Analysts are upgrading Swedish real estate stocks after recent selloffs have made them too cheap to ignore and as recent measures to shore up highly-leveraged balance sheets have improved some of their outlooks.
Barclays analysts led by Paul May in a client note Tuesday double-upgraded landlord Castellum AB to overweight from underweight, calling it better placed than its more highly-leveraged peers. The analysts cited the company’s planned 10 billion Swedish krona ($955 million) rights issue as a major reason for the upgrade due to it lowering Castellum’s leverage amid surging borrowing costs.
Separately, Pareto Securities upgraded Fastighets AB Balder to buy from hold. Analyst Emil Ekholm said the market is pricing in too much negativity, quoting the sector’s resilience in tougher macroeconomic times.
Swedish landlords and their high leverage versus European peers have come into the spotlight in recent months. The share price of Samhallsbyggnadsbolaget i Norden AB, or SBB, was decimated last week after its credit rating was cut to junk at S&P Global. The credit agency said it no longer believed the landlord could meet its thresholds for investment-grade debt metrics. The announcement weighed on the wider sector in Stockholm.
Balder’s shares temporarily erased a loss following the upgrade while Castellum took a leg higher, gaining as much as 2.6%, leading gains on the European Stoxx 600 Real Estate benchmark.
