Alex Short, former manager of AEW UK Reit (AEWU ), has joined LXI Reit Advisors as chief investment officer as the fund manager beefs up its team following the merger of its LXI (LXI ) real estate investment trust with Secure Income last year.

Short, who was lead manager of the £164m AEWU for seven years from its launch in May 2015, picking up two Citywire performance awards in 2020 and 2021 (see below, left AEW UK Investment Management in May last year.

According to her Linkedin page, last September she joined Alvarium, the owner of LXI Reit Advisors and also, until last month, the fund manager of Home Reit (HOME ), the homeless accommodation provider whose shares have been suspended during an inquiry into allegations of mismanagement and over valuation.

The £24m sale of Alvarium Home Reit Advisors to its management team cleared the path for parent company Alvarium Investments’ New York wealth manager the Tiedemann Group to create Alvarium Tiedemann Holdings listed on the Nasdaq exchange.

A spokesman for LXI, a £2.4bn diversified property fund specialising in long inflation-linked leases, said its investment management team led by Simon Lee and John White was completely separate from the team managing Home Reit. 

News of Short’s appointment comes follow reports that the National Crime Agency is assessing allegations of bribery in relation to some property acquisitions by Home, which also faces the threat of a shareholder lawsuit after the collapse of its share price after a highly critical report by short-seller Viceroy Research.

Short’s arrival was announced in a trading update in which LXI said its fund manager had also appointed Alex MacEachin as finance director. He joins from Empiric Student Property (ESP ) where he was group financial controller. 

LXI shares firmed a penny to 114.8p as the company said annual rent reviews of 6% of its rent roll had risen by an average of 3.5% since October and that all rent had been collected. The 5.4%-yielder also declared a quarterly dividend of 1.575p per share in line with its annual target of 6.3p.

Unlike other Reits, which have recently reported fourth quarter valuation updates, LXI did not publish a fresh net asset value. It said the next valuation date was its financial year-end at 31 March and that the NAV would be released in early April before its annual results in May.

LXI shares have de-rated sharply in the past six months, dropping 22% to a 19% discount below their asset value, in response to rising interest rates and declines in property values. 

Numis Securities analyst Andrew Rees said it was reassuring to see the expected rental growth coming through despite the poor economic backdrop and the selloff in Reits. 

He said the shares had fallen 3.6% in the past three months, trailing the 9.9% total return of the FTSE EPRA Nearest UK index. This was likely due to caution over the fund’s upcoming refinancings with over £700m of debt expiring in the next two years.

Nervousness over the fund manager’s corporate connection to Home Reit could also be playing a part, the analyst said, though he rated LXI’s team highly and viewed the low share price rating as ‘attractive’ given their long-term record.

Underlying investment rents of 74% over five years are among the best in the UK commercial property sector, outside logistics and warehouse funds, according to Numis data.