Chair James Clifton-Brown said the negative total return to shareholders was due to a widening of the discount of the share price to NAV per share as, on 30 June 2023, the trust's share price was trading at a 43.1% discount to the NAV.
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According to data from the Association of Investment companies, the trust is currently trading at a 41.5% discount.
He noted other peers were also trading at "varying levels of wide discount", largely because of the "negative sentiment towards the UK real estate market".
"The level of discount is of great concern to the board, and we continue to explore ways that will reduce it in the long term," he added.
Sector wise, Clifton-Brown said the first half of 2023 saw a return to positive total return according to the MSCI UK Quarterly index, following a rapid repricing of real estate assets in the last quarter of 2022.
The best performing sector over the six-month period was Industrials, due to a return to capital growth led by the "continuing robust occupational market fuelling investment appetite", he said.
Overall, retail values have continued to fall, but Retail Warehousing has been resilient and demonstrated the highest total returns of any other sub-sector.
Yet the changes in working practices have had a negative impact on investor confidence in the Office sector, with values falling, although "buyers are able to take advantage of the lack of competition", he noted.
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Over the first half of the year, the trust's portfolio returned 1.7% - significantly down from the 9.5% of H1 2022. Rent collection also decreased to 95.9% of rent due compared with 97% at the end of June 2022.
The trust's occupancy rate, however, rose to 91.8% in H1 2023, from 89.8% in June 2022, with committed lettings signed but not completed adding a further 4% to occupancy rate.
By comparison, the MSCI occupancy rate was 91.8% in H1 2023 and 90.4% for H1 2022.
Three lease renewals and restructurings were undertaken over the six-month period, securing £873,820 per annum in rent, and the trust secured another eight lettings including agreements worth £1.8m a year.
It also settled three reviews with uplifts in rent, providing an additional £178,549 a year - an average 30% increase on previous rent.
Clifton-Brown said: "With a marginally positive total return during the six-months to 30 June 2023, we have seen the beginnings of a stabilisation in the UK property market. This remains a relatively fragile position, with inflation still running well ahead of UK government targets, and therefore the threat of further interest rate increases continues to linger.
"While we have seen a recovery in some sectors of the UK real estate market during the first half of 2023, there has been a significant divergence in returns between the sectors."
He added the trust's manager's market outlook expects this to widen and continue for at least the next 12 months, with the office sector in particular faring the worst.