Corporate Real Estate Practice in Australia

This paper will investigate the corporate real estate practices of some 30 major corporations in Australia. It is a preliminary research document that will attempt to study such areas as, the amount of CRE shown on balance sheets, the relationship of those holdings to overall assets, as well other new and innovative ways of assessing CRE performance (from the balance sheet) and its relationship to company performance. To enable this research to be undertaken the various corporations will also be investigated to see if they actually have CRE departments, what staffing levels are in the CRE departments, (if any) what outsourcing is occurring, what benchmarking measures are in place to assess the performance of their CRE, if ëgain shareí practices are in operation, if flexible CRE practices are used and if CRE assets are operated as cost or profit centres. The preliminary conclusions indicate that there is a great disparity between corporations. This may indicate that certain classes/types of companies do not need the CRE assets that others do. It may also indicate, as previously supported by other research, that some companies fail to capitalize on the potential of their CRE assets to increase overall return and in the long run increase shareholder value.