News
Posted on 2022-07-01
The JSE All Property Index closed at 7 315 last night.
Since December 2019, property owners in South Africa’s office sector
have lost an additional R1bn in annual rental across 54 nodes, according
to SAPOA’s latest Office Vacancy Survey, with high vacancy rates applying downward pressure on asking rentals.
Rebosis Property Fund
has called off the disposal of a portion of its office portfolio due to
the conditions precedent not being met on time. In late 2021, the REIT
announced that it had entered into negotiations with Ulricraft
Proprietary Limited for the disposal of the majority of its office
portfolio for an aggregate cash consideration of R6.32bn. In March this
year, the amount was revised to R3.4bn for a reduced portion of the
portfolio at a blended yield of 9.4%.
In its pre-close update, Hyprop
informed investors that it has made progress in repositioning its local
retail portfolio. The REIT reported an increase of 16% in its tenant
turnover over the past five months when compared to 2021 with foot count
across its portfolio 8.6% higher. Its retail vacancies decreased to
1.4% by end-May 2022, the lowest level since the start of the pandemic.
It also reported a “remarkable improvement” in its entertainment tenants’ trading performance. Hyprop’s share price has increased by 32% over the past year.
In an analysis of the impact of the lockdown and the resurgence of the
conventional workplace, data from Lightstone has revealed that business parks and secondary CBDs
are leading the post-Covid-19 recovery in terms of activity, followed
by industrial nodes, then primary CBDs and lastly, mixed residential.
Using CIPC and VAT registration data to identify business nodes, the
analysis included 40 metro suburbs as SA’s key business nodes.
Accelerate Property Fund
published its financial results for the year ended March 2022 reporting
an increase in its distributable income to R210.5m (FY21: R24.7m loss)
and declaring a final distribution for the year of 21.98cps, equating to
a 100% payout ratio. To date, the company has disposed of a total of
R3.2bn of its assets, with the most recently completed disposal of its
European portfolio which reduced its debt from R6bn to R4.6bn, lowered
its LTV by around 6% from 48.5% to 42.8% and created cash reserves and
undrawn debt facilities of R223m. The REIT’s share price has risen by
92% over the past year.
