Equites CEO Andrea Taverna-Turisan
South African property investment fund manager Equites Property Fund has announced that it will, from this month, pursue a listing in the Industrial and Office real estate investment trust sector of the JSE.
It planned to pursue a private placement of shares to raise between R400-million and R650-million, amplified by vendor participation of over 50%.
The internally managed Western Cape-based fund, which was focused on industrial assets at the top-end of the industrial property sector, boasted a R1.2-billion portfolio of 17 industrial and office properties comprising 124 253 m² of rental space.
Equites CEO Andrea Taverna-Turisan said in a statement on Monday that the fund’s properties were situated in prime locations, with occupancy levels in excess of 97%.
At least 77% of the portfolio had leases with terms of over three years, while the portfolio boasted “healthy” escalations averaging 8.1%.
Major tenants included Simba, Foschini, ExecuJet, Digistics, Imperial, Puma, UTI, Avery Dennison, Courier-IT, Kuehne & Nagel, NGK Ceramics, Dole USA and Barloworld.
“Given the development expertise and proven track record of the executive team, Equites will undertake greenfield development of land and brownfield development by upgrading existing buildings.
“The fund has an attractive pipeline of significant A-grade industrial developments and plans to also expand into prime logistics zones in Gauteng and the greater Durban area, in KwaZulu-Natal, over the medium term,” said Taverna-Turisan.
Equites aimed to grow its portfolio to R4-billion within five years.