into newer real estate sectors like data centers and cell towers. While Canadian REITs have data centers as tenants, it is yet to be seen whether they could be rolled out as pure play REITs, she said. As for cell towers, legal opinion in Canada has yet to be settled on whether cell towers can be classified as real property.
Anderson also said REALPAC is anxiously awaiting targeted improvements to the structure and content of primary financial statements from the International Accounting Standard Board (IASB). She noted that it is not clear whether the IASB will publish a discussion paper or exposure draft.