Listed retail property loan stock Hyprop Investments (HYP) now holds a 44.4% stake in rival property fund SA Retail Properties (SRL), following the acceptance by 37.8% of SA Retail unit-holders of Hyprop's offer, which closed on September 9.

Announcing the results of the offer, Hyprop said the acceptance by SA Retail unitholders included the prior acceptance by Redefine Income Fund, which held 25% of SA Retail units. Hyprop already held a 6.6% stake in SA Retail, which it purchased on the open market.

Approximately 31.5% of SA Retail unitholders had elected to swap their SA Retail units for combined units in Hyprop, with 6.4% choosing the cash offer of 8.00 rand per unit equating to a cash payout of 114.7 million rand.

Hyprop managing director Pieter Prinsloo said: "The acceptance of the offer reflects the confidence of investors in Hyprop's track record of sustainable growth and their wish to participate in the continuing upside of our successful asset management."

Breaking down the results of the offer, Prinsloo explained that only a small percentage of individual unitholders in SA Retail did not accept Hyprop's offer.

"We had anticipated that Whirlprops, Old Mutual and Marriot were unlikely to accept the offer. According to Marriot, these companies together account for 52% of SA Retail's unitholding," he noted.

"Added to the 44.4% stake we now own in SA Retail, this amounts to 96.4%, leaving only 3.6% of independent investors who elected to retain their units in SA Retail."

He believed that strategically, the acceptance gave Hyprop a strong platform from which to drive future earnings growth and to unlock asset value in SA Retail.

"With the offer having closed on Friday we are now considering a number of options available to us as a result of our significant stake in SA Retail," he added.

Prinsloo pointed out that 26.3 million Hyprop combined units were issued to facilitate the acceptance of Hyprop's offer by SA Retail unitholders, boosting Hyprop's market capitalisation by 680 million rand to more than 3.7 billion rand at the current trading price of around 26 rand. This made Hyprop the third-largest listed property loan stock after Growthpoint and Grayprop.