Clawback Provisions in Real Estate Investment Trusts

Using a sample of 195 unique real estate investment trusts (REITs), we examine factors related to the adoption of clawback provisions within managerial compensation contracts. In general, we find strong and consistent empirical evidence that clawback provision are directly related to firm size, complexity, leverage, growth options, monitoring incentives, and CEO performance incentives. We also find that clawbacks are associated with enhanced market and accounting performance, with stronger performance relations observed for adoption decisions tied directly to regulatory mandates. In sum, we conclude compensation clawback provisions represent a value-relevant, strategic governance mechanism for REITs

Advisor Choice in Asia-Pacific Property Markets

This paper examines advisor choice decisions by publicly traded REITs and listed property companies in Asia-Pacific real estate markets. Using a sample of 168 firms, we find robust evidence that firms strategically evaluate and compare the increased agency costs associated with external advisement against the potential benefits associated with collocating decision rights with location specific soft information. Our empirical results reveal real estate companies tend to hire external advisors when they invest in countries: 1) that are more economically and politically unstable, 2) whose legal system is based on civil law, 3) where the level of corruption is perceived to be high, and 4) when disclosure is relatively poor. Additionally, we find the probability of retaining an external advisor is directly related to the expected agency costs. Lastly, we find evidence of return premiums in excess of 13 % for firms whose organizational structure matches their investment profile. As such, we conclude that the decision to hire an external advisor represents a value relevant trade-off between the costs and benefits of this organizational arrangement

Capital Structure and Political Risk in Asia-Pacific Real Estate Markets

This study investigates the determinants of capital structure decisions by real estate firms, with a specific focus on the impact of political risk on leverage. Using a sample of Asia-Pacific REITs and listed property trusts, we find those firms with properties located in countries characterized by relatively high degrees of political risk, such as political instability, and/or greater uncertainty in the ability to repatriate and monetize profits from international investment activities, employ less debt than their counterparts operating in more politically stable environments. This core finding remains robust to alternative sample selection criteria including the division of the sample into high versus low market-to-book value firms, and also holds within the subset of organizations that are active in raising additional capital in the secondary markets

The Impact of Geographic and Cultural Dispersion on Information Opacity

This paper investigates the influences of intrafirm geographic and cultural dispersion, the distance between the location of a firm’s investments and its headquarters, on the firm’s information environment. Specifically, using a sample of publicly traded real estate companies across the Asia-Pacific region, we examine how intrafirm geographic and cultural distance impacts a firm’s capital acquisition costs. As a consequence of both the heavily regulated operating environment faced by these firms, as well as the capital intensive nature of this industry, funding costs should be of pronounced importance to firms within this sector. Consistent with this paradigm, we find that firms with geographically disperse investments exhibit enhanced informational opacity. Specifically, firms with more geographically disperse investments exhibit higher capital acquisition costs than their more geographically concentrated counterparts. Similarly, firms with more culturally disparate investments also exhibit enhanced informational opacity, as evidenced by increased capital costs. Additionally, we present evidence that the impact of both physical and cultural distance is increasing following the global financial crisis. Taken together, our results provide strong evidence that both intrafirm geographic and cultural dispersion materially impact both an organization’s information environment and funding costs

The Natural History of Globus Pharyngeus

Globus pharyngeus is a common disorder and accounts for 5% of all ENT referrals. Objectives. To evaluate the role of barium swallow and endoscopy in these patients, to ascertain the incidence, if any, of aerodigestive tract malignancy in this group and to assess the natural evolution of globus pharyngeus. Materials and Methods. Seventy-nine patients underwent barium swallow and rigid oesophagoscopy for globus pharyngeus between January 2005 and October 2008. Fifty-five patients were contacted by phone on average 5 years and 3 months after intervention and asked if their symptoms still persisted. Twenty-four patients were uncontactable or lost to followup, three patients were deceased, two of cardiac related disease and one of renal failure. Results. The majority of patients, 36 of 55 (65%), had a normal barium swallow. Forty-five of 55 (82%) of patients had normal rigid endoscopies. Thirty-one of 55 (56%) patients were at an average followup time of 5 years and 3 months. No patient developed a malignant lesion. Conclusion. Globus pharyngeus is a relatively common but benign condition of indeterminate origin. Our study demonstrates that many of these patients spontaneously improve with time

Open vent volcanoes fuelled by depth-integrated magma degassing

Open-vent, persistently degassing volcanoes—such as Stromboli and Etna (Italy), Villarrica (Chile), Bagana and Manam (Papua New Guinea), Fuego and Pacaya (Guatemala) volcanoes—produce high gas fluxes and infrequent violent strombolian or ‘paroxysmal’ eruptions that erupt very little magma. Here we draw on examples of open-vent volcanic systems to highlight the principal characteristics of their degassing regimes and develop a generic model to explain open-vent degassing in both high and low viscosity magmas and across a range of tectonic settings. Importantly, gas fluxes from open-vent volcanoes are far higher than can be supplied by erupting magma and independent migration of exsolved volatiles is integral to the dynamics of such systems. The composition of volcanic gases emitted from open-vent volcanoes is consistent with its derivation from magma stored over a range of crustal depths that in general requires contributions from both magma decompression (magma ascent and/or convection) and iso- and polybaric second boiling processes. Prolonged crystallisation of water-rich basalts in crustal reservoirs produces a segregated exsolved hydrous volatile phase that may flux through overlying shallow magma reservoirs, modulating heat flux and generating overpressure in the shallow conduit. Small fraction water-rich melts generated in the lower and mid-crust may play an important role in advecting volatiles to subvolcanic reservoirs. Excessive gas fluxes at the surface are linked to extensive intrusive magmatic activity and endogenous crustal growth, aided in many cases by extensional tectonics in the crust, which may control the longevity and activity of open-vent volcanoes. There is emerging abundant geophysical evidence for the existence of a segregated exsolved magmatic volatile phase in magma storage regions in the crust. Here we provide a conceptual picture of gas-dominated volcanoes driven by magmatic intrusion and degassing throughout the crust

