Nick Wilson

Property Correspondent

GRAPNEL Property Group, the fund managers of blue-chip listed property unit trust Sycom, says it hopes to list its hotel-invested Hospitality Property Fund on the JSE in early December.

Grapnel MD Gerald Nelson said the new property fund, which has property assets worth R1,25bn, would have a market capitalisation of R620m-R875m. He said Grapnel planned to continue growing the fund once it was listed.

Hospitality Property Fund would be managed jointly by Grapnel and hospitality industry consultants Horwath Consulting, Nelson said.

The fund would consist of three- to five-star hotels and leisure properties. Nelson said Grapnel would be starting road shows on Monday next week to introduce the new fund to the investment community and analysts.

He said the response from the market to the new property fund had been “very positive”.

Hospitality will be the first specialised hotel listing on the JSE’s real estate index. In June, when Nelson confirmed his group was putting together a hotel listing, he said Grapnel had done much international research, mainly in the US, Canada and Australia. He said at the time these types of specialised property funds had been successful in those countries.

Nelson said the South African hotel sector was one that had disparate ownership, and consolidation had been largely untapped. If Hospitality lists in early December it will be the fourth property fund to list on the JSE in four months.

In early August, specialist retail property fund Siyathenga, which was put together by listed property loan stock company Pangbourne, was launched on the JSE.

Rural retail property fund Diversified Property Fund, the brainchild of listed property loan stock company Resilient, was listed on the JSE on October 6.

Meanwhile, Cape-based property company CBS Property Group, which has also recently acquired a portfolio of properties in Gauteng, plans to list on the JSE next month.

CBS said when it listed it would have properties worth nearly R1bn.