Unexpected Inflation, Capital Structure and Real Risk-Adjusted Firm Performance

Managers can improve real risk-adjusted firm performance by matching nominal assets with nominal liabilities, thereby reducing the sensitivity of real risk-adjusted returns to unexpected inflation. The Net Asset Value (NAV) of US equity Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs) serves as a good proxy for nominal assets and accordingly we use a sample of US REITs to test our hypothesis. We find that for the firms in our sample: (i) their real, risk-adjusted performance, and (ii) their inflation hedging qualities are inversely related to deviations from this "matching-nominals" argument. In addition to providing managers with a vehicle to maximise real, risk-adjusted performance, our findings also provide investors with the tools to infer inflation-hedging qualities of equity investments