Hermans & Roman Properties Limited (“HRP”) has announced its intention to list its linked units on the securities exchange operated by the JSE Limited (“JSE”) during the second quarter of 2012.

This follows the intended re-branding of Herman's & Romans Property Solutions (HRPS) to Supreme Commercial Property Fund in May 2010 and whereby such fund would remain an unlisted subject to various growth and development strategies being fulfilled for listing. HRPS currently manages assets that the directors estimate to be worth approximately R8.5 billion on behalf of 24 blue chip clients.

The composite HRP fund is therefore now an internally-managed real estate company focused on investing in and managing retail and office properties in South Africa and selected other sub-Saharan African countries. On listing, the Company will own a portfolio of five large, high-quality, well-established retail and office properties (the “Portfolio”), as well as the property management business of Hermans & Roman Property Solutions (Proprietary) Limited (“HRPS”), one of the larger independent specialist real estate managers in South Africa.

As at end Jan 2012, the Portfolio had 476 tenants and a vacancy rate of 3.2% (excluding head leases) with an aggregate GLA of 251,277m², of which 54.6% comprises retail space, 39.8% office space and 5.6% industrial spaceand. It will be managed by HRP’s highly-experienced team of real estate professionals who collectively have more than 140 years of experience in the retail and office property sectors. Four of the five properties in the Portfolio are located in South Africa (Johannesburg, Mossel Bay, c and Durban), and the fifth property is located in Lusaka, Zambia.

The largest properties in the Portfolio are Bedford Centre and Bedford Square, a state-of-the-art shopping centre located in Johannesburg, and Manda Hill, located in Lusaka, which is one of the largest in sub-Saharan Africa (excluding South Africa) and which recently underwent a redevelopment/ refurbishment and expansion programme. The other properties comprise Langeberg Mall, a regionally -prominent shopping centre in Mossel Bay, H&R Technology Park, one of the largest mixed-use properties in the South Peninsula in Cape Town, and Liberty Towers, one of the larger
office properties in Durban’s CBD. The Portfolio has been independently valued, as at 1 April 2012, at an aggregate market value of R3.6 billion.

Leslie Hermans added: “One of the strengths of HRP is our exposure to the high growth economies of South Africa and sub-Saharan Africa as well as the growing retail market and higher-yielding office market. Our long-term vision is to build a focused real estate company comprising a limited number of large, primarily retail properties in growth markets in South Africa and selected other sub-Saharan African countries.”

The listing is intended to be implemented, together with a capital raising by the Company, through a private placement to qualifying investors only and there will not be an offer to the general public. The net proceeds of the offer will be used to, inter alia, fund a portion of the purchase consideration for the Portfolio, with the remainder of the purchase price being financed through debt facilities. A pre-listing statement providing full details of the offering will be published in due course.