Prae­to­ri­an Prop­er­ty Mu­tu­al Fund, a re­al es­tate in­vest­ment trust in­cor­po­rat­ed in T&T, suf­fered a net loss of $1.09 mil­lion for the six months end­ed March 31, ac­cord­ing to fi­nan­cial state­ments pub­lished yes­ter­day.In the trustee's re­port on the re­cent per­for­mance of the fund, Theron Quashie of RBC Trust (T&T) Lim­it­ed said for­eign ex­change loss­es of just un­der $1 mil­lion and low­er rental in­come were the main con­tribut­ing fac­tors.

"In com­par­i­son to 2013, rental in­come de­clined by $0.53 mil­lion as the Fund liq­ui­dat­ed prop­er­ties in Trinidad and the con­tin­ued eco­nom­ic slack in Bar­ba­dos and the East­ern Caribbean kept rent on a down­ward trend in this coun­try," he said."No fur­ther prop­er­ties were dis­posed of in the six month pe­ri­od end­ing March 31, 2014, as the prop­er­ties re­main­ing in the Fund are large­ly those held in coun­tries suf­fer­ing the most se­vere down­town."

Quashie said the Fund's per­sis­tent chal­lenge was in re­gion­al mar­kets where sev­er­al con­sec­u­tive years of low to neg­a­tive growth cre­at­ed sig­nif­i­cant ex­cess com­mer­cial and va­ca­tion rental sup­ply.

"Over the re­main­der of the year, the fund man­ag­er will fo­cus on the con­tin­ued dis­pos­al of the Fund's prop­er­ties. In Bar­ba­dos and the Cay­man Is­lands there will be a con­cen­trat­ed ef­fort to im­prove oc­cu­pan­cy lev­els as a means to in­crease the ap­peal of these prop­er­ties, while in Trinidad the fo­cus will be on ne­go­ti­at­ing best pric­ing on the Fund's be­half as the mar­ket re­bounds," he said.He said the fund man­agers will con­tin­ue to in­vest in the up­grade and main­te­nance of all prop­er­ties to en­sure val­ues are sus­tained.

Quashie added: "As we move to­wards the windup of the Fund in the near fu­ture, we note that the Fund's con­sti­tu­tion does not al­low for a par­tial wind-up. "Hence we will in­vest the pro­ceeds from pri­or prop­er­ty sales very con­ser­v­a­tive­ly un­til such time as all prop­er­ties are dis­posed."Prae­to­ri­an Prop­er­ty Mu­tu­al Fund's stocks are trad­ed on the Mu­tu­al Fund Mar­ket of the T&T Stock Ex­change.