Remote Characterization of Dominant Wavelengths From Surface Folding on Lava Flows Using Lidar and Discrete Fourier Transform Analyses

Surface folding is common in lava flows of all compositions and is believed to be due to changes in viscosity and flow velocity between the cooling crust and the more fluid flow interior. However, our understanding of the relationship between surface folding and flow rheology is incomplete. In this study we analyze digital terrain models of eight lava flows ranging in composition from basaltic andesite to rhyolite using a discrete Fourier transform analysis to quantitatively determine dominant surface fold wavelengths. Our discrete Fourier transform analyses show that each lava flow has multiple fold generations and that dominant wavelengths are more closely related to calculated effective viscosity than to lava composition. At our Oregon sites, average dominant wavelengths generally increase with viscosity (r2=0.68), and the correlation improves (r2=0.87) when expanded by including previously measured fold wavelengths and viscosities from the global database. However, there are a few exceptions to this positive trend where a few lava flows have lower or higher than expected dominant fold wavelengths, which we infer are due to secondary factors such as differences in eruption conditions (eruption rate, temperature, etc.). Additionally, over a 5 order of magnitude range in viscosity, there is significant overlap between the ranges of fold wavelengths, particularly from 10 to 20m, for lavas from basaltic andesite to rhyolite, making it difficult to determine a numeric correlation between surface folds and lava rheology that would allow remote characterization of lava

Political Risk and the Cost of Capital in Asia-Pacific Property Markets

This study investigates the impact of political risk on the cost of capital for publicly traded real estate firms. More specifically, by using a sample of 102 REITs and listed property trusts, which hold nearly 6,000 distinct investment properties across the Asia-Pacific region, we find strong empirical evidence that increased exposure to political risk increases both the cost of equity financing of a firm and its weighted average cost of capital. Interestingly, no such linkages are apparent between political risk and the cost of debt of a firm. These empirical results are robust to a variety of alternative measures of political risk, including a: 1) political rights index, 2) political change index, and 3) corruption perceptions index

Insights into the dynamics of mafic magmatic-hydromagmatic eruptions from volatile degassing behaviour: The Hverfjall Fires, Iceland

The style and intensity of hydromagmatic activity is governed by a complex interplay between the relative volumes of magma and water that interact, their relative viscosities, the depth of subsurface explosions, the substrate properties, and the vent geometry. Fundamental questions remain, however, regarding the role of magmatic vesiculation in determining the dynamics of magma-water interaction (MWI). Petrological reconstructions of magmatic degassing histories are commonly employed to interpret the pre- and syn-eruptive conditions during ‘dry’ magmatic eruptions, but the application of similar techniques to hydromagmatic activity has not yet been fully explored. In this study, we integrate glass volatile measurements (S, Cl, H2O and CO2) with field observations and microtextural measurements to examine the relationship between degassing and eruptive style during the Hverfjall Fires fissure eruption, Iceland. Here, coeval fissure vents produced both ‘dry’ magmatic (Jarðbaðshólar scoria cone complex) and variably wet hydromagmatic (Hverfjall tuff ring) activity, generating physically distinct pyroclastic deposits with contrasting volatile signatures. Matrix glass volatile concentrations in hydromagmatic ash (883 ± 172 [1σ] ppm S; 0.45 ± 0.03 [1σ] wt% H2O; ≤20 ppm CO2) are consistently elevated relative to magmatic ash and scoria lapilli (418 ± 93 [1σ] ppm S; 0.12 ± 0.48 [1σ] wt% H2O; CO2 below detection) and overlap with the range for co-erupted phenocryst-hosted melt inclusions (1522 ± 127 [1σ] ppm S; 165 ± 27 [1σ] ppm Cl). Measurements of hydromagmatic glasses indicate that the magma has degassed between 17 and 70% of its initial sulfur prior to premature quenching at variably elevated confining pressures. By comparing volatile saturation pressures for both magmatic and hydromagmatic glasses, and how these vary through the eruptive stratigraphy, we place constraints on the conditions of MWI. Crucially, our data demonstrate that the magma was already vesiculating when it encountered groundwater at depths of 100–200 m, and that the external water supply was sufficient to maintain MWI throughout the eruption with no significant vertical or lateral migration of the fragmentation surface. We propose that development of an in-vent water-sediment slurry provides a mechanism through which the elevated confining pressures of ~1.6–2.6 MPa (or up to 6 MPa accounting for uncertainty in CO2 below analytical detection) could be maintained and buffered throughout the eruption, whilst enabling vertical mixing and ejection of fragmented juvenile and lithic material from a range of depths. Importantly, these results demonstrate that the volatile contents of hydromagmatic deposits provide valuable records of (1) the environment of MWI (e.g., groundwater versus surface water, vertical migration of the fragmentation level) and (2) the state of the magma at the time of fragmentation and quenching. We further suggest that the volatile content of tephra glasses provides a reliable alternative (or additional) indicator of a hydromagmatic origin, particularly for reduced Ocean Island Basalts where late-stage volatile saturation and degassing (S, H2O) occurs over a pressure range relevant to typical MWI environments.Postgraduate scholarship from University of Bristol AXA Research Fund Royal Society Wolfson Merit Award Royal Society University Research Fellowship New Researchers Award from the Geologists’ Associatio