Im a long term holder and a believer. But you asked how can one...

Im a long term holder and a believer. But you asked how can one lose, and I shall tell you.

Firstly, NTA is unfortunately a useless indicator. The word 'assets' is entirely arbitrary - as for an asset to have a value, it requires a buyer - the more buyers, the likely the higher the asset value, and conversely, the more sellers, generally the lower the asset value.
Meaning, if there is only one house in your neighbourhood up for sale, its asset value will likely be higher than if there were 50 equal houses for sale on your very street... and therefore asset value has much more to do with buyers, sellers and the river that lets them transact - the money dealers (banks).

GPT deals in assets that have such high prices that banks will be a major partner to any transaction. Noone has the sort of cash in their piggy bank to deal in GPT asset price range.
Meaning, the asset value is also going to be affected by the number of banks competing to be a partner to any transaction, as well as the amount money they are willing to contribute to the transaction.
If there is only one bank willing to be a party, the amount of money and its price will be much less favorable than if there were 20 banks competing to be party to the transaction.

So, that asset price, as it turns out, has much more to do with a) the number of properties available on the market and b) the number of people willing to be involved in any transactions involving those assets.

Which of those factors can GPT control? Answer: None!

Therefore, in my (current) understanding, NTA is essentially a useless indicator. We will all lose if the market becomes saturated with many properties, along with fewer banks as willing partners to the transactions - and the company won't be bale to do anything about it.

I have just returned from LA - and what I saw there frightened me - whole prime strips 80% vacant, streets more for sale than not.. and apparently an inventory pipeline of two years or greater - meaning that from the time the for sale sign goes up, at least two years on avg. elapses before the transaction is competed.

Now to the good news. Much more interesting to me is the operational earnings - GPT has $400m of those after paying all its debts. This is the value prize, and it is secured by healthy fundamentals - 5 years + avg. tenancy, 99% occupancy rates and, best of all, is increasing in yield by 5-6% per year.

That's the win. Its also how I value GPT - to make $400m I would need $10bn in the bank on term deposit - GPT is doing this with an NTA of 5.5bn odd. So there is a 50% discount to the bank benchmark - with nice growth upside.

The big big loss to us all would be if some of those major tenants breach their contracts and just walk away from the lease. Starbucks just did that to its landlord in the US...