And to help achieve this, he said, he would be trying to
attract additional institutional investors to the company.
This week Flax revealed that Cape Town-based Spearhead had just completed a
highly successful vendor share placement in which nearly R100 million worth
of Spearhead stock was subscribed for - although only just under R40 million
was available for placement.
"We were almost 300% oversubscribed," he said. "This indicates clearly that
interest in, and demand for, Spearhead's scrip from both institutional and
private investors is picking up. It seems that, at last, Spearhead's
uninterrupted growth in both profit and distributions over seven consecutive
half year periods has begun to be noticed - as, indeed, we feel it deserves
to be."
Amongst new institutional investors to subscribe to Spearhead stock are:
* Investec Property Equity Unit Trust
* Standard Bank Property Equity Trust
* Redefine Income Fund
* M Cubed Property Unit Trust (managed by Catalyst), and
* certain HSBC and Investec Private Client portfolios.
Spearhead, said Flax, had always wanted institutional shareholders of this
calibre because they tend to be long term investors and, equally important,
because they can be expected to support Spearhead's growth plans by taking
scrip in future share issues.
Spearhead shares were this week trading at around R10.15. A further
improvement, said Flax, is likely because the profit for the year ending
June 2003 will almost certainly be ahead of most analysts' forecasts.
Thereafter, he said, further strong growth in income is on the cards because
Spearhead, which recently added a further R170 million worth of property to
its portfolio, is also involved in several major developments which will
impact favourably on the bottom line in 2004/2005.
The company, said Flax, is now the largest landlord in Cape commercial
property after those in the life insurance and banking sectors.